The Oakland Athletics are on pace to make some truly bad history

Something historic is happening in Oakland. Historically bad, that is.

The Oakland A’s entered play Friday in Miami with a record of 12-46, a .207 winning percentage. We’re more than one-third of the way through the season, so records are approaching reliability as predictors. And if you run Oakland’s performance to date across the full 162-game schedule, what develops is a record of 34-128.

Do you know how far back into baseball history you have to reach to run into a team with a .207 winning percentage across a full season? We’ll get to the answer momentarily, but first a few transitional steps.

• The last team to finish a full season with fewer than 50 victories was the 2019 Detroit Tigers (47-114, .292). To finish with a better record than the 2019 Tigers, the 2023 Athletics will have to play .337 ball from Friday through season’s end. That doesn’t sound like much, but it would represent a 130 percentage point upgrade on what they’ve done to date.
• No team has won fewer than 45 games since the 2003 Tigers. To beat their record, the A’s will have to play .317 ball. For the record, 58 games into their 2003 disaster, the Tigers had won 16 games, four more than the A’s have won.
• The last team to win 40 or fewer games was the 1962 expansion New York Mets (40-120). To get to 40 wins, the A’s must play .269 ball. Again, that doesn’t sound very tough until you consider their current .207 pace. Like the 2003 Tigers, the 1962 Mets were 16-42 at 58 games, meaning they would lead the 2023 A’s by four games.
• No team has won fewer than 40  games since the 1935 Boston Braves, who finished 38-115 for a .248 winning percentage. To beat that percentage, Oakland must finish with 28 victories in their final 104 games. And because the 1935 Braves only played 153 games, that works out to a .269 closing percentage. The Braves, too, had a better record (18-40) through 58 games than the 2023 Athletics.
• The worst major league record since 1901 was the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, who compiled a record of 36-117, a .235 percentage. To finish better than .235 this season, the A’s must play .260 ball to season’s end. That’s certainly plausible, but it would represent an upgrade from their pace to date. Again, it may be  worth noting that as bad as those Athletics were, at 17-41 through 58 games they were five games better than these Athletics.

Here’s how bad the Oakland A’s have been so far in 2023

Back to our original question … how far back in baseball history do you have to travel to find a team that performed worse over a full season than the A’s are on pace to do? The answer is 124 years, to 1899.

That was the year the Cleveland Spiders produced the most futile season in the game’s history, winning 20 times against 134 defeats. That’s a .130 winning percentage. And because I know you are wondering, no, the 1899 Spiders did not have a better record at 58 games than the 2023 A’s. Those Spiders were 11-47, meaning that in a hypothetical two-team race the 2023 Athletics would lead the 1899 Spiders by one game.

Since the first currently recognized major league was formed in 1876, only two other teams have produced worse seasons than Oakland is on pace to experience. The 1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenys went 23-113 for a .169 percentage, and the 1889 Louisville Colonels were 27-111, .196.

There’s an interesting footnote to the Colonels’ 1889 season. One year later, with a restructured team, they won 88 games and the 1890 pennant.

So in theory, anyway, there’s hope for the Athletics, if not this season then next. Of course, the 1899 Spiders might turn out to be the closer parallel. Following their 20-134 1899 season, they were disbanded.