You might have seen this social post comparing Wins since May 2:
These Rockies are truly something different from any team I can ever remember. Since May 2 (they came from behind to beat the Giants on May 1):
They beat the Padres 9-3 on a getaway Sunday, May 11.
They outslugged Arizona 14-12 on May 17, thanks a five-homer barrage.
They delightfully beat the Yankees 3-2 on May 23 when the Bombers couldn’t do anything against Tanner Gordon, Jake Beird, Seth Halvorsen and Zack Agnos.
That’s it. Those are their three wins in the last month.
In addition to Scottie Scheffler winning three times in the last month, the Denver Nuggets have won FOUR times, and they’ve been out of the playoffs for a while now.
Lainey Wilson won four Academy of Country Music Awards.
Billie Eilish won seven American Music Awards.
EastEnders won six British Soap Awards.
And so on.
Baseball really does seem to splitting apart. There are so many terrible teams. The White Sox, of course, are coming off the worst season in baseball history. The Pirates have two of the most dynamic players in memory in Paul Skenes and Oneil Cruz, and they’re still dreadful. The Orioles are still on 100-loss pace despite getting a weekend sweep (against the White Sox, of course). The Sacramento Athletics are awful on the field and off. The Marlins are awful on the field and off.
It might not happen … but all five of them have at least a shot at losing 100 games.
There has never been a season in which five teams lost 100 games.
But here’s something that I didn’t realize: In 2002, the Royals, Tigers, Brewers and Devil Rays all lost 100 games — that was the first time in baseball history that four teams lost 100 in the same season. That, not coincidentally, is when Moneyball came out, when the big talk all around baseball was that small-market teams couldn’t compete, and that the game was in danger of breaking apart.
But the game found its balance. From 2014 to 2017, just one team (the 2016 Minnesota Twins) lost 100. The small-market Kansas City Royals won back-to-back pennants and a World Series. The small-market Cleveland Indians went to the World Series to play the long-hapless Chicago Cubs. The big-spending Yankees and Red Sox had trouble getting their footing. It might not have been full-fledged parity, buit it felt pretty close.
And here’s what happened since then:
Year | 100-loss teams | |
|---|---|---|
2018 | 3 | O’s, Royals, White Sox |
2019 | 4 | Marlins, O’s, Royals, Tigers. |
2021 | 4 | Diamondbacks, O’s, Pirates, Rangers. |
2022 | 4 | A’s, Nationals, Pirates, Reds |
2023 | 4 | A’s, Rockies, Royals, White Sox |
2024 | 3 | Marlins, Rockies, White Sox |
This is an unprecedented run of stink. There have been more 100-loss seasons in the last six full seasons than there were in the 1980s and 1990s COMBINED. Sure, there were fewer teams then, but this is unquestionably a bad run, and this year’s batch of basement dwellers is particularly noxious.
And even in this company, the Rockies are their own thing. They are playing .150 baseball. They are on pace to lose 137 games this year. Of the ten players with 100-plus plate appearances this year, six have sub-zero WAR. They obviously have the highest ERA in baseball, and in a time when nobody’s hitting, the league hits .294/.359/.473 against them. Basically, every batter in the league turns into Bobby Witt Jr. when playing the Rockies.
And here’s the worst part:
Nobody thinks the Rockies are tanking.
Nobody thinks that they’re losing to build for the future (heck, because of the new rules, they are projected to get no higher than the 10th pick next year). No, this is just the team they have built.
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