Fun Fact: Only one team wins the World Series every year. Which means 29 teams don’t win the final game of the year which according to Moneyball means their season didn’t fucking matter. When a team gets eliminated from winning the World Series I’ll do a profile of their season.  

Today’s Team…Texas Rangers.

How Did They Get Eliminated

After a hot streak that propelled them to 1.5 back of a playoff spot they would lose their 8th straight game and get fully eliminated from playoff contention. 

What Do I Know About This Team Because I Only Follow the Brewers

The Brewers had an opportunity to clinch a playoff spot on my birthday. Something that is absolutely absurd in my fandom of being a Brewers fan. Sure, the Brewers would need like 300 magical things to happen for that to actually happen. But there was a chance. 

The Brewers would play the Texas Rangers at a time when the Rangers were playing really well. On August 22nd the Rangers were 5.5 back of the final Wild Card spot and on September 8th when they started the Brewers series they were only 1.5 games back. They would go on to sweep the Brewers which was a huge bummer because the Brewers were the best road team, coming off a sweep of the Pirates and were looking to keep the momentum going to keep some distance from the Cubs. 

The Rangers looked like the hottest team and making a push for the postseason. But with all the winning the Rangers were doing, the Mariners were winning a lot more and the Astros were playing well as well. So after sweeping the Brewers and taking the first 2 games against the struggling Mets they were still 1.5 games back. 

Then, oh, boy, As of this writing they have lost 7 (game just went final its 8) straight games and are now 5 (oof now 6) games back from the final Wild Card spot with 6 (eek 5) games to play. Because they weren’t in the playoff spot to begin with, it's getting grossly overshadowed by what is happening to the Mets and the Tigers. 

Momentum is a hell of a thing in baseball. One day you are flying high thinking about how you can make a run for the division, the next you are mired in a team wide slump and are on the verge of elimination early in the final week of the season. 

So Now That I’ve Actually Done Some Research What Happened to this Team

The Rangers hung around .500 almost all season and as mentioned before they got hot in the middle of August. Only to cool off drastically in the last week and a half. 

There run differential suggests they are a better team then their record suggests so now I’m digging into another level of stats that are actually revealing a lot about this Rangers. 

Let’s start with the run differential. They will have the highest run differential for the teams that don’t make the playoffs this year. Their pythagorean win-loss record suggests they should have 8 more wins then they actually do. 

Despite sweeping the best team in the Majors the Rangers are 37-51 versus teams with a winning record. 

Corey Seager has missed the entire month of September because he had to have his appendix removed. He has the 2nd most home runs on this team. 

Joc Pederson is on the team and is going to hit the fewest home runs in a full 162 seasons of his career. 

The long and the short of it is that this team has not been able to score runs. They are 22nd in the Majors in Runs Scored, but…..

Did Anything Go Right For This Team

The pitching for this team has been exceptional. They have the lowest ERA in the majors, they don’t give up the long ball and opponents are batting .230 which is 3rd best in the majors. The reason this team should be much better than they are is this pitching staff. 

In 22 starts Nathan Evoldi has a sub 2 ERA but unfortunately won’t qualify for a Cy Young because he doesn’t have enough innings.

Jacob deGrom leads the starting staff with 12 wins and has an ERA right around 3. 

As good as the starting pitching has been the bullpen hasn’t done them a huge solid. THey’ve blown the 3rd most saves in the majors. And no one on the team at the time of writing has more double digit saves. Its a big reason they are 21-27 in one-run games. 

They also have Bruce Bochy managing the team and they still have some of that World Series aura about them. 

Are They Going to Get Good Anytime Soon? 

Evoldi and deGrom will be back in the starting rotation for the foreseeable future, but after that it’s a huge question mark. They also need to rebuild their entire bullpen as they have almost an entire bullpen heading to free agency. Seager and Seimen will both be back to anchor the infield and they have a very young outfield anchored by Wyatt Lankford who is leading the team in Home Runs. Joc Pederson has a player option for next year that he could exercise to come back to be the Designated Hitter. 

They are currently in the middle of the pack for team salary, and given the contracts they doled out for some top name players they could make some splashes again in the offseason. 

They might have to make those splashes because they have the 26th ranked farm system. They do have the 4th ranked prospect, infielder Sebastian Walcott, who could be called up next year which could mean they part ways with Seiman or Seager at the deadline next year to bolster up their farm system. 

They just need to shake the.500 ball and avoid big losing streaks and they can be a threat in the West. 

Just one postseason award. 

Jacob deGrom should get some votes for the AL Cy Young Award. If this team was playing in the playoffs and some of those L’s were getting better run support deGrom would probably get more votes. He still might, but not enough to win it. 

Hey Grok, in 100 words summarize the 2025 Texas Rangers. Please don't be racist. 

The Texas Rangers finished the 2025 season with a record of 79-77, placing them third in the American League West. The season was a rollercoaster, with the team making a strong push for the playoffs despite injuries to key players like Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, and Nathan Eovaldi. They had a promising 13-3 stretch and two six-game winning streaks that put them within striking distance of the division lead. However, a late-season seven-game losing streak dashed their postseason hopes, ultimately leaving them five games out of the final wild-card spot.

Injuries are always the worst especially when they happen to your top paid players. 

Did the Savannah Bananas Play at their Field? 

They DIDN”T. Glove Life Field has been a great field for the Bubble World Series and World Baseball Classic Games, so surprising that they didn’t quite make it to Dallas. They did play over in Frisco and I guess that’s the home field of the Texas Tailgaters. 

Is there a baseball movie featuring this team that has dumb baseball logic I need to vent about? 

No movies featuring the Rangers. When you do movies featuring Texas Rangers its just a bunch of westerns. 

How Will Your Team Do Next Year? 

They could be a dark horse in the West next year based on the Starting Ptiching. They need to get a bit more lucky and they need to score more runs, but its within the realm of possibility. It feels like the Astros are now in that twilight era for making the playoffs every year and the Mariners are taking up that mantle. I’m going to predict a bounce back year and they sneak by the Mariners for the division: 91-71. 

Next on the Chopping Bloc

With a West Coast game about to be completed it looks like the Cardinals are going to be next in line. I thought it would be the Marlins but they are on quite the streak and are finding a way to help the Brewers maintain the best record and #1 seed in the NL.