How MLB players cope with — and grow from — playing on a terrible team: ‘You find ways’

CHICAGO — A mere mention of the year 1991 elicited a pained groan from Sandy Alomar Jr. as he leaned against a railing in the Cleveland Guardians’ dugout.

Three decades have passed. Alomar played for seven teams across 20 seasons, appeared in 49 playoff games, won an All-Star Game MVP award and supplied a slew of unforgettable moments in a big-league uniform. He has coached for a consistent contender in Cleveland for 15 years.

And yet, he still can’t shake memories of that miserable ’91 season. That’s what losing can do — not the sort of losing that leaves players, coaches and fanbases disgruntled, but the degree of losing that beats the soul out of someone who can’t escape it.

“It hits you in the face every day,” said Cleveland pitcher Alex Cobb, a member of the 115-loss Baltimore Orioles of 2018. “Wake up, do it again. Wake up, do it again.”

Scanning the dugout of the historically inept Chicago White Sox during an early-September series at a mostly empty Guaranteed Rate Field triggered some flashbacks for Cobb.

He signed with the Orioles in late March 2018 and played catch-up for much of the year. By the time Cobb felt like himself, the Orioles were 40 games out of first place and he still had another dozen starts to make. He focused on sharpening his mechanics for the next season.

“You’re just trying to get through the day,” Cobb said. “You find ways.”

Of course, no one’s going to pity a big-leaguer who earns a seven-figure salary, enjoys ample leg room on charter flights, gorges on infinite servings of red meat at Brazilian steakhouses on road trip off days and throws a ball around for a couple of hours every five days.

“I don’t recall anyone feeling sorry for us,” said Orioles outfielder Cedric Mullins, who blossomed in 2021, when Baltimore lost 110 games. “In fact, it felt like it was blood in the water at that point.”

Still, it takes a mental toll on those completing nine fruitless innings night after night. No one knows it better than the White Sox, who broke the 1962 New York Mets’ record of 120 losses on Friday. Chicago was eliminated from playoff contention in mid-August. They sit more than 40 games out of fourth place in their division, a situation so bleak it’d test anyone’s drive.

“It’s definitely challenging to stay locked in and motivated,” said Ryan O’Hearn, a member of a pair of Royals teams that lost more than 100 games.

In 2021, Mullins became the first player since the franchise moved to Baltimore in 1954 to tally 30 homers and 30 stolen bases in a season. But he admits “it just wasn’t as fun” because the team was dreadful. His production dipped over the past three seasons, but he said he has enjoyed the experiences more.

“It’s funny,” he said, “when we go through stints like (the club’s recent funk), it feels like we’re losing. And I’m like, ‘You all have no idea.’”

When Torey Lovullo steered the Arizona Diamondbacks through a 52-110 season in 2021, his 25-minute commutes home from Chase Field were “dark.” He would sing along to Supertramp or Led Zeppelin to decompress and distract himself from whatever daunting matchup awaited his club the following day.

“I tried to go home and just be present at home,” Lovullo said, “and that became harder and harder throughout the course of the season.”

Several players said they would linger at home longer before heading to the ballpark, preferring not to spend an extra nanosecond in the monotonous misery.

“It can feel like a project to get to the stadium itself,” said Cincinnati Reds reliever Buck Farmer.

Farmer led the 2019 Detroit Tigers in appearances, with 73. The Tigers were 29-44 when he pitched and 18-70 when he didn’t.

“We lost a lot,” he said. “In my entire tenure there, we lost a lot.”

One hundred and fourteen games in 2019, to be precise. Enough to draw comparisons to the 2003 Tigers, who rallied during the final week of the season to avoid joining the ’62 Mets in the pantheon of futility.

“September was really hard,” said Matthew Boyd, who made a team-high 32 starts for the 2019 Tigers.

Both ex-Tigers pitchers, however, agreed there’s not much difference between 114 losses and, say, 98, the number of games Detroit dropped the previous two years.

“It’s all hard,” Boyd said.

“Either way sucks,” Farmer said. “Either way you draw it up, not having a winning season is tough. It sucks to lose.”

The clubhouse culture “can dictate how much that sucks,” Farmer said. In 2019, for instance, “it was like showing up for a 9-to-5, which sucks.” Sensing a theme here, or at least noticing a particular word that encapsulates the effects of perpetual losing on the psyche?

“It could have been a lot better,” said catcher Jake Rogers, another member of the 2019 Tigers. “It’s like the (2024) White Sox. You get to a point where everyone is like, ‘We’ve lost how many?’ That part sucks sometimes, but we weren’t thinking that (in) the moment. But you look back at it and it’s like, ‘Man, 114 is a lot.’”

In 2022, the Reds started the season 3-22, but Farmer insists no one would know based on the energy in the clubhouse. That can depend on the composition of the roster. When winning proves impractical, team goals tend to slip down players’ priority lists.

“I will never be OK with losing,” said Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas.

Late in the Miami Marlins’ march to 105 losses in 2019, the players held a meeting after a series in Arizona. Rojas asked his teammates “to look themselves in the mirror and look up (other) rosters (to determine) how many more teams you could play for today,” a method of motivation he said he was taught when he broke into the big leagues.

“Being eliminated a month before the season’s over,” Rojas said, “it’s hard, because the fans feed off that, too. … It’s really hard to ask people to come to the ballpark. So it’s really hard to come to the ballpark every day. It’s really low-energy. You’re finding your own motivation to play the game. But you have to be professional. You have to show up every single day because you’re getting paid.”

“Everybody’s in a certain spot in their career,” Cobb said. “If you’re going to arbitration, you’re trying to fluff as many numbers or trying to prevent bad numbers from happening. If you’re older, you’re on a contract, you’re probably just trying not to get hurt, trying to work on stuff for the next year.”

And if you’re new to the major leagues?

“On a team like that, there are a lot of guys who are super excited to be here,” Cobb said. “You don’t get to ruin that for anyone. You don’t get to take other peoples’ joy away from being in the locker room.”

As the 2018 trade deadline approached, the Orioles dealt away Manny Machado, Zack Britton, Kevin Gausman, Darren O’Day, Jonathan Schoop and Brad Brach. In the second half, Cobb looked around the room and wondered who everyone was. He said the influx of young players ultimately “helped the mood.”

That youthful exuberance can help to dispel feelings of nihilism. As Cobb described, “You’re putting the X over the days on the calendar, just trying to get through it.”

“It’s hard to find those bright spots,” Mullins said. “And those bright spots aren’t going to be looked at too often, just because (of) the team. You want to see the team perform. Individuals can’t do that on their own.”

Outfielder Austin Hays, like Mullins, broke out for the Orioles in 2021.

“You really have to dig into why you’re playing when you’re down 8-0 in the third inning,” said Hays, who credited the birth of his son for giving him proper perspective.

During a 102-loss season with the Oakland Athletics in 2022, catcher Stephen Vogt — now the Guardians’ manager — would encourage veteran players to be “an extension of the coaching staff,” said pitcher Cole Irvin. Vogt would engage the team’s young players about pitchers’ tendencies or reading hitters’ swings.

The most reassuring reminder Vogt provided?

“You’re what the 12-year-old version of yourself wanted to be,” Irvin said.

That 12-year-old self couldn’t wait to get to the field, no matter the team’s results of the previous day or week or month.

“It’s really hard,” Boyd said, “but it’s a balancing act. You have to have awareness. You’re going to fall out of line, and when you do, you have to give yourself grace to gently get back in.”

Those trudges to the finish line can be scarring, though.

As Alomar shook his head, reflecting on that 105-loss Cleveland season in 1991, his former teammate, Carlos Baerga, approached. Alomar stopped him and mentioned the infamous year. Baerga shouted like he was suffering from appendicitis and then recalled the most valuable bit of advice he received in his career. Hitting instructor Jose Morales told him: “Don’t get used to losing, because when you get used to losing, you get lazy.”

Alomar and Baerga came up together with the Padres and won minor-league championships in two of their final three years in the farm system. Then they were shipped to Cleveland, where the Indians lost so much they became a baseball punchline and played in front of small gatherings in a cavernous dungeon on the shores of Lake Erie.

They never sunk lower than in 1991. Cleveland went four decades without a playoff appearance after a trip to the World Series in 1954, but no iteration of the Indians lost more than that ’91 team did.

Alomar tore his groin partially off his pubic bone, which ended his season in late July when the club was sitting at 33-63. He still showed up to the ballpark every day, like a wounded animal slogging toward the slaughterhouse. All he needed to see in the opposing dugout were a few veteran players, and he knew.

“They’re probably gonna kick our butt,” Alomar said.

— The Athletic’s Sam Blum, Chad Jennings, C. Trent Rosecrans and Cody Stavenhagen contributed to this reporting.

(Top illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photo of Torey Lovullo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images; Alex Cobb: Rick Madonik / Toronto Star via Getty Images; Luis Robert Jr.: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images; Sandy Alomar Jr.: Focus on Sport / Getty Images; Miguel Rojas: Mitchell Layton / Getty Images)