Texas Rangers 2023 Season Preview
The Texas Rangers were arguably the unluckiest team in baseball last season. They finished 68-94, but had a Pythagorean Win-Loss record of 77-85 and BaseRuns had them down for the same mark. By being -9 in both Pyth W-L and BaseRuns, they had the largest negative discrepancy between actual record and expected record. Clay Davenport’s 3rd Order Win% metric wasn’t as kind with a record of 74.4-87.7, but the reality is that this team should have been better than it was.
The Rangers were 11th in wOBA offensively with runners in scoring position and 11th in wOBA against with RISP. The reason why there was a huge discrepancy in record is because Texas was 15-35 in one-run games. Usually you see that happen with a bad bullpen, but the Rangers were 12th in reliever ERA and 16th in FIP. I wouldn’t call this bullpen good, especially with some heavy losses, but it wasn’t the problem last season.
There was some built-in positive regression, but when you add Jacob deGrom, Andrew Heaney and Nathan Eovaldi to a starting rotation that had a 4.63 ERA, a 4.42 FIP and finished 26th in fWAR, people are going to notice. Oh, yeah, and the Rangers added manager Bruce Bochy, a three-time World Series winner who decided front office life wasn’t for him and wanted to get back in the dugout.
As a result, the Rangers are a team that a lot of people expect to be trending upward this season.