One More Incredible Rangers Statistic

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.

Baseball-Reference draws a handy line. Let’s say you wanted to split teams into two groups, by success. How would you do it? The easiest thing would probably be dividing at the .500 mark. Baseball-Reference does that, and while I definitely understand this is far from perfect, it’s neat and it’s useful and it makes enough sense. Teams over .500 are pretty good. Teams under .500 are mediocre. This year, when playing teams .500 or better, opponents have won just 45% of the time. When playing teams under .500, opponents have won 56% of the time. I can’t imagine I need to explain this.

If you’ve followed the Rangers, you know they’ve dominated the Astros in head-to-head competition. It’s gone a long ways toward shaping the AL West race. It’s possible to go one step further, though. When playing teams who are at least .500, the Rangers have gone 60-31, which is very easily the best record in baseball. The Dodgers are a distant 31-23. The Rangers are just running away with that category.

And yet, almost inexplicably, when playing teams who are below .500, the Rangers have gone 34-34. That’s tied for baseball’s 23rd-best record, even with the Rays, and sandwiched between the Brewers and the Braves. Against quality opponents, the Rangers have played like a total juggernaut. Against weaker opponents, they’ve been indistinguishable from those organizations that are rebuilding.

Not only is this backward. This is extremely backward, and you can see that in the following plot. This looks at every team going all the way back to 1913, which was made easily possible by the Baseball-Reference Play Index. The Rangers are clearly highlighted.

Of course there’s noise, or randomness, and of course circumstances can be different when a team plays a certain other one. Maybe the Rangers have gotten really lucky in terms of missing the better teams’ better starters. But we haven’t seen something quite like this in a century. In a little more than a century, for that matter.

Almost 2,300 team-seasons in the sample. For each of them, I calculated winning percentage against teams who’re at least .500, and winning percentage against teams below .500. I then found the difference between those two winning percentages. This year’s Rangers have the biggest positive difference, and from what I can tell, it would be almost impossible for them to fall out of first place here over the season’s final games. It wouldn’t matter if they swept the Rays. They’d still be No. 1 in one of the most unusual splits you could come up with.

So add this to the list. Clutch hitting. One-run-game winning. Run-differential defeating. And, better against good teams than bad ones. It doesn’t have to make sense for it to be, and there’s no undoing what the Rangers have accomplished. All told, they’ve had one of the weirdest damn seasons in at least recent memory. It still stands to be mostly defined by what happens in the weeks ahead, but Rangers fans could tell you this year has never been dull.

I’m sure you’re wondering if this means anything. Like, in terms of looking ahead. It seems like it would reflect well on the team if it “plays up” against stronger opponents. The counter-argument would be that it reflects poorly on the team if it plays down to weaker opponents. But as it happens, conveniently, I took a little look at this line of thought a year ago, when the Mets did the opposite of what the Rangers have done. The Mets beat up on softies and were relatively weak against quality clubs. I couldn’t find any signal in my quick investigation, and of course the Mets made it to the World Series. I don’t think this is much of an indicator in any direction. There are too many variables, and too many points in conflict.

But, hell, what’s true for a group doesn’t have to be true for an individual. Maybe the Rangers somehow do play better against better teams. There’s no real harm in believing it, from the perspective of a fan or a player. I don’t know the ins and outs of that dynamic. And no matter what, this whole year has just been extraordinary. For a variety of reasons, the 2016 Texas Rangers haven’t made great sense. I’m going to guess that’s made them all the more enjoyable to cheer for.