2024's Worst Teams
Just how bad were they?
2024's Worst Teams
First of all — those of you who are paid subscribers will be happy to know that I’ve updated the Domination Index spreadsheets with 2024 stats. You can find them in the Members Area:
Now that we have that information, we can put the 2024 Chicago White Sox into the proper historical context.
The truth is that the 2024 White Sox were simply awful. In fact, they were so bad that I made an entire video devoted just to them:
Actually, it looks even worse when you check out the Domination Index:
The -4.252 rating means that they were a little bit over 4 standard deviations away from league average. That’s not just bad — that’s significantly bad. There really isn’t much to separate them from those horrible Philadelphia Athletics teams of days gone by.
A few notes on the White Sox:
The White Sox had a deadball era offense in the live ball era. Their .221 team batting average was 22 points behind league average, but their .278 on base percentage was even worse. .278 is a lower on base percentage than any 1908 American League team.
The White Sox couldn’t draw walks. The average team in 2024 drew 498 walks. Chicago only drew 395, easily the worst in the majors.
The White Sox walked a ton of hitters. Chicago gave up an incredible 4.1 walks per 9 innings, which is like something out of the 1949 American League.
In other words — the White Sox hit like it was 1908, but walked batters like it was 1949. That’s a lethal combination.
The really crazy thing, though, is that the White Sox weren’t the only awful 2024 team.
History will forget about the 2024 Colorado Rockies, who were also abysmally bad.
That’s right. The 2024 Colorado Rockies were one of the 25 worst teams in the entire history of the National League, going back to 1893.
The -3.333 Domination Index ranking isn’t quite as horrible as the White Sox, but it’s still really bad. We haven’t seen a National League team this bad since the 2018 Miami Marlins. The Rockies are up there with the Pirates teams of the mid-1950s, and really weren’t that far away from the 1962 and 1963 New York Mets.
A few notes on the Rockies:
The ballpark hurt their team a lot. Apparently the humidifier no longer keeps the bats in check. Though the Rockies had a respectable .400 slugging percentage, their OPS+ (which is adjusted for park factors) was a horrendous 89. It wasn’t quite as bad as the 77 that the White Sox put up, but it was still pretty awful.
They struck out like crazy. Striking out a lot isn’t bad if you’re hitting for power, like the Seattle Mariners did. When you’ve got an OPS+ of 89, however, striking out over 1600 times isn’t doing you any favors.
They gave up runs like it was going out of style. Colorado’s team ERA was 5.47. This isn’t the worst ERA figure of all time, but it’s pushing the envelope. The league ERA was 4.07, and no other team had an ERA of over 5.
They gave up 10 hits per game. The league average in 2024 was a little over 8. In other words — the Rockies pitched like it was 1998, but hit like it was 1968.
Keep the 2024 Chicago White Sox and Colorado Rockies in mind when you do your next worst teams project.