The worst baseball teams of the Wild Card era

Major League Baseball’s Chicago White Sox are currently on track to surpass the 120-loss record set by the 1962 New York Mets. They’re the most miserable team in the 2024 season — but are they the worst franchise? Not exactly. Baseball has been around for a long time, so it’s hard to generalize back to the 1880s, but the Sox and Mets have been two of the most troubled teams since baseball expanded its playoffs in 1994, which is more Wild Card period.

Qualifications for inclusion on this list of the worst franchises: They have not won any championships during this time period ( The White Sox themselvesbecause of them (2005 championship)They rarely made the playoffs and failed to produce consistently competitive teams. Here are five of the most disappointing baseball teams of the Wild Card era.

While other teams here have had their problems, none of them are as serious as this one. A’shaving to play in a game concrete tomb After failing to collect tribute from Bay Area taxpayers a new stadiumin front of a dwindling fan base that knew the team was going to Sacramento next year and then Las Vegas. The A’s haven’t won a championship since 1989, and have spent most of this century trying to run a contender on a shoestring budget. With visionary manager Billy Beane (the subject of the movie “Moneyball”) at the helm for most of that period, they’ve been able to compete in a predictable boom-bust cycle using innovative player-evaluation metrics. But since 2021, they’ve been the worst team in sports by a country mile. live run It broke a loss record last year.

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After the city was expanded Seattle Pilots In 1969, to see them leave the camp For Milwaukee Baseball awarded Seattle a franchise to become the Brewers the following year 1977 expansion. And Sailors they’ve been pretty consistently bad since then. Despite a fluke 116-win season in 2001, the Mariners then missed the playoffs for an astonishing 20 years in a row. The Mariners aren’t exactly cheap — their payroll has frequently ranked in the top half of the sport — but management often leaves enough holes on the roster to sink the team. They look likely to miss the playoffs in 2024 for the 22nd time in 23 years.

The Fathers another franchise still searching for their first championship. 1969 expansionThey’ve made the playoffs just six times during the Wild Card era. More recently, it hasn’t happened, certainly for lack of trying. The Padres, who are based in one of the game’s smallest media markets, are under the leadership of General Manager AJ Preller spent generously and made a series of splashy acquisitions, but continue to be outplayed by their upstate rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2023, the team missed the playoffs despite having a whopping $250 million payroll.

The Pirates They have made only three playoff appearances in the Wild Card era. That’s not as bad as the Kansas City Royals (they’ve only made it twice, but are on track for a third this year), but the Royals have made one of them count, winning a struggling, weak World Series title in 2015. In the 31 seasons of the Wild Card era, the Pirates had a losing record in 27 of them. Despite playing in one of the best in the game the most magnificent stadiumsThe Pirates have failed to crack the code to being even remotely competitive year after year.

Piece baseball Expansion to Miami and Denver in 1993, Rocky Mountains have faced challenges since the team’s inception. The main problem is that Denver’s thin mountain air makes it difficult for pitchers to throw effective off-pitch pitches, and hitters tend to strike them out nightly. The club has made only five playoff appearances. Worse, the team’s owners sometimes seem clueless. For years, the Rockies held on to their existing assets at the trade deadline rather than sell them to contenders, and that attitude has industry-wide mysteryThe Rockies are on their way to their second straight 100-loss season.

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The worst baseball teams of the Wild Card era

1. Oakland Athletics

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