One of my favorite numbers from the 2002 season regards the Texas Rangers. As uninspiring as their 72-90 record may be, as misplaced as Alex Rodriguez's contract might seem, and as weird as Arlington's Everett-Rocker-Irabu-Rivera Daycare Center appeared most of the season, this team wasn't that bad: outside of the ridiculously strong American League West, Texas finished 52-52.

Now, it's hard to know how to read that. Are the Rangers consigned to mediocrity because they play in a division with the Angels, A's and Mariners, all of whom won at least 93 games in 2002? Or is this a team waiting in the weeds, much like the Angels were last offseason before winning the wild card and the World Series?

	Chan Ho Park Starting Pitcher Texas Rangers Profile
	2002 SEASON STATISTICS GS W-L IP H K ERA 25 9-8 145.2 154 121 5.75

It's a nice head start to boast the best all-around player in the game today in Rodriguez, who led the majors with 57 home runs and 142 RBIs as a Gold Glove shortstop and might be only entering his prime. Rafael Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez are first-rate sluggers; if the team could find an OBP-driven leadoff man, it could markedly improve on its fifth-place showing in runs despite leading the AL in homers and slugging percentage. Then again, the team has struggled despite its strong offense, so there's clearly plenty else amiss -- most notably the pitching, which last season compiled a 5.15 ERA (12th in the AL) while placing last in walks and wild pitches. You know you have trouble when your ace's name spelled backwards is Nahc Oh Krap.

"We gambled. We took our payroll up and for a lot of reasons it didn't work," owner Tom Hicks said of his signing of Chan Ho Park, who got blitzkrieged to a 9-8, 5.75 record and still has $54 million due to him over the next four years. With Kenny Rogers a free agent, Hicks has vowed to take a slower, player-development route to competitiveness, letting pitchers Joaquin Benoit, Colby Lewis and Mario Ramos mature over the next several years into a homegrown staff -- an admirable goal, but one which at this point more resembles the Royals' failures than the A's successes. The lineup should get a jolt of considerably better talent, as third basemen Hank Blalock and Mark Teixeira are two of the most promising offensive players in the game.

The rebuilding should be hastened by the hiring of manager Buck Showalter, who helped develop the mid-'90s Yankees clubs and the expansion Diamondbacks. Says Rodriguez, also citing last year's hiring of assistant GM Grady Fuson away from the A's, "I look at myself like Bernie Williams was in the early 1990s with the Yankees. He didn't win for a while. They had a very active owner. He had the financial commitment. Once they were able to turn the page and do what they did with Gene Michael and Mark Newman and who they started listening to, that's how they turned it around. I hope that's where we are."

Saying the Rangers are where the Angels were one year ago is a huge stretch, however. Anaheim had five solid starters, Texas has one, and that's generous. An Angelic turnaround simply will not happen here. Moreover, the Rangers play what could be called the toughest schedule in baseball, with a whopping 58 games against the A's, Angels and Mariners. "I had some friends who said to me, 'Geez, why are you going to that division?' " Showalter said. "Like I had a choice or something."

Then again, history shows that the Rangers' immediate future need not be particularly bleak. Since division play began in 1969, 34 teams have resembled the 2000-01 Rangers -- poor but not awful, with win totals between 69 and 76 both seasons. Here's how they did the next year, not including seasons shortened by strikes:

Wins	No.	Teams
96-plus	2	'93 Giants, '84 Cubs
90-94	4	'79 Expos, '90 White Sox, '88 Dodgers, '89 Angels
85-89	7	'85 Reds, '78 Giants, '74 Braves, '93 Yankees, '98 Blue Jays, '78 Angels, '78 Tigers
80-84	4	'78 Padres, '89 Rangers, '77 Cubs, '79 Indians
75-79	5	'73 Angels, '73 Expos, '01 Padres, '88 Cubs, '74 Indians
70-74	5	'77 Angels, '00 Brewers, '02 Rangers, '80 White Sox, '72 Expos
65-69	4	'77 Padres, '75 Brewers, '01 Brewers, '86 Mariners
64-below	3	'01 Devil Rays, '85 Indians, '88 Braves

The average number of wins for these 36 teams? 80. Call that jump the Plexiglas Principle or Regression to the Mean, but it's fair to say that the Rangers will probably improve next year. It's hard to see them winning 90 or more games, but six teams mirroring Texas' mediocrity of the past two years have done just that before; then again, seven have slid below 70 wins and completely off the radar of relevance.

I would have a lot more confidence in the 2003 Rangers if they had several young pitchers worth talking about. Lewis, a promising righty, must develop into the inexpensive anchor Jarrod Washburn became in Anaheim for this team to become competitive again. And that's a lot to ask of a 23-year-old with four major league starts to his name. Not to mention an organization whose days of developing pitchers such as Kevin Brown, Kenny Rogers and even Brian Bohanon seem very long ago.

Hicks has vowed to let GM John Hart, Fuson and Showalter -- all of whom have fine player-development backgrounds -- take a more patient approach to building this club, rather than plugging aimlessly with the Galarragas and Caminitis of the past. Unfortunately for Rangers fans, the effects of that decision are just as hard to wait for than the decision itself.

Alan Schwarz is the Senior Writer of Baseball America magazine and a regular contributor to ESPN.com.