How Rangers Fell Below Internal Projections and Barely Missed Playoffs

The Texas Rangers missed the playoffs by one game. Fans may do a double take when they find out what the team thought of their chances in March.

Texas Rangers manager Skip Schumaker. Credit: Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The American League West made history in 2026. It became the first division one by a non-winning team.

The Houston Astros claimed the title with an 81-81 record, one game ahead of the Texas Rangers (80-82). The race came down to the final day with Texas needing to win and the Astros needing to lose. Well, the Astros won and the Rangers lost.

Houston's time in the postseason was brief. The Astros were swept by the Chicago White Sox in the AL wild card series.

It was a frustrating season for Texas. The Rangers had multitudes of opportunities to take control of the division race and simply couldn't do it. Hamstrung by injuries to key players and unable to string together significant winning streaks, Texas finished below expectations — even their own.

Rangers Fall Below Their Own Projections

Texas Rangers general manager Chris Young. Credit: Jim Cowsert-USA TODAY Sports | USA TODAY Sports

During his end-of-season press conference, president of baseball operations Chris Young was asked how he reconciled the team he built with how the team finished. He entered the season with playoff aspirations. The Rangers fell short. He then revealed that the Rangers didn't fall short by much.

“Going into the season, we have internal projections for win totals based on our roster construction, which we compared to outside projections,” he said. “Coming into this year, we felt like we were between an 82-to-85 win team, somewhere right in there — and that was if things kind of go our way.”

All the Rangers had to do to win the division was win 82 games. Incredibly, the bottom of the Rangers’ win projection was right. No one could have predicted how average the AL West would be. But it's incredible that the bottom end of their projection would have gotten them in the postseason.

But, as Young noted, injuries and underperformance kept the Rangers from reaching even that low benchmark.

“The painful part of that is that even in spite of that, we had a chance to be a playoff-caliber team if we had even just a good last week of the season,” Young said. And we didn’t execute that.”

Young cited that as one of the reasons he had difficulty reflecting on the season the day after it ended. He expected it to go on at least a little longer. The projection even told him so.

But, alas, the Rangers were constructed just poorly enough to avoid making the playoffs. It was the ninth time in 10 seasons the Rangers finished with a .500 or worse record, with their 2023 World Series season being the only outlier.