List of worst MLB season records

Listed below are the Major League Baseball teams with the worst season won-lost records, as determined by winning percentage (.300 or less), minimum 140 games played.

Notable

1898 St. Louis Browns and 1899 Cleveland Spiders

The 1899 Cleveland Spiders own the worst single-season record of all time and for all eras (with one exception) finishing at 20-134 (.130 percentage) in the final year of the National League's 12-team era in the 1890s. The only team to do worse, the 1884 Wilmington Quicksteps of the Union Association, played only 18 games, compiling a 2-16 record and a .111 winning percentage.

With shorter schedules during much of the 19th century, there was less of an "evening out" effect that accrues over a season of 154 or 162 games, so 19th century baseball features both the best and the worst percentages of all time. It was much more common for teams to finish with sub-.300 winning percentages. Those teams are not listed because they played shorter schedules. For example, the 1876 Cincinnati Reds (not the same franchise as the modern-day Reds) went 9-56 for a .138 percentage. By 1899 the National League was playing the standard 154 game schedule.

The Cleveland Spiders had had a fair amount of success in the 1890s, with seven straight winning seasons 1892-98 and a Temple Cup victory in 1895. Meanwhile, the once four-time American Association champion St. Louis Browns had fallen to a then-all-time low of 39-111 in 1898. But Spiders ownership (the Robison brothers) bought the Browns in time for the 1899 season, creating an obvious conflict-of-interest situation which was later outlawed. On the eve of the season they traded almost all of Cleveland's good players to St. Louis for very little in return, with respectable results for St. Louis and disastrous results for Cleveland.

The 1899 Spiders set the major league record for most consecutive losses in a season (24, from July 26 to September 16), most losses in a month (27 losses in July), had 6 double digit losing streaks, and lost 40 of their last 41 games. They also finished 84 games behind the 1899 National League champion Brooklyn Dodgers. The 1899 Browns, renamed the "Perfectos" and staffed with all the best players from the 1898 Spiders—six of the Spiders' eight starting position players and four starting pitchers, including the great Cy Young—would improve by a whopping 44½ games, from 39-111 to 84-67. However, all St. Louis did ultimately was to trade places with Cleveland in the standings. The Browns/Perfectos would be renamed the St. Louis Cardinals in 1900, and are unrelated to the American League St. Louis Browns that adopted the discarded nickname and also appear on this list.

After the 1899 season the National League contracted from twelve to eight clubs, and the Spiders were one of four teams to fold, along with Baltimore, Louisville and Washington. Baltimore had also been stripped of its best players by Brooklyn in 1899, to somewhat less dramatic effect but still enough to speed their demise. The American League soon arose to fill the void.

Philadelphia clubs

Of the 23 teams on this list, nine played in the city of Philadelphia.

The Phillies, responsible for six of the teams on the list above, have an all-time winning percentage of .469 (through 2007, dating back to 1883), which ranks last among the "Classic Sixteen" pre-expansion franchises. They suffered their 10,000th franchise loss on July 15, 2007, several hundred more than the Chicago Cubs, despite being seven years younger as a franchise. The 1938 club abandoned their ballpark, Baker Bowl, which had become as much of a joke as the team had, and leased Shibe Park from the Athletics in mid-season. Prior to the arrival of the expansion New York Mets in 1962, the Phillies were generally regarded as the dregs of the league (and the team that kept the by-then inept Cubs out of last place). A cartoon in a 1962 baseball magazine showed a baseball player applying to the French Foreign Legion, with the caption, "I was released by the Phillies."

The Philadelphia Athletics were a baseball power in the early days of the 20th century, winning six pennants and three World Series between 1902 and 1914. But after the A's lost the 1914 World Series to the "Miracle" Boston Braves and several players left to join the new Federal League, owner-manager Connie Mack tore down the team. In two seasons, the A's went from pennant-winners to one of the worst teams of the modern era, rivaled in ineptitude only by the 1962 New York Mets and the 2003 Detroit Tigers. The 1916 A's finished forty games behind the "next-to-last" team in the AL that year, the Senators. Washington was 76-77 and every other team in the American League had a winning record. Napoleon Lajoie finished his career with the 1916 A's. The A's would rebuild into another powerhouse, winning three consecutive pennants during 1929-30-31 and the World Series in 1929-30. Then Mack dismantled the team again, and it was the late 1960s before the franchise would revive, out in Oakland, California.

Other teams

The 1935 Boston Braves featured Rabbit Maranville (age 43) and Babe Ruth. Braves owner Emil Fuchs had promised Ruth an ownership stake in the Braves and a chance to manage the club in the near future, but had little intention of delivering either. Ruth retired on June 1, 1935, having hit .181 in 72 at-bats for the Braves, with six home runs (the last three all coming on the same day, May 25, 1935, at Pittsburgh). The Braves had won the league pennant and World Series in 1914, but had fallen into mediocrity and hit bottom in 1935. The Braves would win the league pennant again, 13 years later.

The 1962 New York Mets were an expansion team created to fill the void caused when the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers left New York City after the 1957 season. The Mets, filled with castoffs like "Marvelous" Marv Throneberry as well as Richie Ashburn and low-talent rookies such as Choo Choo Coleman, finished with the third-worst winning percentage in the modern era and the modern-era (1900-present) record and the Major League record for expansion teams for most losses. The Mets went on to finish last or next-to-last for seven years in a row, before they shocked the baseball world by winning the 1969 World Series.

The 2003 Tigers seemed like a sure bet to break the 1962 Mets' record for most losses when they stood at 38-118 after 156 games, but they won five of their last six to avoid ignominy. On September 27, in their next-to-last game, the Tigers came back from an 8-0 deficit to beat the Minnesota Twins 9-8. [ [http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET200309270.shtml September 27, 2003 Minnesota Twins at Detroit Tigers Box Score and Play by Play - Baseball-Reference.com ] ] When the Tigers won the season finale to avoid tying the record, they received a standing ovation from the crowd. Mike Maroth, a starting pitcher for the 2003 Detroit Tigers, went 9-21 and became the first pitcher to lose 20 games in a season since Brian Kingman dropped 20 games for the 1982 Oakland Athletics. [ [http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/20gameLosers.shtml Pitchers with 20 or More Losses - Baseball-Reference.com ] ] Ramón Santiago of the Tigers became only the 12th Triple Crown loser (a person who finishes last in all of the three Triple Crown categories) in modern MLB history.

Three years after losing 119 games, the Detroit Tigers went 95-67 and won their tenth American League pennant before losing the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. Players common to the 2003 and 2006 Tigers teams included Brandon Inge, Ramón Santiago (who spent 2004 and 2005 with the Seattle Mariners), Craig Monroe, Dmitri Young (released in September 2006), Omar Infante, Mike Maroth, Jeremy Bonderman, Nate Robertson, Jamie Walker, Wilfredo Ledezma, and Fernando Rodney.

Changes of scenery

Several franchises on this list wound up relocating to new cities and becoming successful clubs.
*The (original) Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins and have won eight division titles, three league pennants, and two World Series championships in their new home. (However, the second incarnation of the Senators, upon relocating to the DFW Metroplex in 1972 and becoming the Texas Rangers, have only three division titles and one playoff win.)
*The Browns, whose only postseason appearance in a half-century in St. Louis was a loss in the 1944 World Series to their same-ballpark rivals the Cardinals, became the Baltimore Orioles, and have won six league pennants and three World Series championships in Baltimore.
*The Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City where they served as an unofficial "farm club" for the New York Yankees in the closest modern equivalent to the 1898-1899 situation. The team then moved to Oakland under new ownership, where they have won six league pennants and four World Series championships.
*The Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee, where they had meteoric success with two pennants and one World Series win; and later to Atlanta, where they have enjoyed many divisional championships, several league pennants and one World Series championship during the 50-plus years since they left Boston.

Table of worst teams

NL=National League, AL=American League

ee also

*List of best MLB season records

References and further reading

* Statistics and game logs at [http://www.baseball-reference.com/ Baseball Reference]
* "The 1899 Cleveland Spiders: Baseball's Worst Team", [http://www.wcnet.org/~dlfleitz/cleve.htm article] by David Fleitz
* "Nothing worse than the 1899 Cleveland Spiders", ESPN [http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/neyer_rob/1507733.html article] by Rob Neyer. Neyer's ten worst teams of all time.
* [http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/excerpts/baseball_dynasties5.stm Excerpt] from Chapter 8 of Neyer and Epstein's "Baseball Dynasties", "The Worst Teams of All Time"
*Neyer, Rob, and Eddie Epstein. "Baseball Dynasties: The Greatest Teams of All Time". Norton, 2000, 384 p.
*"On a Clear Day They Could See Seventh Place: Baseball's Worst Teams", by George Robinson. Profiles of several of the teams on this list.
*"MISFITS! Baseball's Worst Ever Team", by J. Thomas Hetrick. About the 1899 Spiders.