The goal of a baseball team is to win games. In order to win games, the opposing team must go ahead more often than not. In this article we will examine how to calculate a team’s Win-Loss Percentage (also “Winning Percentage” or WL%).
A team’s Win-Loss Percentage is quite simply the percentage of total games in which they won. To calculate a team’s winning percentage, take the team’s total wins and total losses, and fill in the formula below:
WL% = Wins / (Wins + Losses)
Win-Loss percentage is written as a decimal point with three spaces after the decimal point. For example, a major league team plays their regular 162 game schedule, winning 81 games and losing 81. Calculate their WL% dividing 81 winning 162 (81 wins and 81 losses). The team in question would have a flattering .500 PERCENTAGE.
A .500 winning percentage team ” even break point, below that, and they certainly aren’t very good at it. To contend for a division championship, a team usually needs a winning percentage of about .580 or higher.
Of course, a .510 WP% to win the division, and not a .650 WP%, all depends on what other teams do. For example, in 2005 the Philadelphia Phillies won 88 games and lost 74, a .543% WP. The Atlanta Braves, who are in the same division as the Phillies (the National League East) have won 90 games. and he lost 72, a .556 margin, the Phillies for the division title by two games. Meanwhile in the National West, the San Diego Padres won the division with an 82-80 record, a . DVI WP%.
Since Major League Baseball switched to a 162-game schedule in 1961 (previously, the season had been 154 games), the highest single-year season Win-Loss PERCENTAGE belongs to the 2001 Seattle Mariners. This season the Mariners won 116 games and lost only 46, for an amazing .716 winning percentage. This season, the Mariners finished 14 games ahead of the Oakland A’s in the division, despite the A’s winning 102 games and posting a .630 hitting percentage. They beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Division Series, 3 games to 2, but eventually lose to the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series, 4 games to 1.
The lowest winning percentage from the same Time belongs to the 1962 New York Mets. The Mets, in their first year of existence after major league expansion, won only 40 games and lost 120. That’s a horrible 250 Win-Loss PERCENT. The Mets finished 60.5 games behind that year’s National League champions, the San Francisco Giants, who finished with 102 wins. for a .624 WP%. In those days there were no divisions, each league had 10 teams, and the one with the most wins represented the league in World Series .
