Ranking the 2024 White Sox among the worst teams in MLB history

We know the 2024 Chicago White Sox were an unbelievably bad team. But did we just finish watching the worst baseball club ever assembled? Only a select few have reached the futility the White Sox achieved this year.

Let's try to put this White Sox season into perspective by finding their place among the 10 worst teams in baseball history.

10. 1952 Pittsburgh Pirates

A rebuild gone wrong resulted in Branch Rickey's 1952 Pirates, who fielded 13 rookies and seven of the eight youngest players in the NL. The inexperience was evident: they didn't get their 10th win until May 31 and were eliminated from postseason contention in the first week of August. The club couldn't compile a winning streak longer than two games and didn't win two straight over its final 43 contests. The offense, save for NL home run leader Ralph Kiner, was bad, but the pitching staff was even worse. Right-hander Murry Dickson, who lost 21 games, was the team's only hurler with over 100 strikeouts and an ERA below 3.60 (he finished at 3.57).

9. 2019 Detroit Tigers

It started great for these Tigers, who opened the season 7-3 and held first place for a few days. Then the bottom fell out, and they lost 111 of their final 151 contests. Detroit had a five-game winning streak from April 2-7 but then managed to win consecutive games just three times the rest of the way. The Tigers recorded just 10 wins over June and July.

When it was all over, Detroit finished five losses shy of the AL record and matched the fifth-worst run differential of the modern era (since 1901). The club's 59 home losses also tied the modern-era record. In a season that produced milestone home-run numbers across baseball, the Tigers hit an AL-low 149, with Brandon Dixon hitting a team-high 15 long balls. Perhaps the only solace was that Detroit played 161 games because MLB didn't reschedule a late-season rainout - possibly out of mercy.

8. 2023 Oakland Athletics

A small second-half improvement and one seven-game winning streak kept last year's A's away from 120 losses. This group matched the worst 55-game start in MLB history, won just 21 contests in the first half, and was eliminated on Aug. 23. It also endured three losing streaks of eight-plus games, including an 11-contest skid in May. Oakland dropped 15 straight road games at one point.

The team's offense stank, placing dead last in most categories. But its pitching was even worse somehow, posting a 5.48 ERA that was the worst among teams not located in Denver. No A's pitcher won more than five games, while Oakland put up the worst run differential since the Second World War and the third-worst of the modern era.

7. 1935 Boston Braves

This team is largely remembered for luring a washed Babe Ruth back to Boston to boost ticket sales. Ruth retired on June 2, 1935, after hitting just .181 with six homers. His outfield defense was so bad that some Braves pitchers threatened to strike if he played behind them.

But Ruth was merely a symptom of the team's problems. The '35 Braves spent just one day - Opening Day - above .500 en route to posting the third-lowest winning percentage of the modern era. Their 65 road losses set a modern-era record that the White Sox missed by two. Eight Braves hurlers with at least 70 innings pitched allowed more than 10 hits per nine innings, and none of them had an ERA+ above 96. Ben Cantwell also became the most recent pitcher to lose 25 games.

The Braves' Wally Berger led the NL in homers and RBIs as the only competent part of the league's worst offense, while Ruth still had the second-most homers on the team when the season ended. Shortstop Billy Urbanski had one of the worst offensive campaigns ever with minus-2.5 fWAR in 566 plate appearances. This team was so bad that it forced owner Emil Fuchs, who reneged on his financial promises to Ruth, into bankruptcy before the year ended. The new owners' first move was to distance themselves from this disaster by ditching the Braves nickname in favor of the Bees for 1936.

6. 2018 Baltimore Orioles

These flightless birds were the second team since the Second World War to finish at least 60 games out of first place and the fourth since the war with a sub-.300 winning percentage. Despite not losing 10 straight at any point, the Orioles never managed more than nine wins in a single month. Chris Davis hit .168, the worst average ever for a qualified player (minimum 502 plate appearances). He also had the 14th-worst season ever by fWAR. Manny Machado led the team in fWAR despite being traded in July. The O's were eliminated on Aug. 20, marking the earliest date a club's been knocked out of the postseason in the divisional era - a record the White Sox broke by three days.

However, this disastrous season paid off the following June when Baltimore drafted Adley Rutschman first overall. In another world, this would provide hope for the White Sox - except Chicago can't draft higher than 10th in 2025 due to revenue-sharing rules. Yikes.

5. 1962 New York Mets

An expansion team managed by an aging Casey Stengel and primarily made up of ex-Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants stars clearly past their primes - plus many other endearing characters - performed as poorly as everyone expected.

The Mets went 0-9 out of the gate, endured a 17-game losing streak a few months later, and only won three straight games twice. They finished 24 contests behind their expansion cousins, the Houston Colt .45s, who beat them 13 times. New York's staff featured two 20-game losers and four 17-game losers. Roger Craig had 10 wins - 25% of his team's victories - along with an expansion-era record 24 losses. "Can't anyone here play this game?" an exacerbated Stengel eventually cried.

Although their 120 losses stood alone as the modern record for 62 years, the Mets had the built-in excuse of being an expansion team. That's why they've never truly been considered for the title of worst ever.

4. 1916 Philadelphia Athletics

After his team was swept in the 1914 World Series, financial issues forced legendary Athletics manager-owner Connie Mack to sell off his stars. The result was the club compiling a roster in 1916 consisting of cheap and bad players who posted the lowest winning percentage of the modern era. Even the White Sox cleared this mark by 18 points.

Like this year's Sox, the 1916 A's endured three separate losing streaks of 10-plus contests. Their 20-game skid is still tied for the third longest since 1900. The Athletics' best pitcher, "Bullet" Joe Bush, threw a no-hitter and had a team-best 2.57 ERA but still lost 24 games. Future Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie, one of the best hitters of his time, endured a sad end to his career by putting up an 80 OPS+ in 455 plate appearances. Only two A's regulars had an OPS above .700. This team was downright putrid, even for the dead-ball era.

3. 2003 Detroit Tigers

The 2003 Tigers, no longer the worst team in AL history, managed to avoid 120 losses by winning five of their last six. But it was really ugly before that. Detroit matched the '62 Mets' 0-9 start en route to a 3-21 April and recorded the second-worst 30-game start in history at 5-25. Mike Maroth's 21 losses made him the first pitcher since 1980 to lose 20 games, with rotation-mates Jeremy Bonderman (19) and Nate Cornejo (17) close behind. No Tigers reliever had more than five saves, and only one pitcher - Eric Eckenstahler, who threw 15 2/3 innings - had an ERA below 3.00. Shortstop Ramon Santiago's 58 wRC+ in 507 plate appearances was the worst among qualified AL hitters.

Remarkably, Alan Trammell received a single vote for Manager of the Year after all this. We'll have to assume it was a sympathy vote.

2. 2024 Chicago White Sox

The White Sox set the modern-era loss record while finishing an astonishing 80 games below .500. They're the fourth team since 1900 to even spend one day at 80 games under, let alone finish there. They went 2-78 when trailing after six innings, 1-95 after seven, and 0-103 after eight. They tied the AL record for longest losing streak, became the first team since 1899 to have three separate 12-game losing streaks, and broke their franchise losing streak record twice. Their winning percentage was the lowest for a team that played 162 games (the '62 Mets only played 160). As of Saturday, their 74 wRC+ was tied for the second lowest since the designated hitter was introduced in 1973, and 17 of their 29 position players used this season had negative bWAR.

A good finish - they went 8-6 over the last two weeks and won five of their last six - helped limit the damage a bit, but that doesn't change the facts. The 2024 White Sox were by far the worst team in modern baseball history, and quite likely the worst that any of us will ever see - and no excuses will suffice.

1. 1899 Cleveland Spiders

Just before Opening Day 1899, Spiders owners Stanley and Frank Robison bought the St. Louis Perfectos (later Cardinals) and, in an egregious act of collusion, immediately traded all of Cleveland's stars - including future Hall of Famers Jesse Burkett, Bobby Wallace, and Cy Young - to St. Louis. The Robisons kept ownership of the Spiders but abandoned them completely, leaving Cleveland with the worst team ever assembled, regardless of era. The Cleveland Plain Dealer somehow undersold things when the newspaper ran the headline "The Farce Has Begun" following the Spiders' 10-1 Opening Day loss.

The team managed to win consecutive games only once, didn't reach 10 wins until June 25, and was the last club until this year to have three separate 12-plus game losing streaks. The Spiders' 24-game skid is still the second-longest ever. They didn't have a shutout win and went 0-14 against two of their 11 opponents. The team dropped a record 101 road games after relocating multiple home matchups when attendance cratered - they drew just 6,088 fans to League Park all year. "Ace" Jim Hughey went 4-30 with a 5.41 ERA, while fellow starter Frank Bates (1-19) issued 105 walks with 13 strikeouts. Cleveland's bats combined to hit 12 home runs - matching the season total of ex-Spiders star Wallace and 13 fewer than league leader Buck Freeman. After losing their final 16 games, the Spiders folded.

The 1899 Spiders have stood as baseball's benchmark of futility for over a century, an unmitigated disaster that's nearly impossible to duplicate. And yet, somehow, against all odds, the 2024 White Sox came perilously close. To be mentioned alongside the 1899 Spiders, even in passing, is something nobody should be proud of.

But unlike the Spiders, the White Sox will continue to exist in 2025 and beyond. In many ways, that's their biggest win of this season.