The 2024 Chicago White Sox: A Season to Forget

The 2024 Chicago White Sox didn’t just lose a lot—they lost with flair. Their 121-loss season will be talked about for decades, a moment of infamy that solidifies them as one of the worst baseball teams ever to grace the field. But how did this trainwreck unfold?

It all started with a 3-22 run to open the season. Any hope fans had for a turnaround quickly evaporated as the White Sox sank deeper into despair. What made their losses even more painful to watch was how consistently bad they were across the board. Offensively, they averaged just 3.1 runs per game, and when you’re scoring at that rate, you’re not going to win many games. The team’s OPS of .618 wasn’t just bad; it was historically awful. For context, OPS combines a player’s ability to get on base and their slugging percentage. Good teams typically have an OPS over .750—so, yeah, they were that bad.

Pitching didn’t offer much relief either. The Sox had the third-worst ERA in the league at 4.74, meaning their pitchers couldn’t stop a high school team from racking up runs. A WHIP of 1.44, which measures walks and hits per inning pitched, was a disaster waiting to happen each time their pitchers took the mound.

Despite the horrific performance, over 18,000 fans still turned up per game, which is a testament either to their loyalty or their love of punishment. The team may have set a record for losses, but they also set a standard for how to turn a fan base into a bunch of cynical skeptics.

2017 Cleveland Browns: Rock Bottom Football

The Cleveland Browns are no strangers to being terrible, but their 2017 season was special. Coming off a 1-15 season in 2016, the Browns doubled down on their futility by becoming only the second team in NFL history to go 0-16. Head coach Hue Jackson, who had already proved his incompetence the previous year, somehow managed to get worse.

DeShone Kizer, the rookie quarterback tasked with leading this disaster, threw 22 interceptions to just 11 touchdowns. He didn’t last long in the NFL—just two seasons—because when your most memorable achievement is being the face of a winless team, your career tends to flame out quickly. Kizer led the team to defeat after defeat, but it wasn’t all his fault. The Browns’ offensive line couldn’t block a stiff breeze, and their defense allowed an average of 25.6 points per game, ranking among the league’s worst.

What made it even more painful was how close they came to winning a couple of games. They lost in overtime to the Packers and in heart-wrenching fashion to the Steelers in Week 17, when Corey Coleman dropped a fourth-down pass that would have sealed the Browns’ only win. It was like the football gods wanted to prolong the agony.

2008 Detroit Lions: The Kings of Losing

Before the Browns, the Detroit Lions had set the gold standard for incompetence with their own 0-16 season in 2008. The Lions didn’t just lose; they got blown out in nearly every game, allowing an eye-watering 32.31 points per game, which ranks among the worst in NFL history.

Quarterback Jon Kitna was supposed to bring some stability, but after suffering an injury early in the season, backup Dan Orlovsky took over and promptly became a meme when he ran out of his own end zone for a safety against the Vikings. It was a moment that perfectly encapsulated the Lions’ season—completely clueless.

Head coach Rod Marinelli somehow kept his job until the end of the season, despite the team’s complete and utter lack of progress. The Lions were so bad that they fired their general manager, Matt Millen, during the season. Millen, in fairness, had no business being in the GM role. He was a former star linebacker, with absolutely zero experience in running a front office. He even tried to warn owner William Clay Ford Sr. that he wasn’t qualified, but Ford hired him anyway. The Lions paid dearly for that mistake with years of futility, but none as embarrassingly awful as 2008.

2011-2012 Charlotte Bobcats: Michael Jordan’s Folly

It’s one thing to be bad; it’s another to be the worst team in NBA history by winning percentage. The 2011-2012 Charlotte Bobcats—yes, those owned by Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time—managed to secure the latter honor by posting a laughably bad .106 winning percentage during the lockout-shortened season.

The team won just seven games out of 66, and to make matters worse, they suffered a 23-game losing streak to close out the season. For a franchise that had never been good, this was rock bottom. Their leading scorer was Gerald Henderson, who averaged a modest 15.1 points per game. Henderson was solid, but when your best player is only putting up 15 a night, you’re in trouble. The rest of the roster was a collection of journeymen and young players who weren’t ready for the NBA.

From January 6 to February 17, the Bobcats managed to win just one game. One. The season was so bad that when the NBA Draft lottery came around, the Bobcats didn’t even win the No. 1 pick—that went to the New Orleans Hornets. For all their misery, they couldn’t even win when it didn’t matter.

1972-1973 Philadelphia 76ers: Losing Masters

The Philadelphia 76ers of the 1972-1973 season didn’t just lose a lot—they lost the most in NBA history at the time, racking up 73 defeats. For perspective, they only won nine games. This team was so bad that it became a running joke around the league.

During one stretch, the Sixers lost 34 of 35 games. Their lineup featured names like Fred Carter, Leroy Ellis, and Manny Leaks—players who are far from household names. While the roster was thin on talent, the coaching and front office weren’t much better. Management seemed to have no plan, and the team was essentially an afterthought in a league where franchises were still figuring out how to build winning cultures.

What made the Sixers’ season especially brutal was how futile their efforts were. Even when they played their best, it wasn’t nearly enough. They ended the season with a points differential of -12.1, which meant they were getting blown out on a nightly basis.

1974-1975 Washington Capitals: Expansion Blues

In the NHL, expansion teams are usually bad, but the 1974-1975 Washington Capitals set a new standard for awful. Playing in their inaugural season, the Caps finished with an 8-67-5 record, which included just one road win the entire season. Their 446 goals allowed remain the most in a single season in NHL history, which tells you all you need to know about their defensive capabilities.

Part of their struggles can be attributed to being an expansion team, but even by those standards, they were shockingly bad. Their goaltending was atrocious, and the team gave up an average of 5.58 goals per game. Opposing teams treated the Capitals as little more than target practice, padding their stats at Washington’s expense.

To make matters worse, their roster was filled with players who were either over the hill or not NHL-caliber. The only solace was that, as a brand-new team, the fans didn’t have high expectations, which is perhaps the only reason why the season wasn’t considered a complete disaster.

1992-1993 San Jose Sharks: Swimming in Defeat

The San Jose Sharks weren’t expected to be good in just their second year of existence, but 71 losses and a 17-game losing streak? That’s rough, even for an expansion team. They set a record for futility, finishing the season with an 11-71-2 record. It didn’t matter who they put on the ice; they were going to lose, and lose badly.

Despite the mounting defeats, Sharks fans were treated to a small glimmer of hope when Rob Gaudreau scored the first hat trick in franchise history on December 3, 1992. That lone bright spot didn’t do much to lift the spirits of a team that seemed destined for failure. They ended up allowing 414 goals that season, making them one of the worst defensive teams in NHL history.

The Sharks’ early struggles were emblematic of just how tough it is for new franchises to find their footing, but few could have predicted just how many losses they’d pile up in such a short period.

Conclusion: White Sox in Good (Terrible) Company

The 2024 Chicago White Sox now sit alongside some of the worst teams in the history of professional sports. While they may hold the MLB record for most losses in a season, they are far from alone in their spectacular failure. Whether it’s the NFL’s winless wonders, the NBA’s historically bad teams, or the NHL’s expansion nightmares, the White Sox have plenty of company in the hall of shame.