Extreme teams: Rangers and Rays
Both clubs are strong now, yet they’re no strangers to heartache
The Texas Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays are two of the best teams in Major League Baseball, both considered to be solid contenders for 2023’s world championship.
Yet the two franchises are no strangers to disappointment. Neither has ever won a World Series. That’s a 62-year dry spell for the Rangers, who date back to 1961 (when they were born as the Washington Senators), and a 25-year shutout for the Rays, who were founded in 1998 (when they were known as the Devil Rays).
The Rangers and Rays are the subjects of this 11th installment in my 15-part series about the extreme seasons — the best and worst performances — posted by all 30 MLB franchises during the Modern Era, the span from 1961 to the present. Each Friday brings a story about a new pair of clubs, which appear in alphabetical order.
These rankings are based on team scores (TS), which are plotted on an equalized 100-point scale, thereby allowing direct comparisons of clubs from different seasons. (Click here to learn more about the TS formula.)
Here are the years at both extremes for today’s franchises:
Best year for the Rangers: Texas posted 96 wins in 2011, the highest total in the club’s history. The Rangers ousted the Rays and Detroit Tigers to reach that year’s World Series, where they seized a 3-2 lead over St. Louis. The title seemed to be in the bag, but the Cardinals completed an epic comeback by winning the final two games. Third baseman Adrian Beltre and second baseman Ian Kinsler tied for the Texas lead with 32 home runs. Designated hitter Michael Young batted .338 with 106 runs batted in. C.J. Wilson and Derek Holland paced the pitching staff with 16 wins each.
Worst year for the Rangers: The franchise’s very first year in the Dallas-Fort Worth area proved to be its worst. The Rangers went 54-100 in 1972, finishing 38.5 games behind first-place Oakland in the American League West. Right fielder Ted Ford, with 14, was the only batter to reach double digits in home runs. Pitcher Rich Hand led the club with 10 wins.
Best year for the Rays: The Covid-truncated 2020 schedule worked out well for Tampa Bay, which won two-thirds of its regular-season games and advanced all the way to the World Series. The unfortunate upshot was a six-game loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Second baseman Brandon Lowe led the Rays in homers (14) and RBIs (37). Third baseman Yandy Diaz batted .307. Starting pitchers Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell respectively went 5-1 and 4-2.
Worst year for the Rays: The Tampa Bay franchise was known as the Devil Rays during its first decade (1998-2007), and the club coincidentally suffered more than 90 defeats in each of those seasons. It touched bottom (according to the TS formula) in 2006, when the Devil Rays struggled to a 61-101 record. Left fielder Carl Crawford topped that team with a .305 batting average, while pitcher Scott Kazmir went 10-8 with a 3.24 ERA.
Scroll down to see the top 10 and bottom 10 seasons between 1961 and 2022 for Washington/Texas or between 1998 and 2022 for Tampa Bay. Similar rankings for all other MLB clubs can be found in the print edition of Baseball’s Best (and Worst) 2023 Yearbook.
Each team is listed below with the year in brackets, followed by its regular-season win-loss record, postseason results (if any) in parentheses, margin between runs scored and allowed per game, and Modern Era percentile.
These are the postseason abbreviations: P indicates that a club made the playoffs, L means that it won a league championship, and W signifies that it won the World Series.
The Modern Era percentile is the share of all 1,656 major-league clubs from 1961 through 2022 that a given team outperformed, based on TS comparisons.
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Top 10 for Rangers (1961-2022)
1. Rangers [2011], 96-66 (LP), plus-1.10 margin, 96.4% in era
2. Rangers [2010], 90-72 (LP), plus-0.62 margin, 89.2% in era
3. Rangers [1999], 95-67 (P), plus-0.53 margin, 83.0% in era
4. Rangers [2012], 93-69 (P), plus-0.62 margin, 82.5% in era
5. Rangers [1977], 94-68, plus-0.68 margin, 79.7% in era
6. Rangers [1996], 90-72 (P), plus-0.79 margin, 79.0% in era
7. Rangers [2013], 91-72, plus-0.58 margin, 73.9% in era
8. Rangers [1981], 57-48, plus-0.60 margin, 73.1% in era
9. Rangers [1993], 86-76, plus-0.52 margin, 71.9% in era
10. Rangers [1978], 87-75, plus-0.37 margin, 70.5% in era
Bottom 10 for Rangers (1961-2022)
1. Rangers [1972], 54-100, minus-1.08 margin, 1.1% in era
2. Rangers [1973], 57-105, minus-1.39 margin, 1.2% in era
3. Senators [1963], 56-106, minus-1.44 margin, 1.8% in era
4. Rangers [2014], 67-95, minus-0.84 margin, 4.2% in era
5. Senators [1962], 60-101, minus-0.72 margin, 5.1% in era
6. Rangers [2020], 22-38, minus-1.47 margin, 5.4% in era
7. Rangers [1982], 64-98, minus-0.98 margin, 5.4% in era
8. Senators [1968], 65-96, minus-0.88 margin, 5.5% in era
9. Rangers [2021], 60-102, minus-1.17 margin, 6.2% in era
10. Rangers [1985], 62-99, minus-1.04 margin, 7.3% in era
Top 10 for Rays (1998-2022)
1. Rays [2020], 40-20 (LP), plus-1.00 margin, 96.3% in era
2. Rays [2008], 97-65 (LP), plus-0.64 margin, 93.5% in era
3. Rays [2021], 100-62 (P), plus-1.27 margin, 89.7% in era
4. Rays [2010], 96-66 (P), plus-0.94 margin, 87.1% in era
5. Rays [2012], 90-72, plus-0.74 margin, 83.4% in era
6. Rays [2019], 96-66 (P), plus-0.70 margin, 78.4% in era
7. Rays [2011], 91-71 (P), plus-0.57 margin, 76.0% in era
8. Rays [2013], 92-71 (P), plus-0.33 margin, 72.1% in era
9. Rays [2018], 90-72, plus-0.43 margin, 71.8% in era
10. Rays [2009], 84-78, plus-0.30 margin, 68.4% in era
Bottom 10 for Rays (1998-2022)
1. Devil Rays [2006], 61-101, minus-1.03 margin, 3.9% in era
2. Devil Rays [2002], 55-106, minus-1.52 margin, 4.4% in era
3. Devil Rays [2001], 62-100, minus-1.33 margin, 7.4% in era
4. Devil Rays [2005], 67-95, minus-1.15 margin, 8.9% in era
5. Devil Rays [2007], 66-96, minus-1.00 margin, 9.4% in era
6. Devil Rays [2000], 69-92, minus-0.68 margin, 10.5% in era
7. Devil Rays [1998], 63-99, minus-0.81 margin, 11.1% in era
8. Devil Rays [1999], 69-93, minus-0.87 margin, 14.0% in era
9. Devil Rays [2003], 63-99, minus-0.85 margin, 14.6% in era
10. Devil Rays [2004], 70-91, minus-0.80 margin, 17.5% in era