Loser Scores

On September 5, 2012, the Texas Rangers jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in Kansas City, and managed to hang on late for a 7-6 win that gave them their 81st victory of the season. Although I am sure that no one on the field was aware of it, this victory also maked a franchise milestone. By clinching their fourth consecutive season of .500 ball or better, the Rangers guaranteed that they would start 2013 with a Loser Score of zero for the first time since the franchise came into being as the second incarnation of the Washington Senators in 1961. Huh? What is a Loser Score? Glad you asked…

Loser Scores were developed by Bill James in 2010, after the Pirates set the record for consecutive losing seasons by a major professional sports team in the United States. James was asked by a Pittsburgh sportswriter to compare the Pirates’ string of futility with others, and took this approach an an effort to balance out all of the aspects that go into making a team a true Loser. James figured these through 2010; the article he wrote was published in the book Solid Fools Gold in 2011.

Loser Scores are computed differently, based on whether the franchise had a losing record or a winning record in the season in question. If the franchise had a losing record, you compute its Loser Score as follows:

So in the case of the 2012 Pirates, for example, their Loser Score as of the end of the 2012 season is their Loser Score from 2011, plus 4 since they finished 79-83, plus 20 since they now have 20 consecutive seasons below .500.

If the franchise has a .500 or better record in the current season, you compute its Loser Score as follows:

Loser Scores cannot be negative; the Yankees, Cardinals, and Giants all had Loser Scores of zero entering 2012. The Tigers, thanks to their run of poor teams in the late 90s and early 00s, had a positive loser score entering 2012; they still need a WS victory to wipe it out even though they are working on a string of four consecutive seasons of .500 or better. If they don’t win this year, they will need to finish at least 97-65 in 2013 to get to zero.

Let’s look at the Rangers in depth. In 1961, the American League allowed the existing Washington Senators to move to Minnesota, and replaced them with an expansion team that took on the Senators name. That team finished ninth in the now 10-team AL, going 61-100. Its Loser Score after its first season in existence was 40 - representing a zero Loser Score entering the season, plus 39 for the number of games under .500, plus 1 for the initial season in an under-.500 string.

From 1962 through 1968 the Senators continued with a string of under-.500 finishes, building up the Loser Score:

Season	W	L	Under	Consecutive	Loser Score
1961	61	100	39	1		40
1962	60	101	41	2		83
1963	56	106	50	3		136
1964	62	100	38	4		178
1965	70	92	22	5		205
1966	71	88	17	6		228
1967	76	85	9	7		244
1968	65	96	31	8		283

In 1969, Washington hired Ted Williams to manage the team, and Williams presided over a dramatic turnaround as the Senators posted their first over-.500 season in franchise history, finishing 10 games over .500 at 86-76. The franchise Loser Score went down by 38 points:

The turnaround lasted exactly one season, however. Over the next four seasons, as Williams’s magic wore off, attendance plummeted, and Bob Short moved the team to Dallas, the franchise returned to its losing ways, and the Loser Score followed suit:

Season	W	L	Under	Consecutive	Loser Score
1969	86	76	-10			245
1970	70	92	22	1		268
1971	63	96	33	2		303
1972	54	100	46	3		352
1973	57	105	48	4		404

The Rangers hired Billy Martin at the end of 1973, and Billy worked his usual turnaround trick in 1974, giving the franchise its second winning season. Over the next few years, the team oscillated back and forth between good and bad seasons, posting the best record in franchise history (bettered only twice since then) in 1977 under four different managers, and chopped its Loser Score down to a level not season since the very early days:

Season	W	L	Under	Consecutive	Loser Score
1974	84	76	-8			356
1975	79	83	4	1		361
1976	76	86	10	2		373
1977	94	68	-26			310
1978	87	75	-12			236
1979	83	79	-4			161
1980	76	85	9	1		171
1981	57	48	-9			145

In 1982, things went south again, and the Rangers would have only one over-.500 season in the next seven:

Season	W	L	Under	Consecutive	Loser Score
1982	64	98	34	1		180
1983	77	85	8	2		190
1984	69	92	23	3		216
1985	62	99	37	4		257
1986	87	75	-12			219
1987	75	87	12	1		232
1988	70	91	21	2		255

Things were about to get better, however, as the franchise rebuild initiated by Tom Grieve took shape. Beginning in 1989, and extending for 11 years, the Rangers were about to embark on the longest stretch of more-or-less sustained success in their franchise history, capped by three division titles in four years, although the Rangers exited in the first round of the postseason each time. Despite this success, however, the team couldn’t quite get its Loser Score to zero:

Season	W	L	Under	Consecutive	Loser Score
1989	83	79	-4			226
1990	83	79	-4			177
1991	85	77	-8			116
1992	77	85	8	1		125
1993	86	76	-10			103
1994	52	62	10	1		114
1995	74	70	-4			99
1996	90	72	-18			61
1997	77	85	8	1		70
1998	88	74	-14			49
1999	95	67	-28			11

And then the team reversed course yet again, with eight losing seasons in the next nine:

Season	W	L	Under	Consecutive	Loser Score
2000	71	91	20	1		32
2001	73	89	16	2		50
2002	72	90	18	3		71
2003	71	91	20	4		95
2004	89	73	-16			70
2005	79	83	4	1		75
2006	80	82	2	2		79
2007	75	87	12	3		94
2008	79	83	4	4		102

Note that although the Rangers were posting losing records, they weren’t really terrible, so by the time that 2009 rolled around the Loser Score was just touching triple digits, easily capable of being wiped out with a couple of good seasons. And this was exactly what was about to happen as the franchise entered its second Golden Age:

Season	W	L	Under	Consecutive	Loser Score
2009	87	75	-12			80
2010	90	72	-18			46
2011	96	66	-30			2

One more win in 2011, either during the regular season or during the World Series, would have brought the franchise to zero. While that wasn’t to be in 2011, the Rangers have now cleared the books.

The Pirates, with their 20 consecutive losing seasons, stand at 632. They were at zero after 1992, wiping out their deficit from the 80s, but since then they have finished a cumulative 422 games below .500 and get an additional 210 points for the string of 20 straight sub-.500 efforts. As you might expect, the Pirates currently have the highest Loser Score among major league teams, but they have been there only since 2006; the Tigers’ run of futility from 1994 through 2005 had put them at 465 before their breakout in 2006. Even with that breakout and their improvement since then, the Tigers still sit at 61 with the World Series possibly pending. A couple of other notes: