As a fan, there's nothing worse than trying to work up enthusiasm for a team that has nothing going for it. Baseball, by nature of being an everyday sport, has some of the most dedicated fans in all of sport. Even if a team isn't expected to be good, a diehard baseball fan can find a young star or a rejuvenated veteran trying to stage a comeback as a guy worth rooting for. So when a team is flat-out awful to watch, it really kills the mood of the season.
Today, we're going to talk about just that–the teams that are already killing the mood despite only being 20 games into the young Major League Baseball season. This is not a list of the five worst teams in MLB. This factors in expectations, the different ways in which teams are disappointing, and whether or not they give their fans any reason to tune in even if they are, in fact, losing.
Therefore, regardless of whether it's because they've failed to deliver on expectations or have played flat-out ugly baseball, we proudly present the five teams that have been the absolute worst viewing experiences of 2024 so far.
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox were the impetus behind writing this entire article. They aren't “bad,” per se, though they certainly project to be the worst team in the American League East based on the state of their roster. But if you turn on the television hoping for the Red Sox to win a game, you're going to be immensely frustrated for a plethora of reasons.
Bad hitting and bad pitching are both unpalatable as fans, but they're also both understandable. Big-league ballplayers are really good at their jobs, so hitting a 99-mph fastball or trying to strike out Mike Trout are both going to be tough tasks. But when a team can't field a simple ground ball or step on second base to complete a double play, it makes you want to tear your hair out.
The Red Sox have made 20 errors and allowed 26 unearned runs in their 20 games, both comfortably the worst in the league. They got swept by the Baltimore Orioles in a three-game set that saw them make five total errors and lose the third game in large part because a would-be double play ball where shortstop David Hamilton flat-out missed second base while making the turn was quickly followed up by a two-run home run.
So it's the defense that's killing Red Sox fans, but it's also the injuries, the elevated strikeout rates, and the fact that the team has wasted a 7-3 start and now sit at 10-10 in spite of, remarkably, the best team ERA in the sport. The Red Sox fan base is smart; it knows the team hasn't been willing to spend the money to improve the roster in recent years and it feels like a summer that could result in mutiny at Fenway Park.
Miami Marlins
This past offseason has proven to be a total catastrophe for the Miami Marlins. Coming off a year where the team miraculously made a playoff appearance in spite of a subpar offense, every Marlins fan had to be screaming for the front office to add some big bats. Instead they lost their biggest power bat for nothing in free agency and decided to hire Peter Bendix to try and recreate the Tampa Bay Rays, an exercise that has proven futile for every organization that isn't the Rays.
A lot of this is due to bad luck as well, because the Marlins have suffered a half-dozen starting pitching injuries, including their two most electric arms in Sandy Alcantara and Eury Perez. But the Fish are now 28th in team ERA and 29th in team OPS, making them one of the bottom three teams in the league on both sides of the ball. And for a team that was in the playoffs less than seven months ago, that's a precipitous decline.
What makes it extra frustrating, though, is that every smart Marlins fan saw something like this on the horizon. Maybe they didn't predict the team would be 4-15 and losers of their first six series of the season, but they knew the team's refusal to capitalize on the momentum of last season and supplement a roster with a lot of obvious gaps would lead to a setback. And this start to the season has been the ultimate setback for Miami–one that could take years to reverse if the team continues bottoming out.
Minnesota Twins
Much like the aforementioned Marlins, the Minnesota Twins found themselves in a rare position at the end of last season: in the good graces of their fans. They had not only made the playoffs, but won their first postseason series in 19 years, even taking a game from the Houston Astros in the ALDS before eventually losing in four games. So what to do with all this positive momentum? It was a perfect time to…cut their payroll (which was virtually the same strategy the Marlins and Red Sox employed over the offseason too; are you sensing a trend here?)
Yes, thanks to uncertainty surrounding the team's TV deal with failing Diamond Sports Group, the Twins, through proxy of general manager Derek Falvey, basically came right out and announced they were going to have a reduced payroll at the Winter Meetings in November, less than a month after the high of their playoff runs.
Now, the 2024 Twins have taken to the field and it's like last season never even happened. They're 6-11, third-worst in the American League, just got embarrassed in three straight games by the Orioles, and have already lost stars Royce Lewis and Carlos Correa to the injured list. Plus, they can't get a hit with runners in scoring position and are getting unlucky to boot, with an MLB-worst .249 BABIP.
Basically, the bad vibes created early in the offseason have translated into a bad start, and it doesn't look like positive momentum is going to start building anytime soon. For Twins fans, that equates to a dark mood when turning on the TV to watch their team, favored to win the division at the start of the season, lay an egg on the field.
Chicago White Sox
If there's one job nobody envies, it's the social media manager who has to tweet out the lineup graphic for a team whose lineup absolutely reeks. And the 2024 Chicago White Sox are assembling some of the worst lineups ever concocted right now.
It was already a year where the Southsiders knew they were likely headed towards a full rebuild, but injuries to Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert Jr. have sapped the soul out of this team. Now they're just rolling out lineups full of downtrodden players who feel like they have no chance to win every day, and they are getting their tails handed to them by the opposition.
Just scroll through the replies on any of their starting lineup tweets. It's full of fans saying “I can't watch this” or “I used to watch all the games and this team has broken me.” Pretty on-the-nose for this exercise. And to top it off, beloved announcer Jason Benetti left the organization in the offseason to take a job with the division rival Detroit Tigers. Nobody is enjoying broadcasts of White Sox baseball this season, and they are quickly gaining on the Red Sox as the most unwatchable team in the league.
Colorado Rockies
It was down to the Colorado Rockies, Oakland Athletics, and Houston Astros for this final spot. And the rationale was this: the Athletics may be actively pulling their team out of the city they play in, but they're kind of a sneaky-fun watch right now. The Astros, meanwhile, have been putrid, but they've still got a roster full of players that are battle-tested and even if this is a down year, the fans trust that the guys in their clubhouse are trying everything they can to turn this around.
So that just leaves the Rockies, who are playing for absolutely nothing, the worst team by far in one of the most stacked divisions in recent baseball memory. There are a couple young position players to get excited about and a couple promising prospects in the pipeline, but absolutely no pitching to speak of. And this is Coors Field we're talking about, which means it's going to be almost impossible to convince free agent pitchers to ever sign to play for this team as long as they aren't doing much winning.
It feels like the organization has no direction other than “we've got a cool ballpark downtown and we can make money on vibes no matter how bad the team is,” which doesn't make a fan particularly excited to watch the games when they aren't at the ballpark. It's one thing to suffer through losing seasons, but it's doubly frustrating when it feels like there's no end goal in sight.
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