Despite winning six of their last nine games, the 21-37 Pittsburgh Pirates did not move in the latest ESPN MLB Power Rankings, as they sit at 28th out of 30 teams.
The Pirates are currently above the rebuilding Chicago White Sox at 29, who, although they are 20 games under .500, aren’t nearly as dreadful as last season when they set the modern era record for losses in a regular season with 121, surpassing the 1962 New York Mets, who lost 120 games.
Sitting dead last and will be there wire-to-wire this season is the Colorado Rockies, who are well on their way to surpassing the 2024 White Sox in losses with a current record of 9-47. Last year’s White Sox team won their 10th game of the season on May 9, and with the Rockies facing the Mets this weekend, they will most likely not reach double-digit wins until the calendar flips to June. There’s a very high chance that the 2025 Rockies become the worst team in the modern era, but the question will be if they can tie or break the all-time loss record set by the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who lost 134 games.
Above the Pirates at 27 is the 19-36 Baltimore Orioles, who probably get the slight edge over the Pirates due to more recent success in the previous two seasons and more young talent in their organization, especially on the offensive side. However, their pitching, specifically the rotation, has been among the worst in baseball. The Miami Marlins and the Athletics sit at 26 and 25, respectively. The A’s, with talent on offense, including AL Rookie of the Year frontrunner, Shortstop Jacob Wilson, son of former Pirates shortstop Jack Wilson, were off to a solid start this year but have lost 17 of their last 20 games, as they also have one of the worst rotations in baseball.
On paper, the Pirates should be able to surpass all these teams by season’s end, but the offense will have to show more improvement. The Pirates have just surpassed the Rockies in runs per game, as they sat dead last in the league for a while, scoring on average less than three runs per game; now, they have that mark at 3.21.