Thursday: The Rangers' Record

Perhaps the most telling statistic about the stretch of baseball the Rangers are about to play against the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Dodgers, which are all teams with above-.500 records, is:

Team Record Against sub-.500 teams: 25-10
Team Record Against .500+ teams: 5-11

As Evan Grant pointed out after a series loss to the Yankees in May, the Rangers don't play like contenders against other contenders. This is a bit worrisome, given the stretch of baseball that lies ahead.

On another note, the Rangers seem to be due for a slight regression record-wise. The Rangers have a Pythagorean Record of 28-23. Pythagorean Record is a concept developed by Bill James; A team's Pythagorean Record is the record that a team should have, based on the amount of runs they have scored and allowed; any deviance from this record is generally thought of as luck, which is prone to even out over the course of a season. If you want to know more, I actually gave a talk to the Applied Mathematics Seminar at OU on the Pythagorean Records, you can read my notes here.

For example, last year on August 4, the Rangers had a record of 59-54. Their Pythagorean Record, however, was 54-59. Their "luck" did indeed catch up to them, as they finished the season at 79-83.

So, as I said above, the Rangers are due for a slight regression: only 2 games. However, so are the Angels and Mariners. It's all relative.