Just about three years ago, during the post-2017 offseason, I penned a piece looking at just how bad the Rays franchise had been in terms of living up to their billing in regards to Baseball Prospectus’ third-order winning percentage.
As a friendly reminder, the BP website defines the metric as:
3rd Order Winning Percentage: A team’s projected winning percentage, based on underlying statistics and adjusted for quality of opponents.
Uses Adjusted Equivalent Runs scored and allowed, which adjust the Equivalent Runs totals for the quality of each team’s opponents’ pitching and defense.