Welcome to Snyder’s Soapbox! Here, I pontificate about matters related to Major League Baseball on a weekly basis. Some of the topics will be pressing matters, some might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will be somewhere in between. The good thing about this website is that it’s free, and you are allowed to click away. If you stay, you’ll get smarter, though. That’s a money-back guarantee. Let’s get to it.
As sports fans, we’re all bound to root for a bad or even just sub-par team at least every once in a while. If you pay attention to a good number of sports and don’t completely tune out when your teams are bad, the stink of futility is likely inescapable as long as you aren’t a fair weather fan.
Those of us who stick around as if it’s an assignment have been there far too many times with thoughts such as these bouncing around inside our heads …
OK, let’s get this over with.
I guess I’ll watch these bozos to see how they decide to lose today.
I might have to watch it, but I don’t have to like it.
I actually just did it over the weekend with my college basketball team and they found a way to get my hopes up and then choke the game away in the final minute. Even though I was pretty broken up, I most certainly wasn’t surprised.
I am a baseball writer, though, so we’ll stay in that lane here and run through a thought exercise: What is the worst aspect of a bad team to watch?
To be specific, let’s say that you’re rooting for a team that is otherwise adequate but just has an atrocious bullpen. Another one: The team actually pitches and plays defense pretty well, but has a punchless offense. I suppose even good teams have incredibly annoying Achilles heels, such as bad baserunning or constantly doing little things wrong (hello 2024 Yankees). Obviously, some teams are so bad that they suck at everything and the goal is always to root for a team that is good at everything, but let’s put those aside and just zero in on teams with one particularly wretched aspect.
What is the worst to root for?
Bad rotation
Picture a team that has a pretty adequate offense along with a capable defense and bullpen. Yet they cannot keep themselves above .500 because the rotation is terrible.
In any individual game, it feels like the offense keeps putting one or two runs in the board in the early innings, yet every time the team scores runs, the starting pitching coughs the lead right back up immediately. People rooting for these teams will push back on the people who hate hearing about the “shutdown inning” stat on the broadcast.
The problem here is it ends up extending to the bullpen and surely demoralizing the psyche of the offensive players. Think about it. The rotation just keeps getting lit up on a regular basis and the manager is left with one of two options:
1. Removing the starters early in the game every time.
2. Make the starters wear it and continue to give up runs through the middle innings.
In Case No. 1, the bullpen gets exhausted, which only leads to more runs. In the latter case, the offense keeps finding itself with nearly impossible hills to climb in every game and that can crush the will of players.
I think one of the better recent examples would be the 2023 Cardinals in the second half.
Leaky bullpen
We probably don’t need a good example here. Every fan at some point or another has dealt with bullpens turning into “blowpens.” Whether it’s a game where the offense shined and the rotation gave up a few runs more than usual or the offense was shut down while the starting pitching stepped up, the game enters the late innings close. The leaky blowpen team has a one- or two-run lead and, well, gets torched.
Veteran fans also know it doesn’t even have to be the bullpen getting hit hard. It could be a series of walks or a combination of putting runners on base and then getting knocked around and seeing the runs cross home plate to make us all lose our minds.
Every sub-par aspect of a team is frustrating for die-hard fans who watch their favorite team on a daily basis, but it seems especially torturous to sit through 2 ½ hours of fun, winning baseball only to see it all unravel at the very end, just three or two or even one out(s) away from victory.
To reiterate, every fan can easily relate to this, so my 2024 Cubs came to mind for all the blown games early in the season.
Weak offense
Have you ever been on a group text where you talk about your favorite team and three or four times a week, someone feels compelled to point out, “the pitchers have to be perfect or we don’t have a chance?”
Sorry, Mariners fans, but you can avert your eyes because you already know how this one goes.
It’s a helpless feeling as a fan just watching batter after batter step to the plate and send futile grounders and flies all over the yard. Let’s say you root for a team with a stellar rotation, but then one of the starters unexpectedly has an off-night and allowed a three-run shot in the second inning. For many teams, you’d still have that feeling of, “OK, that sucks, but we can get those runs back.” For a group with an inept offense, the game already feels over. It’s such a deflating feeling seeing that ball land in the seats and the “3” appear on the scoreboard.
We’ve all been there. “Welp, it’s over now. We can’t score three runs!”
Something else
It’s easy to envision an absolutely pathetic defensive team driving fans bonkers, but most teams these days are good enough at defense that it’s bound to be something else that drives you crazy. The baserunning gaffes are off-the-charts frustrating, but it feels like those go more on a case-by-case basis instead of costing a team games as often as stuff like the offense, rotation or bullpen can.
The verdict
Personally, I think it has to be the bad offense.
If we’re talking about the bad rotation with an adequate offense and bullpen, a terrible start still allows the possibility of a major comeback and, after a late lead is taken, the bullpen can hold said lead.
If we’re talking about bullpen issues, yes, those are absolutely soul-crushing at the time, but relievers are the most volatile players on the roster and that means they are the easiest — I didn’t say easy, I said easiest — players to grab from outside the organization in an attempt to fix the problem on the fly. Look no further than the 2023 NL champion Diamondbacks. They fixed their bullpen down the stretch and it was effective in the playoffs before getting to the World Series.
The anemic offense, though, can mean that you see a 2-0 deficit in the first inning and sit through the rest of the game getting your hopes up every time a single runner reaches base. “C’mon guys, one time! Just run into one and knock it into the seats!”
All for naught.
It’s a good way to ruin your night.
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