It's often said that hope springs eternal around this time of year in Major League Baseball. Opening Day brings teams a clean slate and the promise of 162 games to write their own narrative after hearing everyone else's opinions all offseason long. But occasionally, that hope flickers out before the fans ever had a chance to feel it.
Though we aren't even a full series into the season yet, it has already been a disaster for several teams in MLB. Sometimes when you know you know, and for the following five teams in particular, it's already shaping up to be a long, exhausting year of futility. They can't be officially eliminated from postseason contention until late August at the absolute earliest, but why wait until then? Here are the five teams that have already managed to āeliminateā themselves just three days into the MLB regular season.
Los Angeles Angels (0-2)
Drawing the Orioles in Baltimore was a really tough first assignment for the Angels this season, but the results have still been shocking. The Angels have been outscored 24-7, racking up an 11.81 team ERA. Only Mike Trout himself has homered, and worst of all, the team morale is in the dumpster already. Heads are hanging, shoulders are slumping and Ron Washington is trying everything in his power to keep a calm demeanor as his team is getting shellacked.
We've known this Angels team was going to struggle getting quality starts from its pitchers, but the hope was that perhaps a young, dynamic lineup could rejuvenate the franchise and keep things interesting in 2024 even without Shohei Ohtani. But based on early results, those young hitters could put up 10 runs a game and the Angels would still be sub-.500. And given that the team hasn't drafted and developed a reliable starting pitcher since Jered Weaver in 2004, there isn't too much hope for help in the pipeline, either.
Oakland Athletics (0-3)
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ā Moneyball Memes š°ā¾ļø (@MoneyballMemes) March 31, 2024
āThere are good teams and there are bad teams. Then there's fifty feet of crap. And then there's us.ā ā Billy Beane in Moneyball 2 (coming June 2027)
There isn't much else to say here. The Athletics were never trying to be good this season, much like last season and the one before that. They've also given no indication they plan on being good in any of the seasons to come, even as they try to build themselves a shiny (but tiny) stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. Good on each and every fan who has shown up to the Coliseum this year to cheer on the team they love in spite of all the circumstances surrounding the franchise, but you can hardly blame the ones who have instead chosen to stay home.
Colorado Rockies (1-2)
Hey, the Rockies are the only MLB team on this list with a win! That will help with team morale for a couple days, but this team entered the season with less optimism than pretty much everyone but the A's. Giving up a Diamondbacks franchise record 14 runs in a single inning on Opening Night was more than enough to prove that these Rox are exactly who we thought they were.
They'll hit some days, sure, especially at Coors Field. The issue, though, is MLB-caliber pitching. They simply don't have any. Kyle Freeland might have qualified in past years, but he was the primary culprit in that D-Backs explosion. It's not a āwait 'til next yearā for Colorado, it's a āwait 'til we figure out how to get our stadium closer to sea level so people will want to pitch for us.ā
Until then, it's likely the Rockies will continue to fall on lists like these.
Miami Marlins (0-3)
Including the Marlins might seem harsh ā after all, they made the playoffs last season! There are winless teams who did not make it to October who didn't find themselves mentioned here, so what's the rub with Miami? In short, it's just a regression to the mean that anyone who was looking under the hood of that āplayoffā season could see coming.
The Marlins were incredible in one-run games last season with a 33-14 mark, the best in franchise history. Their bullpen performed above its capabilities and has already come tumbling back to earth. One member of that bullpen, A.J. Puk, was shoehorned into the starting rotation and opened up his campaign with a six-walk, more-ball-than-strikes disaster on Friday night.
Meanwhile, Miami already had one of the worst offenses in baseball, let Jorge Soler walk in free agency, did nothing to replace him and are now reaping the rewards of their inaction. The Marlins have been worked over in three games by the Pittsburgh Pirates, who look like World Series contenders by comparison. The momentum of last season is going to be completely wasted in this team's attempt to build a low-budget contender.
Chicago White Sox (0-2)
In the first game of the 2024 MLB season, the White Sox failed to get an extra-base hit. In Game 2, the White Sox coughed up a 6-3 lead to lose in extras. And as an insult to injury, the Tigers debuted a hilarious pizza-on-a-stick home run celebration right in their faces.
If you took Luis Robert Jr. off this team, they'd struggle to compete in a local Chicago rec league. The lineup is full of once-promising hitters who have turned into grouchy underachievers and the pitching staff is full of ā¦ not much. It's going to be a long, painful rebuild for new GM Chris Getz, and it couldn't be off to a much worse start. More so than perhaps any other team on this list, the Sox will be hearing the boos at Guaranteed Rate Field all summer long.
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