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There is a harsh reality in Major League Baseball that is difficult to overlook, and Thursday’s news offered a reminder of it — there are too many teams in the league that are not only bad, they are embarrassing themselves and their organizations.
They are teams that are not even pretending to make a meaningful attempt at competing.
A quick rundown of some of the news that highlights the incompetence.
The Pittsburgh Pirates fired manager Derek Shelton on Thursday after a 12-26 start that has them with the third-worst record in the league. Shelton is the first scapegoat to fall in Pittsburgh, and he will almost certainly not be the last. Whatever you think of his managing abilities, the reality in Pittsburgh is the roster is just lacking in Major League talent after a few players (Oneil Cruz, Paul Skenes, Bryan Reynolds) at the top. The offseason was an embarrassment, and they remain one of the cheapest teams in baseball from an ownership standpoint.
They are on a 111-loss pace as of Thursday. That would be the fourth time in six years they have played at a 100-loss pace under general manager Ben Cherington (that includes the shortened 2020 season where they were on a 100-loss pace).
The Chicago White Sox, fresh off a season where they set a new record for futility by losing 121 regular season games, were blown out by the Kansas City Royals, 10-0, to fall to 10-28. They are not only on pace to lose 100 games for the third consecutive season, they are on pace to lose 120 games for the second year in a row and could challenge their own single season loss record just one year later.
Then there are the Colorado Rockies who were swept in a doubleheader by the Detroit Tigers by a combined score of 21-3 (11-1 in Game 1; 10-2 in Game 2) to drop to a staggering 6-31 on the season. That is a 136-loss pace over 162 games, which is almost impossible to believe. Even if they do not maintain that pace, they still seem on track to lose 100 games for a third consecutive season.
There is only one reason for so many teams to be this bad, for this long. It’s a lack of effort. It’s a lack of seriously trying to be a competitive Major League Baseball team.
That is not a slight on the players on these rosters and is not a way of saying the players are not trying, because they are. It’s just that they are not good enough to compete and are outmanned on a nightly basis against better, superior teams.
The lack of effort is coming from ownership in the form of money spent and resources, and the management teams for not putting better products on the field.
It’s difficult to lose 100 games in a season. It takes a lot of things going wrong at the same time to produce that sort of failure. To have this many teams losing 100 games this often is a black eye on baseball, and these owners should be facing more heat for being bad for baseball than the owners that spend every dollar possible to try and win.
With the expanded playoff field it is easier to make the playoffs now than ever before. You can compete for a playoff spot and get in with 84-86 wins. It doesn’t take that much spending and creativity to build a team capable of that. But every year there are at least three or four teams that are not even attempting to make a meaningful effort to get there.
These teams are the worst and most consistent offenders.
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