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In sports, a winning percentage is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. It is equal to wins divided by wins plus losses. Winning percentage is one way to compare the record of two teams; however, another standard method most frequently used in baseball and professional basketball standings is games behind.

Ties count as a 0.5 loss and a 0.5 win. If a team went 28-16-5 in a season you would add the three numbers togethers to get 49. You would then divide the ties by two to get 2.5 and add the wins to the 2.5 to get 30.5. Once you get this, divide 30.5 by 49 to get a 0.622 winning percentage.

In baseball, pitchers are assessed wins and losses as an individual statistic and thus have their own winning percentage (see Win (baseball)). A pitcher's winning percentage is commonly expressed to three digits.

The name "winning percentage" is actually a misnomer, since a winning percentage, such as 0.536, is commonly not expressed as a percentage. The same value expressed as a percentage would be 53.6%. With points on ties and overtime losses, it's possible to have a winning percentage above 0.500 (50%) despite losing more than half of the games played.

Contents 1 Statistics 1.1 Major League Baseball 1.2 National Basketball Association 1.3 National Hockey League 2 References

[edit] Statistics

[edit] Major League Baseball

Win %	Wins	Losses	Year	Team	Comment
0.798	67	17	1880	Chicago Cubs	best pre-modern season
0.763	116	36	1906	Chicago Cubs	best National League 154-game season
0.721	111	43	1954	Cleveland Indians	best American League 154-game season
0.716	116	46	2001	Seattle Mariners	best American League 162-game season
0.265	43	119	2003	Detroit Tigers	worst 162-game season
0.248	38	115	1935	Boston Braves	worst National League season
0.235	36	117	1916	Philadelphia Athletics	worst American League season
0.130	20	134	1899	Cleveland Spiders	worst pre-modern season

[edit] National Basketball Association

Win %	Wins	Losses	Season	Team	Comment
0.878	72	10	1995–96	Chicago Bulls	best 82-game season
0.110	9	73	1972–73	Philadelphia 76ers	worst 82-game season

[edit] National Hockey League

In ice hockey, standings are determined by points, not wins, changing the nature of this statistic. In the National Hockey League, teams are awarded two points for a win, and one point for either a tie (a discontinued statistic) or an overtime loss. Since this calculation is not based solely on wins, the statistic is called points percentage.^[1][2] It can be calculated as follows:

Points %	Wins	Losses	Ties	Points	Season	Team	Comments
0.825	60	8	12	132	1976–77	Montreal Canadiens	best points % in post-expansion NHL
0.131	8	67	5	21	1974–75	Washington Capitals	worst points % in post-expansion NHL

[edit] References

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