The San Diego Padres fielded the very worst major-league ballclub during the five-year period from 1966 through 1970, as we discussed last Monday.
The squad in question was the 1969 version of the Padres, the inaugural edition of that expansion team. San Diego posted a team score (TS) of 10.456 points that season. It was a truly terrible performance, given that TS is measured on a 100-point scale. (Click here to learn how team scores are calculated.)
The Padres remained awful into the next decade, allowing them to claim another dubious championship in my ongoing rankings of the worst teams of baseball’s Modern Era, a 62-year span from 1961 through 2022. I’m proceeding by five-year intervals, bringing us today to the rankings for 1971-1975.
And, yes, there at the top of the list — or is it the bottom? — is San Diego once again. The 1973 Padres lost 102 games and registered a TS of 10.185 points, marking them as the worst big-league club of the half-decade.
Two sets of Texas Rangers — the 1972 and 1973 teams — are the runners-up in today’s standings. Rounding out the list of 1971-1975’s worst clubs are the 1975 Detroit Tigers and the 1974 Padres (hello again).
Look below for a list of the bottom 10 teams of the period. Each is shown with its win-loss record and the percentage of Modern Era clubs that it outperformed. (TS is plotted on an equalized scale, which allows direct comparisons of teams from different years. A total of 1,656 big-league clubs played between 1961 and 2022.) Team scores and additional information are provided for the five squads that were the very worst.
If you’re interested in the previous rankings in this series, follow these links to see the lowest-rated teams from 1961-1965 and 1966-1970. And if you’d like to take a more positive spin, use this link to see my ratings of the best teams in the half-decade that we’re discussing today, 1971-1975.
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1. San Diego Padres (1973)
Record: 60-102
Team score: 10.185 points
Modern Era percentile: 0.6%
Manager: Don Zimmer
Stars: First baseman Nate Colbert hit 22 homers and had 80 RBIs, leading the Padres in both categories. Center fielder Johnny Grubb batted .311. Pitcher Steve Arlin led the staff with an 11-14 record, while rookie Randy Jones went 7-6.
Bottom line: The Padres dropped into last place in the National League West on May 8, and they stayed there the rest of the year. They lost 30 games by five runs or more, but won only nine by similarly lopsided margins. San Diego finished 39 games behind divisional champion Cincinnati.
2. Texas Rangers (1972)
Record: 54-100
Team score: 11.812 points
Modern Era percentile: 1.1%
Manager: Ted Williams
Stars: Right fielder Ted Ford was the only Ranger to reach double digits in home runs. He hit 14. Catcher Dick Billings led the team with 58 runs batted in. Starting pitcher Rich Hand went 10-14 with a respectable earned run average of 3.32.
Bottom line: The Washington Senators relocated to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 1972, bringing along their reputation for ineptitude. They lived up to their billing by finishing last in the American League West, 38.5 games behind the first-place Oakland Athletics.
3. Texas Rangers (1973)
Record: 57-105
Team score: 12.786 points
Modern Era percentile: 1.2%
Manager: Whitey Herzog, Del Wilber, and Billy Martin
Stars: Right fielder Jeff Burroughs blasted 30 homers and drove in 85 runs. Second baseman Dave Nelson stole 43 bases. Jim Bibby led the pitching rotation with nine victories, 180.1 innings pitched, 155 strikeouts, and a 3.24 ERA.
Bottom line: The Rangers remained in the cellar of the AL West, though they cut Oakland’s divisional lead to 37 games, an improvement of 1.5 games from the previous season. (See immediately above.) Texas’s pitching staff allowed at least 10 runs in 17 contests.
4. Detroit Tigers (1975)
Record: 57-102
Team score: 13.022 points
Modern Era percentile: 1.4%
Manager: Ralph Houk
Stars: Mickey Lolich, a star in the late 1960s and early 1970s, pitched his 13th and final season with Detroit in 1975. He led the rotation in wins (12), innings (240.2), and ERA (3.78). Designated hitter Willie Horton blasted 25 homers, 11 more than any other Tiger.
Bottom line: The Tigers suffered 102 defeats in 1975, their first triple-digit loss total since 1952. Their descent into last place in the American League East coincided with a 19-game losing streak that ran from late July to mid-August.
5. San Diego Padres (1974)
Record: 60-102
Team score: 13.763 points
Modern Era percentile: 1.6%
Manager: John McNamara
Stars: Willie McCovey, a 36-year-old first baseman, led the Padres with 22 home runs. Second-year left fielder Dave Winfield added 20. Both would wind up in the Hall of Fame. Bill Greif anchored the pitching staff by working 226 innings and posting a 9-19 record.
Bottom line: The Padres improved incrementally in 1974 — at least in terms of TS — even though they posted the same 60-102 record as their 1973 predecessors. (Scroll back to first place in these rankings.) Runs were at a premium. San Diego was shut out 16 times and held to a single run on 29 occasions.
Next five
6. Cleveland Indians (1971), 60-102, 2.7%
7. Detroit Tigers (1974), 72-90, 3.0%
8. San Diego Padres (1972), 58-95, 4.4%
9. San Diego Padres (1971), 61-100, 5.6%
10. Philadelphia Phillies (1972), 59-97, 8.3%