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The Greatest Teams of All Time
by Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein
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Okay, now the Mets. After studying this issue for quite some time, I feel pretty comfortable in asserting that the 1962 New York Mets were the worst baseball team of the twentieth century. In case you have forgotten the beginning of this chapter, I will repeat that their record was 40-120, and they finished 601/2 games out of first place. What I have not told you before is that their -5.91 SD score is by far the worst of the century, and it is even worse than that of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. In fact, the pitching/defense component of the '62 Mets SD score (-4.27) would, by itself, rank as the fifth-worst SD score of the century. Part of that result was due to the Polo Grounds, which was a hitter's park relative to the other N.L. parks in 1962-63. However, most of it was the Mets. In 1962, they allowed more runs on the road (438) than any other team in the league, in addition to allowing more than 500 runs in their home games.
Their team ERA was 5.04, which was last, of course, and was far worse than the league ERA of 3.94. Their defense was worse than their pitching. The 1962 and 1963 Mets are the only major league teams since 1950 to commit more than 200 errors in a season (exactly 210 each season). The 1962 club allowed the staggering total of 147 unearned runs, nearly one per game. For comparison's sake, the most errors committed by any team in 1997 was 135, and the most unearned runs allowed was 87. Looking at multiple seasons, the early Mets have a clean sweep of last place of SD scores for the twentieth century:
Period SD Score Rank 1962 -5.91 Last 1962-63 -9.90 Last 1962-64 -12.75 Last 1962-65 -16.04 Last 1962-66 -18.30 Last
For all of these except the five-season period of 1962-66, the Mets' SD score is by far the worst of the century. Here are the bottom five for the one-season through four-season periods:
One Season Two Seasons Three Seasons Four Seasons -------------------------------------------------------------- SD SD SD SD Team Score Team Score Team Score Team Score -------------------------------------------------------------- 1962 1962-63 1962-64 1962-65 Mets -5.91 Mets -9.90 Mets -12.75 Mets -16.04 -------------------------------------------------------------- 1916 1938-39 1938-40 1938-41 A's -4.39 Phils -8.04 Phils -11.08 Phils -14.74 -------------------------------------------------------------- 1919 1903-04 1939-41 1916-19 A's -4.35 Senators -7.61 Phils -10.71 A's -14.08 -------------------------------------------------------------- 1943 1918-19 1918-20 1939-42 A's -4.31 A's -7.43 A's -10.47 Phils -13.96 -------------------------------------------------------------- 1938 1919-20 1952-54 1952-55 Phils -4.02 A's -7.38 Pirates -10.23 Pirates -13.54 --------------------------------------------------------------
The 1962-63 Mets missed by the smallest of margins matching the 1938-39 Phillies for consecutive SD scores of -4.00 or worse. The 1963 Mets had an SD score of -3.99. So one could certainly not claim that the 1962 Mets were an aberration. The '62 Mets were 22-58 at home and 18-62 on the road. They opened the season with 9 consecutive losses and also lost 17 straight. Their longest winning streak was three games. This is actually one area where the Mets aren't the worst among these terrible teams. The 1916 Athletics lost 20 straight, and their longest winning streak was two games.
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Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but if this team hadn't played in New York and been managed much of the time by Casey Stengel, they would not be remembered so fondly. I'm sure Philadelphia fans weren't so tolerant of all of the poor Athletics and Phillies teams they had. In fact, the early Mets weren't really supported all that well by New York fans. Granting that they played in an obsolete facility, the 1962 Mets were actually outdrawn slightly by their expansion counterpart, the Houston Colt .45's, who also were playing in a run-down park and were not playing in the nation's largest city. The 1969 Royals, playing in an old ballpark and a relatively small city, drew virtually the same number of fans as did the 1962 Mets.
To me, there is nothing cute or funny about a team as bad as the early Mets. Maybe my experience with the 1988 Orioles has soured me on teams like that, but I see nothing positive about losing three games out of every four. Plain and simple, the Mets sucked. One might accuse me of overstating the significance of a winning baseball team, but professional sports franchises are in business primarily to do one thing-win.
Besides their poor record, one of the strange things about the 1962 Mets was their catchers. Seven different players caught for the team, six of those in 10+ games, and yet none caught in more than 56 games. The other nine N.L. teams used a total of 34 catchers, 11 of whom caught in 70 or more games. Of course, bad teams tend to use more players than do good teams. The record for most players used in a season is held by the 1915 Philadelphia Athletics, who used 58. The '62 Mets used "only" 45 players.
So there they are, the worst teams of all time. Despite revenue sharing and the amateur draft, if the current and ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots continues to grow, we could very well see a team that is the "equal" of the teams in this chapter in the not too distant future.
From Baseball Dynasties by Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein.
Copyright © 2000 by Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein. Reprinted with permission.
