The worst baseball franchises of the Wild Card era

Major League Baseball's Chicago White Sox are currently set to eclipse the mark of 120 defeats set by the 1962 New York Mets. They are the most miserable team of the 2024 season — but are they the worst franchise? Not quite. Baseball has been around for a long time, so it's hard to generalize all the way back to the 1880s, but the Sox and the Mets have been two of the most troubled teams since baseball began expanding its playoffs in 1994, a time better known as the Wild Card era. 

The qualifications for inclusion on this list of worst franchises: they can't have won any championships during this period (excluding the White Sox themselves, due to their 2005 championship), have seldom made the postseason, and have failed to field consistently competitive teams. Here are five of the most disappointing baseball teams of the Wild Card era. 

1. Oakland Athletics

While the other teams here have problems, none of them are quite as acute as the A's, who have to play in a concrete mausoleum after failing to extort Bay Area taxpayers for a new stadium, in front of a dwindling fan base that knows the team will be leaving for Sacramento next year and then Las Vegas. The A's haven't won a title since 1989, and have spent most of this century trying to operate a contender on a shoestring budget. Because they had visionary executive Billy Beane (the subject of the movie "Moneyball") at the helm for most of this period, they were able to compete in a predictable boom-and-bust cycle using innovative player evaluation metrics. But since 2021, they've been the worst team in the sport by a country mile, including a spirited run at the loss record last year. 

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2. Seattle Mariners

After giving the city the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969, only to see them decamp for Milwaukee the very next year to become the Brewers, baseball awarded Seattle a franchise in its 1977 expansion. And the Mariners have been pretty consistently bad ever since. Despite a fluke 116-win season in 2001, the Mariners then missed the playoffs for an unfathomable 20 straight years. The Mariners aren't cheap, exactly — their payroll has frequently ranked in the top half of the sport — but management usually 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. 

3. San Diego Padres

The Padres are another franchise still looking for their first title. Part of the 1969 expansion, they've been to the playoffs just six times in the Wild Card era. More recently, it certainly hasn't been for lack of trying. Situated in one of the game's smallest media markets, the Padres under General Manager A.J. Preller have spent lavishly and made a series of splashy acquisitions, but keep getting outfoxed by their upstate rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2023, the team missed the playoffs despite sporting an enormous $250 million payroll. 

4. Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pirates have made only three playoff appearances in the Wild Card era. That's not as bad as the Kansas City Royals (who have been just twice, although they are en route to a third this year), but the Royals made one of them count, winning a gritty, underdog World Series championship in 2015. In the Wild Card era's 31 seasons, the Pirates have had a losing record in 27 of them. Despite playing in one of the game's most magnificent ballparks, the Pirates simply have failed to crack the code of being remotely competitive year after year. 

5. Colorado Rockies

Part of baseball's 1993 expansion into Miami and Denver, the Rockies have been beset by difficulties from the team's inception. The basic problem is that Denver's thin mountain air makes it harder for pitchers to throw effective off-speed pitches, and hitters therefore tend to bludgeon them night after night. The club has made the playoffs just five times. Worse, the team's ownership sometimes seems clueless. For years, the Rockies have sat on their existing assets at the trade deadline rather than selling off to contenders, a stance that has become an industry-wide mystery. The Rockies are on their way to their second consecutive 100-loss season.