Only a year ago, the Chicago White Sox staked their claim as the Worst Team of Modern Times, with a 121-loss season that drummed the legendary 1962 New York Mets out of the record book. Now it’s the 2025 Colorado Rockies’ turn.

The good news is, this year’s Rockies lost “only” 119 games – so they didn’t set any records for most losses in a season. Here, however, is the bad news, via a number you won’t find in the loss column:

Minus-424.

That’s the Rockies’ historic, almost incomprehensible run differential. And somehow, it feels even more staggering than those 121 losses by the White Sox last year.

That’s because no team had been outscored by that many runs in a season since the infamous 1899 Cleveland Spiders, an outfit that lost 134 games. Because baseball’s modern era is considered to have begun in 1900, that means the Rockies just broke the modern-era record.

Except that “broke” doesn’t even begin to describe this. “Obliterated” feels more like it. So let’s put what they did into better perspective.

• The previous modern record for worst run differential was minus-349, by the 1932 Boston Red Sox. That one held up for 92 years. Then these Rockies blew past it by 75 runs. That’s the equivalent of Aaron Judge or Cal Raleigh breaking Barry Bonds’ single-season MLB home run record (of 73) by hitting 89.

• Or let’s compare these Rockies to those 2024 White Sox — whose run differential was “only” minus-306. Imagine having a run differential 118 runs worse than the losingest team of the modern era. That just happened. Really.

• Might as well drag Casey Stengel’s fabled ’62 Mets into this, since those guys didn’t merely hold the modern record for most losses for over six decades. They were a never-ending baseball laugh track. They were the iconic standard for baseball ineptitude. Yet even that band of hapless misfits had a run differential of “only” minus-331. So these Rockies were somehow 93 runs worse than that team, too.

What’s even more wild is that this wasn’t even close. The Rockies whooshed past the ’24 White Sox run differential on Aug. 6. They roared by the ’62 Mets on Aug. 14. They’d shattered the record of the 1932 Red Sox by Aug. 24. And then, unfortunately, the season kept going.

Now here they are, a not-so-proud member of the Minus-400 Club — a club that hasn’t had a single team knock on the clubhouse door since the 19th century. Not to suggest that was a long time ago, but last time it happened, William McKinley was president.

So yes, that means the Minus-400 Club skipped an entire century (the 20th) without admitting a new member. But it has graciously welcomed the Rockies into this group, which includes teams from the pre-1900 versions of the National League, American Association and Players League — and now has a shocking new entry from the 21st century.

DIFF  TEAMW-L

-723

1899 Cleveland Spiders  

20-134

-638

1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenys

23-113

-496 

1897 St. Louis Browns   

29-102

-459

1889 Louisville Colonels

27-111

-450

1883 Philadelphia Phillies

17-81

-424

2025 Colorado Rockies 

43-119

-406

1890 Buffalo Bisons

36-96

(Source: Baseball Reference / Katie Sharp)

Should it make the Rockies feel better that they won more games than any of those teams? Should it make them feel better that at least they didn’t kick the 2024 White Sox out of the history books? Who knows. But thank heaven for small favors — because they beat the heck out of large (make that humongous) run differentials.

(Photo of Kyle Freeland: Justin Edmonds / Getty Images)