Tampa Bay Rays: A Correlation Between Spring and Regular Season Records

Its hard to say if there is a correlation between their spring training record and the regular season record, but the numbers don’t lie for the Tampa Bay Rays.

With the MLB season officially underway lets take a look at how the Tampa Bay Rays did in spring training. Spring training is an exciting time.  It means the baseball season is that much closer, but does team performance actually matter?

In 2008, the Tampa Bay Rays had the best season in their 20 year franchise history. They reached the World Series and had a record of 97-65 (winning percentage 59.9%).  During spring training of that season they had a record of 18-8-2 which is a winning percentage of 64.3%.

On the other hand in 2002 the then Devil Rays had the worst season in franchise history. They finished the regular season with a record of 55-106 (winning percentage 34.2%). Spring training that season had similar results with a record of 10-16-1 which turns out to be a winning percentage of 37%

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Lets take a look at last season for another example. 2016 was a disappointing year for the Rays.  They finished last in the division by a large margin and had many struggles.  Their record at the end of the season ended up being 68-94 (winning percentage 42%).  They had a similar winning percentage in the spring last season and ended up with a record of 13-13-2 and that ends up being a winning percentage of 46.4%

Spring training this year didn’t have the results the Rays were looking for.  Fans hope that this season can veer away from the correlation trend and make 2017 a memorable season. This spring the Rays had a record of 12-17-5 which calculates out to be a winning percentage of 35.3%. So if the correlation continues the Rays will end up having a worst overall record than last season.

Next: An Interesting Weekend of Events for the Rays

Its hard to say there is a correlation between spring training record and the regular season record. But the numbers don’t lie and it seems like the spring training results are similar to the regular seasons.  Lets see how this season turns out and if the Rays can do better than they did in the spring.  So far so good as they beat the Yankees on opening day and are currently 1-0.