Worst teams of 1976-1980
The Athletics plummet from the penthouse to the outhouse in a half-decade
What a difference a half-decade makes.
The Athletics were baseball’s dominant franchise in the years from 1971 through 1975, winning three of the span’s five world championships. Separate Oakland squads finished third, fourth, and seventh in my previous rankings of the period’s best ballclubs.
But a couple of things have changed. We’re now examining the worst teams of the Modern Era at five-year intervals. And we’re jumping five years beyond Oakland’s halcyon days.
Free agency and trades gutted the Athletics after they won the American League West in 1975, their fifth straight divisional championship. They plummeted to last place in 1977 and stayed there in 1978 and 1979.
That latter club — the 1979 Oakland Athletics — ranks as the very worst in the stretch from 1976 through 1980, based on my calculations of team scores. (Click here to learn more about TS.)
Those A’s lost twice as many games (108) as they won (54), and they were outscored by an average of 1.77 runs per game. Their resulting TS of 11.385 points (on a 100-point scale) was not only the worst of the half-decade, but was also the 19th-worst among all 1,656 teams that played in the Modern Era, which dates back to 1961.
Another club from the same season, the 1979 Toronto Blue Jays, is second in today’s rankings of 1976-1980’s worst clubs, followed by the 1977 Atlanta Braves, 1976 Montreal Expos, and 1978 Seattle Mariners.
This is the fourth installment in my series of stories about the worst teams of the Modern Era. New stories every Monday will cover successive five-year spans. Follow these links to see previous stories about the tailenders in 1961-1965, 1966-1970, and 1971-1975. And click this link to see the mirror image for 1976-1980, a list of its best teams.
Scroll below for a rundown of 1976-1980’s 10 worst clubs. Each is listed with its win-loss record and its Modern Era percentile, which is the percentage of all clubs between 1961 and 2022 that it outperformed. Team scores and additional facts and figures are provided for the half-decade’s five worst clubs.
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1. Oakland Athletics (1979)
Record: 54-108
Team score: 11.385 points
Modern Era percentile: 1.1%
Manager: Jim Marshall
Stars: First baseman Dave Revering batted .288 and drove in 77 runs, leading the A’s in both categories. Pitchers Rick Langford and Steve McCatty respectively eked out 12 and 11 wins, accounting for 43 percent of the team’s total of 54 victories.
Bottom line: The Athletics dropped into last place in the American League West on May 31, never to rise again. They finished 34 games out of first. Oakland’s fans weren’t exuberant even when the A’s won world titles, but they turned positively glacial in 1979. Home attendance totaled 306,700.
2. Toronto Blue Jays (1979)
Record: 53-109
Team score: 13.628 points
Modern Era percentile: 1.6%
Manager: Roy Hartsfield
Stars: First baseman John Mayberry supplied the power in Toronto’s lineup, swatting 21 homers and driving home 74 runs. Third baseman Roy Howell ranked second on the club in both categories (15 and 72). Tom Underwood led the pitching staff with a 9-16 record and a 3.69 ERA.
Bottom line: It’s strange, but true, that the worst team of the half-decade didn’t post the poorest record in 1979. The Blue Jays lost one more game than the aforementioned A’s, but Toronto’s team score was slightly better. The Jays were last in the AL East, 50.5 games behind first-place Baltimore.
3. Atlanta Braves (1977)
Record: 61-101
Team score: 16.259 points
Modern Era percentile: 2.5%
Manager: Dave Bristol, Ted Turner, and Vern Benson
Stars: Right fielder Jeff Burroughs, a former AL Most Valuable Player, arrived in a trade with the Texas Rangers. He blasted 41 homers and drove in 114 runs in his Atlanta debut. Future Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro somehow won 16 games. The only drawback was that he lost 20.
Bottom line: The Braves finished last in the National League West every season from 1976 through 1979. They reached their nadir in 1977, suffering more than 100 losses for the first time in franchise history since the Boston Braves dropped 115 games in 1935.
4. Montreal Expos (1976)
Record: 55-107
Team score: 16.785 points
Modern Era percentile: 2.8%
Manager: Karl Kuehl and Charlie Fox
Stars: Pitcher Steve Rogers fashioned a dazzling 3.21 earned run average, yet he was still saddled with 17 losses. Fellow staff member Woodie Fryman managed to break even at 13-13 with a 3.37 ERA. Rookie center fielder Ellis Valentine paced the team with a .279 batting average.
Bottom line: The Expos had avoided last place in the NL East in each of the previous five years — a respectable accomplishment for a young expansion club — but their streak came to a halt in 1976. Montreal wrapped the season 46 games behind division-leading Philadelphia.
5. Seattle Mariners (1978)
Record: 56-104
Team score: 17.225 points
Modern Era percentile: 3.3%
Manager: Darrell Johnson
Stars: Right fielder Leon Roberts won the Mariners’ unofficial Triple Crown, leading the team in batting average (.301), home runs (22), and runs batted in (92). Reliever Enrique Romo not only notched 10 saves, but he also recorded 11 wins in 56 relief appearances.
Bottom line: The Mariners played poorly in their inaugural season of 1977, as indicated by their 64-98 record, but they were six losses worse in 1978. A miserable September (7-21 for the month) cemented their hold on last place in the American League West.
Next five
6. Toronto Blue Jays (1977), 54-107, 3.5%
7. Toronto Blue Jays (1978), 59-102, 3.6%
8. Seattle Mariners (1980), 59-103, 3.7%
9. Chicago Cubs (1980), 64-98, 4.0%
10. Chicago White Sox (1976), 64-97, 5.8%