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Worst Teams in Expansion Era: Where Might the 2021 Diamondbacks Rank?

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

[I promise I will be getting back to the much more fun/encouraging/nostalgic memorabilia series soon.]

In the expansion era of major league baseball (1961-present), ten teams have lost 110 or more games. At the moment, it would take some improvement for the Diamondbacks to lose only 110 games (even if they achieved their pythagorean winning percentage from here on out, that would give them a finish of 53-109.) So while it's not out of the question that they avoid becoming the eleventh to lose 110 games, it is certainly possible.

On a subjective scale of disappointment levels, how might the Diamondbacks stack up against those other ten teams, if in fact they do lose 110 games (or, horrifyingly, join the 1962 Mets as the only expansion era teams to lose 120 games)?

Here is a list of the teams in question, with a brief season summary and calculation of how disappointing it might be.

1962 New York Mets (40-120)

How bad were the Mets? They only avoid being on this list four times thanks to losing only 109 games in 1964. They were bad, and they were bad for a long time. But they were an expansion team. There was no shortage of big names on the 1962 Mets, but they were either well past their prime or famous for what they did later on as managers or coaches. Some of those names include Frank Thomas (not the Big Hurt, but the other one) who was their best hitter, Richie Ashburn, Gil Hodges, Don Zimmer, and Roger Craig, who was their best pitcher. Plus, they were managed by Casey Stengel. In addition, they had the wonderfully named Vinegar Bend Mizell and Choo-Choo Coleman. Seventeen-year-old Ed Kranepool also made six plate appearances; he would be the only member of this team still with the club in 1969.

Needless to say, the on-field product wasn't a success (although they still finished six of ten teams in attendance, despite playing at the decrepit Polo Grounds.) Thomas and Ashburn were the only hitters with over 300 plate appearances who were above-average, and no pitcher with a decent number of appearances was above-average. Craig and Al Jackson both lost 20 games (with Craig, at 10-24, the only pitcher to post double-digit wins) and Jay Hook lost 19.

But really, how disappointing was this? National League baseball was back in New York, which meant fans got to go see Willie Mays again. The team wasn't supposed to be good.

1963 New York Mets (51-111)

Add Duke Snider to the list of famous names, and deduct Ashburn. The results were improved, and the team drew over a million fans to finish fourth in attendance, despite still playing at the Polo Grounds. Carl Willey posted an ERA+ of 112. Only Craig lost 20 games. They won 11 more games than in 1962. It was progress, but probably not as much as was hoped for. Still, though, this team wasn't supposed to be good.

1965 New York Mets (50-112)

The aging veterans were mostly gone by this point, although Yogi Berra made a few plate appearances and Warren Spahn started 19 games. But the youth movement was in full swing, with Kranepool being joined by Ron Swoboda, Cleon Jones, Bud Harrelson, and Tug McGraw, all of whom would play key roles on the 1969 team. Stengel broke his hip in July and retired. While fans were reportedly getting frustrated with the losing, the Mets still drew over 1.7 million, third in the National League.

The growing pains of the early Mets years were probably necessary for the building of a successful team in the future. And the young core that was acquired and developed during this time won a championship and a pennant. It's probably never fun to be a fan of a team that loses 110 games, but it would be hard to characterize the Mets, in retrospect, as a disappointment.

1969 San Diego Padres (52-110)

Another expansion team that struggled in the early going, as almost every expansion team (with the notable exception of the Angels) did. In retrospect, Joe Niekro is probably the biggest name on the team, although at the time, Johnny Podres would have been the bigger star. Chris Cannizzaro was the regular catcher, as he had been for the 1965 Mets.

Expansion teams are supposed to be bad. The best you can expect is not to be historically bad, and the Padres avoided that. Sure, it would be 1975 before they finished out of last place, but this was the only time they'd lose 110 games, so it's hard to characterize this as a disappointment.

1969 Montreal Expos (52-110)

For the first (and only) time, two teams lost 110 games in the same season. Yet again, the Expos were an expansion team, and they can't be considered a disappointment, both for that reason and because they were Canada's first MLB team. Also, they featured plenty of offensive talent, including Rusty Staub, Mack Jones, and Ron Fairly. If they had been better at pitching, they would have had a better time.

Plus, the Expos would steadily improve until, in the early 80s, they were one of the better teams in the NL, although they only made the postseason once before moving to Washington.

2003 Detroit Tigers (43-119)

It took over thirty years, but a team finally lost 110 games again, and made a serious run at breaking the Mets' modern era record. They had to win five of their last six games to avoid equaling the record, including an 8 run comeback in the penultimate game, in which Fernando Rodney was the winning pitcher.

The Tigers were supposed to be bad, as they had lost 107 games the previous year and hadn't gotten better. But Dave Dombrowski, architect of the Marlins team that won it all in 1997, had taken over and was starting the team on the path to relevance. A lot of players on this team would be around in 2006 to win the pennant, and they used the #2 pick in the draft (#1 was still alternating leagues in 2004) to pick future Hall-of-Famer Justin Verlander. This classifies as a disappointment.

2004 Arizona Diamondbacks (51-111)

Oof. You knew this was coming.

The Diamondbacks became the first team ever to lose 110 or more games after posting a winning season. Five consecutive winning seasons came to a halt in dramatic fashion with 111 losses, and the first mid-season managerial firing.

As with this season, it didn't start too badly, with winning the opening series and standing at 12-14 after May 5. But after Richie Sexson got hurt and the "Baby Backs" didn't live up to the promise they had shown in 2003, it was a disaster from that point on, with the lone bright spot being Randy Johnson's perfect game. The low point of the season was a 14 game losing streak, which is doubly impressive considering that Johnson was a part of that team.

Johnson had one of his greatest seasons ever, managing to win 16 games while posting an 0.900 WHIP and returning from injury to lead the league in games started, strikeouts, ERA+, FIP, WHIP, and hits per 9 innings. He was robbed by Cy Young voters, who gave the award to Roger Clemens. Oh, and he was 40, and presumably not juicing, unlike Clemens.

Extremely disappointing? Yes. But it had some redeeming moments, and an all-time great performance from an all-time great player.

2013 Houston Astros (51-111)

It took until the tank-to-win idea came along in the 2010s for another team to lose 110 games. The Astros (who had never lost even 100 games prior to 2011) finally pulled off the feat in their third year of not trying to win. It shows how difficult it is to lose that many games that a team that was trying to lose as many games as possible still only managed it once.

They were bad, but stars like Jose Altuve and Dallas Keuchel were in-house, with more reinforcements on the way. And they were supposed to be bad, stockpiling high draft picks that they had already turned into George Springer and Carlos Correa. They drafted Brady Aiken with the pick they earned with their futility in 2013, but after he did not sign, they chose Alex Bregman with the compensation pick the following year.

Can it really count as disappointing when a team is built to be bad? Especially since the Astros won it all in 2017 and another pennant in 2019 (cheating all the while?)

2018 Baltimore Orioles (47-115)

Looking up and down their roster, it's really mindboggling how the Orioles could have been this bad. They had talent (granted, a lot of it was traded by the deadline) such as Adam Jones, Manny Machado, Jonathan Schoop, Trey Mancini, Mark Trumbo, and pitchers included Andrew Cashner, Alex Cobb, Dylan Bundy, and Kevin Gausman. Yes, there were weaknesses on their roster, but those names are at least as talented (and probably more talented) than what the Diamondbacks have put on the field this year. Yes, they played in a tough division, but that's not enough excuse.

Plus, they were just two years removed from being in the postseason. It was a dramatic fall. Attendance cratered all the way to 14th in the American League. This was a team that probably should have won 65-70 games, and instead finished with the third-worst record of the expansion era. Quite possibly, this was the worst performance by a team that should have at least been respectable in baseball history.

2019 Detroit Tigers (48-114)

The Tigers were another team trying to be bad, in the process of tearing everything down to rebuild. It's too early to tell how it worked, but they did get Spencer Torkelson out of the deal. They also have a good core of young pitching who might be the basis of the next good team in Detroit. However, they did become the first (and so far only) non-expansion team to lose 110 games in multiple seasons. Ouch.

Still, this wasn't a giant failure of expectations.

Where would the Diamondbacks rank?

If the Diamondbacks do lose 110 games (and given that they will trade away a lot of players, I think it's probable that they do) it would classify as a major disappointment. Ownership and the front office were trying to contend, although reasonable expectations were closer to 70 wins. Still, with the exception of the 2004 Diamondbacks and 2018 Orioles, every team on this list started the season either as an expansion team just building up, or as a team in the process of rebuilding.

So far, I'd rate the 2018 Orioles as the most disappointing team on this list, but the 2021 Diamondbacks would be right up there. The 2004 Diamondbacks get a bit of a pass, because the rules governing expansion teams made it a bit harder to build through the draft, and the initial success of the franchise made it even harder. Plus, they had Randy Johnson. The 2021 Diamondbacks have little to recommend them.

But there is a bright side. Mock drafts currently indicate Kumar Rocker is likely to fall to the Diamondbacks, although the people writing those drafts think he won't be the pick. He should be, because the Diamondbacks will likely have the chance to draft Elijah Greene in 2022. The 2021 draft is also deep enough to get value for several rounds. If the front office makes the decision to move on from the current core (including Ketel Marte and possibly Zack Gallen) they can get a jump start in building a developmental pipeline to rival the Rays. If they do that, it will take away the sting of a terrible season.

If they don't (and I suspect they won't) seasons like this will become more frequent, although not the norm, because it's really hard to lose 110 games (and 15 in a row.)