MLB Teams Are Still Losing Games At Historic Rates
Image credit: (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
The historic run of truly awful MLB teams continued unabated in 2023.
In 2023, there were four teams that lost 100 or more games.
Yes, it’s just a round number, but 100 losses has always been the dividing line between the bad teams and the truly awful.
The A’s lost 112 games, the Royals lost 106, the Rockies lost 103 and the White Sox lost 101.
That’s the same number of 100-loss+ teams as there were in 2022, 2021 and 2019. It seems somewhat normal at this point.
But that is a truly abnormal number by MLB’s historic standards.
Prior to 2018, the 2002 season was the only one in history where four teams had lost 100 or more games in the same season. But this was the fourth full 162-game season in a row where there have been four 100-game losers.
| Year | No. of 100-loss Teams | Year | No. of 100-loss Teams | Year | No. of 100-loss Teams |
| 1904 | 1 | 1941 | 1 | 1979 | 2 |
| 1905 | 2 | 1942 | 1 | 1980 | 1 |
| 1906 | 2 | 1943 | 1 | 1982 | 1 |
| 1907 | 1 | 1945 | 1 | 1983 | 1 |
| 1908 | 3 | 1946 | 1 | 1985 | 2 |
| 1909 | 1 | 1948 | 1 | 1987 | 1 |
| 1910 | 2 | 1949 | 1 | 1988 | 2 |
| 1911 | 2 | 1950 | 1 | 1989 | 1 |
| 1912 | 3 | 1951 | 1 | 1991 | 1 |
| 1914 | 1 | 1952 | 2 | 1993 | 2 |
| 1915 | 1 | 1953 | 2 | 1996 | 1 |
| 1916 | 1 | 1954 | 3 | 1998 | 1 |
| 1917 | 1 | 1956 | 1 | 2001 | 2 |
| 1919 | 1 | 1961 | 3 | 2002 | 4 |
| 1920 | 1 | 1962 | 3 | 2003 | 1 |
| 1921 | 2 | 1963 | 2 | 2004 | 2 |
| 1922 | 1 | 1964 | 3 | 2005 | 1 |
| 1923 | 2 | 1965 | 3 | 2006 | 2 |
| 1924 | 1 | 1966 | 1 | 2008 | 2 |
| 1925 | 1 | 1967 | 1 | 2009 | 1 |
| 1926 | 1 | 1969 | 2 | 2010 | 2 |
| 1927 | 2 | 1970 | 1 | 2011 | 1 |
| 1928 | 2 | 1971 | 2 | 2012 | 2 |
| 1930 | 2 | 1972 | 1 | 2013 | 2 |
| 1932 | 2 | 1973 | 2 | 2016 | 1 |
| 1935 | 1 | 1974 | 1 | 2018 | 3 |
| 1936 | 2 | 1975 | 1 | 2019 | 4 |
| 1938 | 2 | 1976 | 1 | 2021 | 4 |
| 1939 | 2 | 1977 | 2 | 2022 | 4 |
| 1940 | 2 | 1978 | 2 | 2023 | 4 |
There have been as many 100-game losers in the past four full seasons as there were in 2006-2018 combined. From 2014-2017 there was only one 100-game loser in a four-season spread.
What makes this notable is the newest collective bargaining agreement put in provisions to try to at least mildly discourage tanking.
Instead of the team with the worst record getting the top pick in the MLB draft, there’s now a draft lottery. Every team that didn’t make the playoffs has a chance to land the No. 1 pick, and the odds of landing the top pick are equal for the three teams with the worst records.
In 2024, the Nationals will be the first team to be held out of the lottery, as the new CBA also prevents revenue sharing payors from being part of the lottery for the top-six picks in back-to-back years.
And no revenue sharing recipient can receive a top-six lottery pick more than two years in a row, so if the Pirates, Tigers or A’s land a top-six pick this year, they will be ineligible to receive one next year.
So these new additions have been put in place to try to discourage, or at least slow, the prevalence of tanking. If you look at the results of the 2023 season, it’s hard to see that it’s leading to a lot of changes.
There have also been five 110-game losers in the past five full seasons, including the 112-loss A’s this year. There have only been 19 teams in MLB history with 110 or more losses. From 1970 to 2002, there were none. Now there have been as many in the past five full seasons as there had been in the previous half a century.
That would seem to be a strong indicator that the new provisions aren’t slowing tanking. But taking a deeper look, that may not be as clear as it seems.
The A’s did strip their team down to the studs. But they seemed more focused on making the team both cheap and unappealing in their efforts to move to Las Vegas as opposed to simply landing a higher draft pick.
The other trio of 100-loss teams aren’t ones who particularly tanked. The Royals finished with the second-worst record, but that was a shocking surprise in Kansas City. The Royals expected to be significantly better than last year’s 97-loss team. Instead, they tied the 2005 club for the worst record in team history.
The Rockies and White Sox both were right in the middle of the league in 2023 payroll, so it was also a shock to see the Rockies easily set the franchise record for losses in a season (five more than the 2012 Rockies’ 98 losses). The White Sox were in the playoffs in 2021 and finished at .500 last year. This year, they posted the team’s worst record since 1970.
There are still a historic level of awful teams, but this year it might have been more because of organic developments than intentional decisions.
Will the new lottery restrictions slow the steady stream of truly putrid MLB teams? We don’t know yet. But so far, the historic run of 100-loss teams continues unabated.
