As you’re no doubt aware, it’s been a hell of a season in Texas. The Rangers own the best record in the American League, with the eighth-best run differential. They’ve destroyed their Pythagorean record, which has caused them to destroy their BaseRuns record. Much of this has been fueled by historic success in one-run games, and much of that has been fueled by historically clutch hitting. Teams are successful every year, but the Rangers have followed an unusual course. It’s been simultaneously thrilling and bizarre, something difficult for analysts to explain. At this point, there might not be any sense in trying.

There’s one more nugget I want to throw on top of the others. For the reasons detailed above, this Rangers season has been truly exceptional. It’s hard to imagine a team drawing it up like this. Yet there’s another split you might have trouble believing. I know I did! Which is why I’m writing this in the first place. I don’t really know what it means, but I can’t not bring it to your attention.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Rangers’ success in one-run games. They actually lost by one run yesterday, but if you’ve been paying attention, that was the first time that’s happened all season, probably, and one game doesn’t upset the whole pattern. The regular season is just about done, and the Rangers have put together an incredible stat. That’s — well, it’s incredible. I don’t need to provide any other words.

It’s tricky to write about these things, and I wasn’t looking to cover this in the familiar way. We’ve all read a number of articles about what the Rangers have done. We’ve all read articles before about similar teams doing similar things. It’s boring to say “luck,” and it’s tired to say “luck,” and with the playoffs around the corner pointing toward luck is additionally irrelevant. The Rangers have done what they’ve done, and their fans have been able to enjoy it. There’s no taking any of that enjoyment back for math-y purposes.

I’ve just been amazed by how the Rangers have stood out. They’ve won 77% of their one-run games. The Yankees are in second at 69%. Then you have the Tigers at 62%. Thinking about the Rangers got me wondering: Is this the most extraordinary team statistic of the year? I’ll tell you right now: It’s not! Follow along below.

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I don’t know how else to begin, so let’s begin like this: Over 126 games spent with the Astros, Carlos Gomez was worth 0.6 WAR. Over 25 games spent with the Rangers, Carlos Gomez has been worth 0.7 WAR. Now you know the story — there are characters, there’s a plot. When the Astros acquired Gomez in the first place, they figured he could be a real difference-maker. He’s making a difference now, just for a division rival instead.

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The Rangers as a team have posted an OPS of .753. The Rangers as a team have allowed an OPS of .752. That gives them a positive difference of .001. They stand today at 80-54, atop the American League.

The Rays as a team have posted an OPS of .737. The Rays as a team have allowed an OPS of .732. That gives them a positive difference of .005 — four points better than the Rangers, in fact. They stand today at 56-76, 23 games behind Texas, wallowing around the league’s basement.

There’s no opinion being expressed here. This isn’t supposed to be good, and this isn’t supposed to be bad. This is just what is. The events that go into OPS have happened. Wins and losses have happened. This is essentially making the point that BaseRuns does — BaseRuns strips away timing and context, and if you do that, the Rangers lose 12 games, and the Rays gain 11. The thing about stripping away timing and context, though, is that you can’t do that. Not when you want to talk about the present standings. And the Rangers have gotten to where they are by playing like one of the most clutch teams in the past 40+ years.

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The other day, I was reading a profile of Rougned Odor, the person. As shouldn’t come as any surprise, the public doesn’t have a real nuanced understanding of the guy — he’s just the little dude who clobbered Jose Bautista, and that makes him either likable or detestable. Like everyone else, the real Odor is a human being, something far more complicated than the single most well-known thing he did, and the consensus from those who know him is that Odor plays with an admirable edge. Maybe it makes him like a baseball version of an agitator, but those who’ve spent time with Odor tend to wish there were more players like him.

As a player, then, perhaps Odor is uncommon. And as a player type, he’s at least just as unusual. Speaking in a general sense, Odor appears to have an atypical engine. And he’s also weird when you get into the details. This is a baseball stats website. I’m here to deliver you some baseball stats.

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We are currently in the 20th year of regular-season interleague play. I’m not sure exactly how many repetitions it takes for an event to transition from exciting novelty to mundane part of the schedule, but somewhere along the way interleague play has done just that. We now accept that this is a world where things as bizarre as Marlins/Mariners series will occur from time to time because it’s become a part of the routine. However, on occasion something happens to remind us why interleague play has any value. It doesn’t happen often, but it did happen last night, when interleague play set the stage for Yu Darvish to step to the plate and hit the first home run of his professional career.

It wasn’t the first home run hit by an American League pitcher this season — that honor belongs to Anthony Ranaudo — but, with all due respect to Ranaudo, it was the first by a pitcher of Darvish’s caliber in a long time. Since the debut of interleague play in 1997, there have been 21 American League pitcher home runs, from Bobby Witt’s on 6/30/97 to Darvish’s last night. As you would expect, the number of top-tier pitchers on that list after Darvish is small: Mark Buehrle, Zack Greinke, Josh Beckett (twice), and CC Sabathia (twice). You can include post-peak Doc Gooden if you’re so inclined, and then, of course, there’s Felix Hernandez, who hit that beautiful grand slam off Johan Santana at Shea Stadium back in 2008.

It’s such a rare feat that there are still four American League teams – Oakland, Los Angeles, New York, and Minnesota — which have yet to record their first pitcher home run in the DH era. Given that rarity and the particular absurdity of how it all played out last night, it’s worth taking a look at Darvish’s night at the plate.

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Here’s the good news: the Texas Rangers have the best record in the American League and a seven-game division lead. Here’s the less-good news: our playoff projections give them roughly one-in-10 odds of relinquishing their division lead before the end of the season due, in part, to the worst rest-of-season winning percentage projection of any current first-place team. One of the primary reasons projection systems are down on the Rangers relative to other first-place teams is that they’ve struggled with run prevention this season and a key cause of that struggle has been their difficulty filling out a five-man rotation with healthy, reliable starting pitching. However, the top of their rotation features a stealth Cy Young candidate in a weak field, Cole Hamels, and an ace who is increasingly looking like another Tommy John success story: Yu Darvish.

Since rejoining the rotation for good after the All-Star break, Darvish has been among the best pitchers in the American League on the strength of a 2.70 ERA, 3.32 RA9 and a major-league-leading 28.0-point strikeout- and walk-rate differential (K-BB%). But one of the most encouraging things to see with Darvish is that he’s been able to go deep into games. It wasn’t until his most recent two starts that he crossed the 95-pitch threshold this year, and yet he’s currently riding an active six-game streak of going six innings or more in his starts. Things have been going extraordinarily well of late for Darvish and it’s worth taking a look at what has and hasn’t changed for Darvish and whether or not he’s truly “back.”

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On Tuesday, we learned that Prince Fielder’s career has come to an end following his second major neck surgery in just the last three years. Jeff Sullivan provided a fitting eulogy for Fielder’s career a couple days ago. While the news is certainly devastating for Fielder on a personal level, this post concerns another matter — namely, the potential financial implications of Fielder’s injury, both for the Texas Rangers and Fielder himself. At the heart of the matter: the nine-year, $214 million contract Fielder signed in 2012, a deal that guarantees him another $24 million annually from 2017 through 2020.

For starters, it’s important to note that Fielder is not officially retiring from baseball, but rather has been declared medically disabled and therefore is no longer considered to be physically able to play the game. This is an important distinction legally, because had Fielder voluntarily decided to retire, then he would have forfeited the roughly $104 million remaining on his contract. Instead, by being declared medically unable to play, Fielder remains entitled to the full amount he’s owed under his contract.

Because Texas reportedly has an insurance policy covering his contract in the event of injury, the Rangers will not be on the hook for the entirety of the team’s remaining financial obligation to Fielder. Instead, the club will apparently only be responsible for paying Fielder $9 million per year from 2017 to 2020, with the rest of his salary covered by the team’s insurer (who will reportedly contribute another $9 million per year) and the Detroit Tigers (who are on the hook for the final $6 million per season, based on the terms of the trade that brought Fielder to Texas in exchange for Ian Kinsler in 2013).

That having been said, although the precise terms of the Rangers’ insurance policy are not publicly available, it appears likely that this $9 million in cost savings will not come without some strings attached for the club. Moreover, it’s also possible that the team’s insurance company could still yet find a way to avoid paying some or all of its share of Fielder’s contract.

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After last season, Prince Fielder was named the American League Comeback Player of the Year. Neck problems and surgery ruined Fielder’s 2014, but he came back to run a 124 wRC+ over 158 games played. Fielder was plenty deserving of the award, and it looked like the 31-year-old had his career back on track. But this season, Fielder developed symptoms similar to the ones he had before. He was diagnosed with about the same problem, requiring a second surgery, and now Fielder’s playing days are done. Though he’s not actually retiring, he’s also not receiving clearance to return, which means functionally the same thing. The difference is important to the Rangers, but it doesn’t matter to the fans.

Situations such as these are always difficult to discuss from the outside. We know Fielder as a baseball player, and we know baseball players by their numbers. Fielder, right now, doesn’t care about his numbers; he cares about his own ability to move. He cares about what reduced flexibility could mean for his quality of life. It’s important to understand that being declared medically disabled means there’s something wrong with an actual person. As of today, Prince Fielder is one of us, and he’s hurting. Three months ago, he turned 32.

So, there’s no way for us to know what Fielder is truly going through. There’s no real way for us to connect beyond the shallowest of terms. I think the best we can do is to wish Fielder well, and to say that in his chosen line of work, he was outstanding for several years, a hitter sufficiently complete to overcome some obvious drawbacks.

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Try to imagine the ideal sinker. What do you see? Probably a pitch that sits in the high 90s, right? And features tremendous sink and fade. And induces ground ball after ground ball. And, because it’s being thrown with max effort, probably one coming out of a reliever’s hand, right?

If you’re imagining a pitch that meets all four of those criteria, you probably see Blake Treinen throwing it. Or Sam Dyson. Or Zach Britton. If not, you should be.

If you limit the pool of commonly used sinkers to those which average 94 or more mph and then sort for sink, those three names soar to the top. And each gets to that movement in a different way.

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