How Bad Are the Texas Rangers This Season?

What the heck is series percentage?

Pay attention to what you are reading because in 30 years every baseball pundit will be using the term “Series percentage” and they will have yours truly to thank for coining and popularizing the term.

Okay, probably not. Series percentage is just some useless stat I came up with when looking for points to strengthen my case. I needed a way to convey how bad the season has been without the traditional win-loss record. All you need to figure it out is measure how many series a team wins, loses, and ties.

This year, the Texas Rangers have a dreadfully low series record of (5-10-2) for a series percentage of .313. That ties them for 13th in the AL with Baltimore. The only teams behind them are the equally sluggish Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals.

It took until the final week of April for the Rangers to win their first series over the Toronto Blue Jays. It took another week before Texas grabbed their next series win but they eventually got a better hang of it.

To find the last time the Rangers had this low of a series percentage at this point of the season, you have to travel all the way back to 2015. In 2015, the Texas Rangers did not win a series until May.

The 2015 season, however, seems light years away from this one. Texas was able to break away from their bad record and make a heroic climb to the playoffs. That is quite the far cry in 2018.

So, how does this contribute to the Rangers futility? Well, it is obviously important to win every series you can. It is no secret that a higher series percentage equals a higher winning percentage which means playoffs.

The teams that  two out of three games, or a traditional three-game series, march their way to postseason glory. Meanwhile the teams that lose two of the three, like our Texas Rangers, are buried in hopelessness and revenue losses.