Are the 2025 Rangers the worst example of letting great pitching go unrewarded in franchise history? A couple of years ago, I created a spreadsheet to measure the entire history of the Rangers in overlapping 54-game spans (one-third of a season) to test whether the spring of 2023 featured the best Texas offensive performance ever. (It did!) Updating and expanding that spreadsheet allowed me to answer this question, for better or worse. I sought combinations of above-average run prevention combined with below-average offense. I ignored spans that wrapped two seasons.
The current period ranks only fifth-worst mathematically, but that doesn’t provide a complete answer. What matters is the performance measured against expectations. Let’s review the top five:
1. 8/5/83 – 9/29/83 (games 107-160)
Runs scored per game: 3.2 (27% worse than average)
Runs allowed per game: 3.2 (27% better than average)
Record: 26-28
Frustration level: Medium
This period was simply the cap to an initially exciting but ultimately aggravating year. Following a dismal ’82, the Rangers stormed to the division lead under new manager Doug Rader, peaking at 44-33. Then, Texas’ familiar July swoon commenced, leaving them 51-55 and six games out of first when this period began. Over the next 54 games, Texas would allow 171 runs, fewest in the league and four fewer than the White Sox, but the Sox would score 82 more runs and win 14 additional games. For the season, Texas had the league’s best pitching and defense and would outscore the opposition by 30 runs but finish 77-85.
2. 8/5/76 – 9/26/76 (games 104-157)
Runs scored per game: 3.1 (23% worse than average)
Runs allowed per game: 3.5 (13% better than average)
Record: 23-31
Frustration level: Low
A lesser version of 1983. Texas bolted to a 19-9 start but lost the division lead for good by mid-May and were ten games behind Kansas City by mid-July. These games weren’t of consequence.
3. 4/29/84 – 6/27/84 (games 22-75)
Runs scored per game: 3.7 (18% worse than average)
Runs allowed per game: 3.8 (16% better than average)
Record: 25-29
Frustration level: Medium-low
The ’83 season did offer hope for the future despite the drab finish, but Texas’s efforts to improve the moribund offense were essentially limited to trading for OF Gary Ward (a net positive) and C Ned Yost (a net negative statistically and catastrophic for public relations, as Texas dispensed of revered catcher Jim Sundberg). The Rangers continued to pitch well but would falter in the second half, and Kansas City won the division with only 84 wins while the Rangers dropped to the basement. The Rangers didn’t expect to challenge for the division but did expect to be competitive, and they squandered a period when they could have banked some extra wins.
4. 6/3/09 – 8/4/09 (games 53-106)
Runs scored per game: 4.2 (16% worse than average)
Runs allowed per game: 4.0 (19% better than average)
Record: 28-26
Frustration level: Medium-high
When this sequence began, the Rangers were 31-21 and leading the division by 4.5 games. During the span in question, they treaded water while the Angels went 37-17. Texas had a slew of up-and-coming pitchers beginning to make their marks, but youngsters Jarrod Saltamacchia and Chris Davis disappointed, Josh Hamilton backslid from his breakout 2008, and Hank Blalock’s career ground to a halt at the age of 28. On the whole, 2009 is to be remembered fondly after what transpired during most of the previous nine years, but Texas might have let a little on the table.
5. 3/28/25 – 5/26/25 (games 2-55)
Runs scored per game: 3.4 (17% worse than average)
Runs allowed per game: 3.5 (13% better than average)
Record: 26-28
Frustration level: Ugh
A league-average offense would have an additional 40 runs, and the team’s record based on run differential would be a division-leading 31-24.
The roster as initially constructed was intended to win now. The 2009 Rangers were young. The 2025 version is the oldest in the league. A fair number of players are on the downside or likely as good as they’ll ever be this moment, and who’ll arrive to compensate for their declining production is in doubt. The bullpen is going to require another wholesale reconstruction this winter.
Also, none of the previous spans began a season. The 2025 Rangers are absolutely the strongest example of great pitching / bad hitting in that respect. Next is the 1977 edition, which began the season 27-27 with run prevention 13% better than average and scoring 12% worse. I knew the 1983 and 2009 clubs would make this list before I did the work, but even then, mid and late-season spans just don’t resonate as much starting this way.
Enough games remain that the proper course might still be staying put and counting on internal improvement, but enough have passed that the optics of that course are nearly untenable. I don’t envy the front office right now. Some ugly decisions are coming if fortune doesn’t change quickly.
Rangers Minor League History, 2007-2024
The best full-season team during 2007-2024 in a Rangers-affiliated league was the 2021 low-A Charleston RiverDogs.
Record: 82-38
Run-differential Record: 82-38
Component Record: 86-34
In undertaking this task, I considered ignoring the 2021 season because of the last of a 2020 season and shortened schedules. Ultimately, I decided to keep it while scaling results based on the number of games played, and Charleston was still on top. Another quirk of 2021 was extremely localized scheduling. For example, 72 of AAA Round Rock’s originally scheduled 142 games were against just two teams, Sugar Land and OKC. I’d previously about league-mates Fredericksburg (44-76) and Kannapolis (40-79) as two of the worst five full-season teams in the era, yet the RiverDogs only played six games against Kannapolis and none against the FNats, so they didn’t achieve their status by pounding the worst teams.
Charleston started 9-9 and finished 2-6 (including four losses in six games to Down East). In between, they played .755 ball (71-23). The offense scored 6.4 runs per game (25% above the league average, 127 OPS+) and allowed 4.1 (19% better than average, 78 opposing OPS+).
Charleston was no outlier in the Tampa Bay system:
AAA Durham: 86-44
AA Montgomery: 62-55
Hi-A Bowling Green: 82-36
Lo-A Charleston: 82-38
Complex Squad: 42-15
Total: 354-188
Per Baseball America, the 2021 Rays had the best composite winning percentage in the US-based minors in at least 30 years. Charleston won the league championship series (in a full five games over Down East), Bowling won as well, Durham had the best team in AAA (which didn’t have a playoff that year), and Montgomery lost its championship series in five games.
In a familiar refrain, a dominant minor team hasn’t translated into much MLB success (so far). The Dogs had IF Oslevis Basabe, OF Heriberto Hernandez and OF Alexander Ovalles for signifcant portions of the season, all part of the Nathaniel Lowe trade, but only Basabe has reached the Majors, and at the tender age of 24 he would appear to be AAA depth. Utility man Brett Wisely leads the bunch with 144 MLB games. Taj Bradley, who also pitched for Bowling Green that year, is an established Tampa Bay rotation member.
Elsewhere
Marc Church (oblique) threw 1.2 scoreless innings with three strikeouts in a rehab assignment for the complex squad yesterday.
Per a local report, Texas has signed 30-year-old OF Billy McKinney to a minor deal. The Mets released him last week. Texas will be his eighth organization in the past six years. McKinney was a Rangers for a few days after the 2021 season, purchased from the Dodgers but then non-tendered.
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