8 MLB Teams That'll Have a Worse Record in 2023
When Major League Baseball's 2023 season begins, about the only thing that all 30 teams will have in common is that they'll all be trying to do as well or better than they did in 2022.
Some of them are inevitably going to end up disappointed in this regard, but which ones?
We've picked out eight teams that look like candidates to do worse than they did last season.
Some are just naturally due for regression. Others are doomed to feel the effects of unsatisfying offseasons. Others still come with schedule-related concerns. For some, it's a combination of all of the above.
We'll go in ascending order of teams' records from last season.
Note: All over/under figures are courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook.
Colorado Rockies
1 of 8
2022 Record: 68-94
2023 Over/Under: 65.5 Wins
This is how you know this article wasn't secretly written by Rockies owner Dick Monfort, who boldly went on record in January with his belief that his club can play .500 ball this year:
What we're proposing instead is this: The Rockies will not only be even worse than they were in 2022, but they will also be the worst team in all of Major League Baseball.
This is indeed what FanGraphs projects for them, though it's not hard to imagine their projection of 97 losses looking too generous in hindsight. The first 100-loss season in the franchise's 30-year history doesn't seem out of the question.
The Rockies are coming off the worst run-scoring season they've had, yet you'd never know it from the lack of new additions to their starting lineup. The hope seems to be that Charlie Blackmon, 36, will turn back the clock and Kris Bryant, 31, will stay healthy after playing in all of 42 games last season. Even then, there's probably no scenario in which the 2023 Rockies resemble the Blake Street Bombers of yore.
Boston Red Sox
2 of 8
2022 Record: 78-84
2023 Over/Under: 78.5 Wins
The Red Sox did have a stretch last year in which they won 28 of 37 games between May 18 and June 26, but on either side of that, they went just 50-75. In other words, they spent 77 percent of their season playing dreadful baseball.
Frankly, they needed a good offseason to wash away the sour taste of all that. Instead, what happened was a hot-stove equivalent to chugging a jug of turpentine.
Rafael Devers' $331 million extension was a nice touch, and the Red Sox likewise carried out a nifty repair job on what had been a volatile bullpen. But the club's $90 million deal with Masataka Yoshida was widely panned, and the departures of Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez, Nathan Eovaldi, Rich Hill and Michael Wacha left massive holes.
Boston's offense will be hard-pressed to match last year's output of 4.5 runs per game, but the club's biggest question mark looms over its starting rotation. Chris Sale, James Paxton and Corey Kluber are firmly past their primes. Nick Pivetta had a 6.04 ERA in his last 17 starts of 2022. Garrett Whitlock averaged just four innings in the nine starts he made last year before he got hurt.
The picture is that of a team that is more likely for 90 losses than 90 wins, and which could even suffer the organization's first 100-loss season since 1965.
Chicago White Sox
3 of 8
2022 Record: 81-81
2023 Over/Under: 83.5 Wins
Hopes for the White Sox were so high going into last season that a draft of World Series contenders at MLB.com resulted in them being the second overall pick.
Obviously, that did not pan out. And while there's no faulting the White Sox for hiring Pedro Grifol to take over for Tony La Russa in the manager's chair, their offseason can otherwise be fairly described as "puzzling."
It was odd that they let José Abreu go without a fight, and odder still when they dropped a club-record $75 million on Andrew Benintendi, who was little more than a singles hitter last season. And with Mike Clevinger under investigation for domestic violence allegations, the right-hander's immediate future is uncertain.
Factoring in ace closer Liam Hendriks' diagnosis with non-Hodgkins' lymphoma, and there are serious questions hanging over every corner of the White Sox roster. To boot, the balanced schedule is unlikely to work in their favor. It means fewer games within the American League Central, which has been one of MLB's weaker divisions in recent years.
Unlike those of Red vintage, the White Sox are too rich on star power—it helps to have an ace like Dylan Cease and talented hitters like Tim Anderson, Luis Robert and Eloy Jiménez—to attract truly disastrous forecasts.
But if the question is whether they can sink below .500, the answer is yes.
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Milwaukee Brewers
4 of 8
2022 Record: 86-76
2023 Over/Under: 85.5 Wins
The Brewers may have missed out on their fifth straight playoff berth in 2022, but the year wasn't without silver linings. To wit, they were never more than two games below .500.
If anything is going to elevate this year's squad, it's surely going to be the pitching. Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff are as good as any one-two punch. And while Devin Williams did regress upon taking over for Josh Hader in the closer's role last August, he was still good enough to hold hitters to a .149 average while racking up a 2.57 ERA.
Less deserving of optimism is Milwaukee's offense. A weird thing to say given that it ranked 10th in the league in runs per game in 2022, but its two best hitters by OPS+ both got traded away this winter.
What the Brewers have now is an offense that projects for the middle of the road in runs scored, and that's with a relatively favorable projection for Christian Yelich. This is the same Yelich who played like an MVP in 2018 and 2019, but also the same Yelich who's hit only a slightly above average 107 OPS+ since then.
As the Brewers were only two games over .500 against teams from outside the National League Central in 2022, the balanced schedule wouldn't seem to bode well for them, either. All the more reason to expect them to take a step back from their 86-win effort.
New York Yankees
5 of 8
2022 Record: 99-63
2023 Over/Under: 94.5 Wins
This is where we start getting into teams that are on this list simply because it's hard to go up from where they were in 2022, though we would have been inclined to include the Yankees anyway.
They're to be commended for spending a league-high $573.5 million in free agency, but $400 million of that went toward retaining Aaron Judge and Anthony Rizzo. The Yankees otherwise didn't make any new additions to their offense, a risky maneuver in context of just how Judge-centric it was in 2022.
When Judge homered last year, the Yankees won games at a .765 clip. When they didn't, their winning percentage dropped to .541. That same formula will work just fine if he hits 60-plus home runs again in 2023, but that's far from a fair ask.
Though the balanced schedule does diminish it somewhat, the strength of the American League East is still another concern for the Yankees. The Toronto Blue Jays made several improvements to a roster that produced 92 wins in 2022, while the Tampa Bay Rays (86 wins) and Baltimore Orioles (83 wins) don't look any worse than last year's iterations.
That over/under nonetheless sets a fair target for the 2023 Yankees, if for no other reason than their starting rotation indeed deserves its bullish projections.
As much as it hurts to lose Frankie Montas to shoulder surgery, the pain would be that much greater if the club hadn't signed Carlos Rodón to be Gerrit Cole's co-ace.
New York Mets
6 of 8
2022 Record: 101-61
2023 Over/Under: 94.5 Wins
The Mets were, of course, but one of two NL East teams to finish with exactly 101 wins in 2022. The other was Atlanta, so its absence from this list provides a useful example of the word "conspicuous."
As for what guided our thinking, well, it just wouldn't come as a shock if Atlanta ripped off another 100-win season in 2023. It didn't need luck to accomplish the task last year, and the addition of Sean Murphy and Ronald Acuña Jr.'s return to 100-percent health should more than make up for the departure of Dansby Swanson.
For their part, the Mets are constructed in such a way that they have a reasonably realistic shot at another 100-win season, but with pitfalls that are as obvious as they are perilous.
For instance, they're probably only going to get so many starts out of a 40-year-old Justin Verlander, a 38-year-old Max Scherzer and a 35-year-old Carlos Carrasco. They also didn't add anything to an offense that excelled at neither power nor speed last season, thus hinting at a bit too much faith in the sustainability of last year's output of 4.8 runs per game.
As the Mets went an impressive 50-26 against NL East foes in 2022, the balanced schedule isn't exactly a sight for sore eyes. So, even if their over/under of 95-ish wins is fair enough at first glance, the under seems the better bet.
Houston Astros
7 of 8
2022 Record: 106-56
2023 Over/Under: 95.5 Wins
We figured the Astros were worth including simply because the list of teams that have had back-to-back seasons of at least 106 wins is less than crowded:
- 1906-1907 Chicago Cubs
- 1969-1970 Baltimore Orioles
- 2021-2022 Los Angeles Dodgers
That the Dodgers of the last two years are on there is arguably a sign of hope for the Astros, but it was largely thanks to two crucial new additions (Freddie Freeman and Tyler Anderson) that they improved from 106 wins in 2021 to 111 in 2022.
By contrast, the most notable move of the Astros' winter was the departure of Verlander, whose absence from the starting rotation looms that much larger following the latest bad injury news concerning Lance McCullers Jr.
And while Abreu makes for a solid offensive addition on paper, there's another perspective from which spending $58.5 million on a 36-year-old who struggled to hit fastballs in 2022 looks like a bad idea.
Meanwhile, don't underestimate the ramifications that the shift ban has for the Astros. Only two teams shifted their infields more often than they did last season. It could be a rough year in the field for José Altuve, who was already weak enough to post minus-15 defensive runs saved in 2022.
Granted, it's still hard to see anything worse than a 95-win season for the Astros this year. And not just because they're too talented to go any lower than that, but also because the balanced schedule should work in their favor.
Los Angeles Dodgers
8 of 8
2022 Record: 111-51
2023 Over/Under: 95.5 Wins
As rare as back-to-back seasons of 106-plus wins may be, at least it's been done before. That's more than can be said about back-to-back seasons of 110-plus wins, for which the precedent is nonexistent.
As such, the Dodgers would be due for a lesser season in 2023 even if they hadn't had arguably the most disappointing offseason of any of last year's contenders.
Gone are Turners Trea and Justin, as well as Anderson, Cody Bellinger, Chris Martin, Andrew Heaney, Craig Kimbrel and a handful of other notables. That should have been the Dodgers' cue to load up on replacement stars, but they opted instead to improve on the margins while keeping their payroll closely tethered to the first luxury-tax threshold.
The general talent level of the Dodgers roster looks considerably diminished as a result, and the new rules don't figure to do them any favors. No team shifted more often than they did in 2022, and the bigger bases look like a bad omen for the new addition to their rotation, Noah Syndergaard.
The Dodgers are still very good, to be sure, but whether they're still the proverbial top dog in the NL West is debatable. It's a title the San Diego Padres clearly want and, as of now, project to gain. At the least, they probably won't be going 5-14 against the Dodgers again.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
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