With a .296 winning percentage, the Baltimore Orioles are on pace to lose 114 games. At 38-87, the Kansas City Royals aren’t doing much better. Could their seasons make long-term MLB history for futility?</h2
These are historically terrible seasons. Only one team in the past half-century has lost 70 percent of its games, yet both the Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Royals could do that in 2018.
Baltimore would have to finish 12-25 in its final 37 games to avoid a .296 (or worse) winning percentage. That may not sound all that difficult, except that the Orioles are 37-88 for a reason. Their longest winning streak all season is four games, and they haven’t done that since May. Beyond that, they have eight losing streaks of five games or longer.
The Baltimore Orioles Pythagorean record – a calculation of what their record ought to be based on their totals of runs scored and runs allowed – is seven games better than their actual record. That means they’ve not only been bad, they’ve also been unlucky.
The final fact operating against their chances down the stretch is their trade-deadline unloading of several of the team’s stars, notably Manny Machado, Zach Britton, Jonathan Schoop, Darren O’Day, and Kevin Gausman. In place of Schoop and Machado, journeymen Jace Peterson and Jonathan Villar are holding down the middle infield while rookie Yefry Ramirez, with his 6.49 ERA, gets Gausman’s starts.
The Royals underwent less of a deadline-driven talent exodus than the Baltimore Orioles – arguably because there was less talent on hand to start with — but they did trade away third baseman Mike Moustakas, a key figure in the 2015 World Series winners. Still, they’ve won just two games more over their most recent 37 games than they need to stay above .300. Their longest win streak is just three games, and like the Orioles, you have to go back to May to find that streak.
Although the Baltimore Orioles and Royals are on pace to be considered among the historically wretched, their stench is not unprecedented. For perspective and comparison, let’s take a look at some of baseball’s historically bad teams, one per decade.