September 24, 2016

Rangers Win the West

The Texas Rangers defeated the Oakland Athletics 3-0 Friday night behind seven shutout innings by Cole Hamels and a Carlos Beltran RBI followed by an Adrian Beltre home run. With the Astros losing during the game, the Rangers put a cherry on top of the their AL West championship, their fourth in seven years.

Jon Daniels took over as general manager of the Rangers after the 2005 season. He took three years to rebuild, and since the start of the 2009 season, the Rangers are 703-586, a .545 WPCT. That’s second in the AL to the Yankees, and fourth in the majors behind the Cardinals and the Dodgers. That’s pretty good company, given the others are three of the most storied franchises in baseball history. The main difference between the Rangers and Yankees is the Rangers had one losing season in that time.

The Rangers are also on track to take the best record in the league, which would give them home field advantage through the playoffs. Given that they got nothing from Prince Fielder and only a partial season from Yu Darvish, that’s pretty good.

It should be mentioned that there appears to be a great deal of luck involved in the Rangers season. Their Pythagorean projection comes in at 78-76 instead of 91-63. They are 36-11 in one-run games, but far the best record in the league. Looking at some stats, it appears the Rangers hit somewhat better than their opponents in close and late situations. Rangers batters hit .273/.344/.454, while opponents hit .244/.326/.381. The Rangers hit better in this situation than their overall numbers, while their opponents hit worse. So in close game, this might tip the scale to one-run victories. I suspect it’s mostly luck, but putting the right players in the game at the right time makes that luck more likely to fall in your direction. I’ll give Daniels analytics staff and the use of the numbers by Jeff Banister some credit here as well.

Congratulations to the Rangers on their division championship!

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