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David Schoenfield, ESPN Senior Writer
It’s not easy being a baseball fan. The commitment is intense: 162 games from the thaw of early April through the sweat of summer to the cool evenings of October — and that doesn’t include spring training or the never-ending offseason.
The sport has a payroll structure that even its defenders would agree isn’t exactly equitable across all 30 teams. The New York Mets, case in point, will pay Juan Soto nearly $122 million in 2025 — a $75 million signing bonus plus a $46.875 million salary. That outlay will top the 2024 Opening Day payrolls of 13 teams.
As free agent signings and trades continue to roll in — with many top free agents still unsigned — it all leads to the annual winter rite of fans complaining about:
1. The payroll disparity in the sport.
2. Their cheap owner who refuses to spend money.
3. Their front office not making the moves necessary to improve the team.
We have a name for this: the Aggrieved Fan Index. Let’s rank the top 10 fan bases who currently have the greatest right to be frustrated, factoring in teams’ expectations coming into this past season, their 2024 performance and what they’ve done so far this offseason.
(Disclaimer: The Athletics, whose fans in Oakland arguably have the right to be the most frustrated of all, did not make this list since they won’t be playing in their new home until 2028. I mean, who are their fans right now anyway? Still those in Oakland? Or West Sacramento? People in Las Vegas who think Brent Rooker might be the magician playing at the Bellagio?)
Throughout their history, the Marlins have been plagued with poor ownership. Original owner Wayne Huizenga won a World Series in 1997 and immediately tore the team apart. John Henry flipped the Marlins after a couple of years and bought the Boston Red Sox. Art dealer Jeffrey Loria shrewdly bungled his way to making an estimated billion dollars or so over his original purchase. When Bruce Sherman bought the team in 2017, there was hope things would be different — he brought in Derek Jeter as proof of that concept, right?
Alas, Jeter is long gone, and the Marlins continue to annually run one of the lowest payrolls in the league. Even though fans in Miami are used to it by now, 2024 was particularly harsh. The Marlins surprisingly made the playoffs in 2023 on the strength of their pitching and a 33-14 record in one-run games. While it was pretty clearly a fluke, there were still reasons to have hope going into 2024, but then their top pitchers got hurt, opening up the floodgates. They traded batting champ Luis Arraez in May, followed by Jazz Chisholm Jr. and A.J. Puk ahead of the trade deadline, and then six more players on July 30. They’ve traded Jake Burger this offseason and are exploring trade possibilities for Jesus Luzardo. If Luzardo is traded, that will leave Sandy Alcantara as the only player making more than $3.5 million.
Marlins fans, bless them, have been here many times before. Someday maybe they’ll get an owner interested in building a consistent winner.
For much of the 2010s, the Cardinals thrived while the National League’s big-market franchises were serving canned cranberry sauce and frozen green beans for Thanksgiving dinner. The Los Angeles Dodgers were still digging themselves out of the Frank McCourt disaster when St. Louis went to the World Series in 2011 and 2013. The clueless Wilpons owned the Mets. The Philadelphia Phillies were in a rebuild that went a decade between playoff appearances. The Atlanta Braves missed the postseason four years in a row. The Cubs were rebuilding the first half of the decade. As those organizations improved, however, it was no longer enough for the Cardinals to be merely competent. They had to learn to spice things up a bit.
That didn’t happen. Instead, in 2023, the franchise had its first losing season since 2007. In 2024, it was another non-playoff season, with the Cardinals overachieving just to win 83 games. Their fans, used to winning, are already growing impatient, especially since 2025 looks like a rebuilding year. The Cardinals are trying to trade Nolan Arenado. They may trade Erick Fedde, acquired at the 2024 trade deadline. They’re going to give Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker another chance to prove themselves, but if those two don’t hit, where will the offense come from? They haven’t developed a starting pitcher — at least one they didn’t trade away (see Zac Gallen and Sandy Alcantara) — in seemingly forever. The last homegrown starter to make 30 starts in a season was Jack Flaherty in 2019.
The only $100 million free agent the Cardinals have signed remains Matt Holliday, way back in 2010. Going down the route they did last offseason — acquiring pitching depth with the likes of Sonny Gray/Lance Lynn/Kyle Gibson but not making any major additions — is not a path to success. The fans have spoken as well: In 2024, attendance dropped below 3 million for the first time in a non-COVID-19 season since 2003. The Cardinals are a long way from being the Marlins or the Rockies, but this does feel like a precarious time in Cardinals history — and the franchise could go in either direction.
This ranking is tempered only by the fact that Rockies fans have long grown accustomed to their team not doing anything and didn’t expect them to be any good in 2024 anyway. Still, back-to-back 100-loss seasons and no evidence that things are going to turn around any time soon must make even the most dedicated Rockies fan question their faith. Or maybe not: Attendance remains solid as the Rockies drew 2.5 million fans in 2024, 15th in the majors. They outdrew the Mets, Milwaukee Brewers, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals — all playoff teams. Maybe we should just blame the fans: Keep showing up and there’s no incentive for ownership to fix things. (Although, the Coors Field sunsets are lovely).
Fun fact: Since 2011, only the Marlins have lost more games than the Rockies (1,224 losses to 1,209). Despite that, the Rockies stick to a plan: They will rely almost solely on developing homegrown talent, even if they haven’t been very good at it, with the occasional bad free agent signing mixed in (think Kris Bryant and Ian Desmond). Look, it’s almost impossible to lure pitchers to Colorado, but, amazingly, the Rockies have signed just one big free agent hitter in franchise history: Larry Walker, back in 1995 (no, Bryant didn’t count at the time despite the $182 million contract, and he certainly doesn’t count now).
Sign Pete Alonso. Sign Anthony Santander or Teoscar Hernandez and see how many home runs they can hit in the thin air. Roll the dice on a player like Joc Pederson. Find some sort of offense and at least make this team interesting.
The Cubs are the lone big-market team in a division with three legitimate small-market clubs and one midsized franchise — and yet, they haven’t made the playoffs in a full season since 2018. That’s one playoff appearance in the past six seasons if you do the math. The Cubs even swiped manager Craig Counsell from the rival Brewers — only to see the Brewers win another division title while Chicago finished 83-79 for the second straight season.
It was disappointing enough that chairman Tom Ricketts wrote a season-ending apology to the fans: “There is no way to sugarcoat it — this is not where we planned to finish the season. Bottom line, we did not play a complete season of competitive baseball. As a result, we have again missed the most exciting and exhilarating month of the season — October.”
The Cubs would have ranked higher on this list if not for the recent trade to acquire Kyle Tucker from the Houston Astros — finally, a big swing from the Jed Hoyer-led front office to add a much-needed potent bat for the lineup. Some of that goodwill was burned, however, with the ensuing trade of Cody Bellinger to the New York Yankees, a deal that can only be construed as a salary dump. Maybe Bellinger won’t be needed, but it certainly hurts the Cubs’ depth. It’s even possible that Isaac Paredes (sent to Houston in the Tucker trade) and Bellinger will be worth more than Tucker in 2025.
That gets us to the heart of this piece: A reminder that the most important person in any organization is the owner. From 2016 to 2020, the Cubs ran a top-five payroll four times in five seasons under the Ricketts family. After trimming payroll in 2021 under the auspices of a rebuild, they got back to ninth in 2024 but seem intent on remaining below the luxury tax. Under Hoyer, the Cubs have improved their farm system, and the team appears ready to win. But is ownership commitment really there? Ricketts’ letter concluded with, “It is time for us to get to work to bring championship caliber baseball back to Wrigley Field.” They need to do more than trade for Tucker to do that.
Well, you knew the Pirates were going to show up at some point; it was just a matter of when. I’m guessing Pirates fans will tell you their team should be No. 1: six consecutive losing seasons, eight out of nine going back to the last playoff appearance in 2015, frustrated sentiment regarding owner Bob Nutting that goes, “Spend Nutting, get Nutting.”
Indeed, Nutting might be No. 1 on the most-despised owners list. That goes back to the playoff teams of 2013 to 2015, when the Pirates refused to make big additions at the trade deadline. Since 2019, Pirates’ payrolls, according to Cot’s Contracts, have ranked 30th, 30th, 30th, 29th, 28th and — big spending! — all the way up to 25th this past season. General manager Ben Cherington has tried to build things with the scraps given to him, and the team has been a more competitive 76-86 the past two years. He’s even managed to sign Ke’Bryan Hayes, Bryan Reynolds and Mitch Keller to long-term extensions. And, of course, the Pirates have a superstar in Paul Skenes, who projects as the best pitcher in baseball in 2025 based on his dominant rookie season.
It always feels like the Pirates are plugging leaks though. They’re moving Oneil Cruz to center field after his defense was shaky at shortstop, but while that fixes a hole in center, it opens one at shortstop. They needed a first baseman and acquired Spencer Horwitz from the Blue Jays (by way of Cleveland) but gave up an interesting young starter in Luis Ortiz to do so. Hayes is under contract through 2029 at a team-friendly rate but had a miserable 2024. Even in a more equitable system, it’s not realistic for the Pirates to sign a top free agent, but this is a team that could benefit immensely from even a couple of second-tier free agents, just a little bump in payroll to plug those leaks.
The window to sign Skenes to a long-term extension probably only exists until Opening Day. The comparison here would be the six-year, $75 million extension the Braves gave Spencer Strider after his rookie season, which means that a Skenes deal starts at $100 million-plus. Worth noting: Forbes estimated the Pirates’ net operating income in 2023 at $68 million. Spend Nutting, get Nutting.
It’s now been more than 30 years since the Blue Jays won back-to-back World Series titles in 1992 and 1993, so an entire generation of Jays fans have grown up without memories of those glory days. They went 21 years without making the playoffs before making consecutive ALCS appearances in 2015 and 2016. While that team was quickly torn down, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette soon arrived ready to usher in a new golden era.
But that hasn’t quite happened. Yes, the Jays made the playoffs in 2020, 2022 and 2023, so it hasn’t been misery, but the Jays fell apart last season, going 74-88. They’ve been passed in the AL East pecking order by the Orioles and the Red Sox as well. And Guerrero and Bichette? Free agents after 2025. Needing a bat, they pursued Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto the past two offseasons, but after losing out on Soto earlier this month, they adjusted by trading for … Andres Gimenez, a second baseman with a .298 OBP and nine home runs. He’s a lockdown defender, but the offense still needs help.
The Blue Jays have increased payroll the past two seasons, even paying a luxury tax for the first time in 2023, but that was only following years of underspending in their market size. The front office hasn’t figured out how to get the team over the hump and now, coming off a losing season and failing to land Soto with Guerrero and Bichette perhaps departing next offseason, Toronto might be staring into the abyss.
One of themes of this offseason is that the teams with secure local TV contracts are spending money and going after free agents while those clubs stuck in the Diamond Sports Group fiasco are selling their old baseball cards just to pay the bills. Guess which category the Twins fall into? They’re now one of the teams whose games MLB will produce and distribute, which is the perfect excuse for the Pohlad family not to spend one cent more than necessary, a family tradition going back to Carl Pohlad’s purchase of the team in 1984.
You know, I considered putting the Guardians here because they spend even less on payroll than the Twins — and I personally find them extremely frustrating for never going above and beyond what you expect (that’s on ownership, not the front office). But at least the Guardians usually manage to, nonetheless, put a good team on the field, including this past season when they reached the ALCS. Cleveland always seems to overachieve, whereas Minnesota often underachieves despite a talented roster playing in what has historically been a soft division.
In 2023, the Twins finally ended their long playoff winless streak — and then subsequently cut payroll for 2024, blaming the TV situation. It looks like they’re going to sit out this offseason as well, as they haven’t done anything except sign some guys to minor league contracts. That means their best bet for 2025 will be hoping, once again, that Carlos Correa, Royce Lewis and Byron Buxton will stay healthy. Rinse, repeat and cry tears of frustration, Twins fans.
White Sox fans didn’t expect the team to go out and sign Soto, Max Fried and Blake Snell after losing a modern-record 121 games — although, in theory, they could have tried something like that — but that only conveys the hopelessness of the current situation on the South Side. Since winning the World Series in 2005, the White Sox have just three playoff appearances. This is a new level of rock bottom, however, and remarkably, they might be just as bad in 2025.
Indeed, while GM Chris Getz seemed to do well in the Garrett Crochet trade, that now means the two best players from the 2024 team are gone — Crochet and Erick Fedde (traded at the deadline), who combined for 8.8 WAR. The rest of the team combined for minus-2.2 WAR. Luis Robert Jr., the team’s third-best player, might be next to go, although Chicago would be trading low on him coming off a bad season. On top of all that, the new anti-tanking draft rules mean the White Sox will be drafting 10th instead of No. 1 overall in July. Light at the end of the tunnel? The White Sox aren’t even in the tunnel yet.
You know what, though? These depressing situations can turn around quicker than people realize. Heck, just last year, the Royals went from 56 wins in 2023 to the playoffs the following season, although the White Sox admittedly don’t have a Bobby Witt Jr. on their roster. The Orioles went from 110 losses in 2021 to 101 wins in 2023. The Tigers lost 119 games in 2003 and were in the World Series three years later. It can happen.
Ha! You were perhaps expecting to see the Cincinnati Reds here, but Mariners fans have suffered a certain type of aggrievement: the pain of falling just a little bit short with an ownership unwilling to do just a little bit more. The Mariners have four straight winning seasons and did break that two decades-long playoff drought in 2022, but then they missed the playoffs by one win in 2023 and then one win in 2024.
With chairman John Stanton once again holding a line on payroll — the Mariners are running lower payrolls than they did in 2016 through 2018 — president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto’s hands are tied. That hasn’t stopped him before, but so far the Mariners haven’t made one major league transaction (other than letting Jorge Polanco and Josh Rojas go). Meanwhile, the AL West is the most winnable it has been in years. The Astros won the division with just 88 wins in 2024, traded Tucker and might lose Alex Bregman, too. Now is the time for the Mariners to pounce and add some offense. Instead: silence. There’s a reason why frustrated Mariners fans can buy “.540” T-shirts — an homage to Dipoto infamous “win 54%” of your games comment.
The Angels were once a model franchise. From 2002 to 2009, they made six playoff appearances in eight years and followed that up with a bunch of winning seasons, including a 98-win campaign in 2014. Since then: nothing but bad decisions, bad moves, bad player development and a whole bunch of losses. The Angels are now riding a streak of nine consecutive losing seasons including a franchise-record 99 losses in 2024. They wasted the Mike Trout-Shohei Ohtani years. There is rarely any kind of coherent plan from owner Arte Moreno or the front office, with Moreno’s interference a key reason for the decade of failure.
The Angels have made moves this offseason. They signed Kyle Hendricks (35 years old) and Travis d’Arnaud (36 years old) and traded for Jorge Soler (33 years old). Their big move has been signing lefty Yusei Kikuchi (34 years old), who did finish 2024 with 10 terrific starts for the Astros but has never had a 2-WAR season. Trading for Soler as a full-time DH means Trout has to play the outfield on an everyday basis, even though it’s clear he needs to spend more time at DH in an attempt to just keep him in the lineup.
In other words, it’s the usual grab bag of players, repeating the pattern of recent history that hasn’t worked. Of course, all this is in stark contrast to the success of the Dodgers, a reminder that the Angels could be doing the same thing, with all the benefits of playing in the Los Angeles area with a large fan base (the Angels drew over 3 million fans every year from 2003 to 2019). Indeed, just over a decade ago, it was the Dodgers who were a complete mess, before the Guggenheim group purchased the franchise in 2012. That’s when the organizations splintered in opposite directions. The Angels now have the longest playoff drought in the majors. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have made 12 consecutive trips to the postseason and Angels fans have to watch Ohtani playing across town. Most frustrated fan base indeed.