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Saying that the Rockies have taken up all the oxygen in the room when it comes to 2025’s losing teams is probably pushing things a little far, but it is, at least, fair to say that they’re at the center of that particular attention economy. How could they not be, considering that, heading into Tuesday’s action against the Cubs, they’re sitting at 9-45, the worst-ever modern (i.e. 1901 and beyond) start through 54 games of an MLB season? Given that the 2024 White Sox set the modern loss record with 121 defeats, and Colorado is currently on pace for 135 of them?
There’s something else to keep an eye on this summer, however, besides just how historically ineffective the Rockies will be. There have never been five 100-loss teams in a single MLB season. There have been four teams dropping 100 on a number of occasions now — the first in 2002, again in 2019, then in both 2021 and 2022. (The 2022 season also featured the Rockies dropping 94 and the Royals losing 97 — things could have been even worse than they were.)
We’ve had discussions on why this is a few times in the past, but the short version is that far too many teams aren’t putting in the effort they should be — hence the significant number of 100-plus-win teams on the opposite side of the spectrum, there are a lot of bottom feeders to fatten up on — and when you throw in how in MLB, you often have to deal with a pretty high “shit happens” quotient, well. You get historically bad teams and historically bad groupings of teams as kind of the norm.
Breaking things down a bit, from 1904 through 1993, there were 38 instances of at least two 100-loss teams, and eight of those seasons included three such clubs. Since 2001 — the next season that qualified post-’93 — there have been 14 instances of at least two 100-loss teams out of 24 possible seasons (2020 is excluded from this given the pandemic-shortened campaign). In 2023 and 2024, we didn’t have four 100-loss teams, but there were three each time, which had only happened nine times before in MLB’s century-plus history, and the Angels were just one defeat short of making it an even four, too. For round-number purposes, 99 is a lot different than 100, but for the greater point here? They’re the same number.
Part of this is more teams in the present than there used to be, yes, but things have escalated since 2018, and balancing the schedule doesn’t seem to have slowed things down: the White Sox set the modern loss record with a balanced schedule in play, for instance, and again, the Angels were one defeat shy of giving us another season of four 100-loss clubs. The 2025 season is just about two months in, but we’re seeing similar now — and possibly worse.
The Rockies are on pace for 135 losses, as said. The White Sox are on pace for 111 losses — not as terrible as 2024, no, but we’re still talking about ending up tied for the 12th-most losses ever if that holds. (Or 13th, if the Rockies just doing whatever it is they’re doing — they’ll push everyone back one, after all.) The Pirates are on pace for 106 losses. The Orioles are aiming at 104.
Then you’ve got the Marlins — on pace for 97 losses, but not far enough away from their earlier 100-plus pace to not mention them here — as well as the Athletics, who are on pace for 93 losses, but also just lost 11 games in a row before snapping that streak on Sunday. They certainly qualify as a team that could put up another horrid streak and make things much worse. Especially likely since Sutter Health Park hasn’t even become the midsummer hitter’s haven it’s supposed to be as temperatures shoot up in Sacramento. The A’s pitching staff is barely holding on as is, and the team is currently already on pace to have the largest difference in winning percentage ever between home and road record, due to their horrid play in the former even before we get to that particular fireworks factory.
So we’ve got four teams on pace for 100-plus losses, with one of those the most ever by a long shot, the second-worst somehow improving by 10 games from a year ago and still coming out as one of the 15 or so worst ever, and the O’s and Pirates both solid contenders for continuing to lose at their current pace, barring some sudden changes in performance. Then a pair of teams who could very well do worse than they’ve done to this point. There’s anywhere from three to a record five 100-loss teams in play here two months in. There are more months than that left in the season, so things can certainly change, but recent history tells us that at least three of these teams are doomed to repeat what seems to be a given in the game at this point.
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