The worst team money can buy

An around-the-horn look at Baseball’s costliest busts in 2023

Anthony Rendon of the Angels had a season to forget in 2023, but he wasn’t alone.

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There was a lot of talk throughout the season about the Mets and Padres, 2 teams that went all-in financially in 2023 and reported to Spring Training as “World Series or Bust” as any teams in recent memory.

Both clubs wound up enduring nightmarish seasons.

The Mets, with the largest payroll in Major League history, finished 75-87, 4th in the NL East, 29 games out of first place. They needed the Hubble Space Telescope to catch a glimpse of the first-place Braves as the summer progressed, and they never even challenged for a Wild Card.

Neither did the Padres, who—despite the 3rd-largest payroll in the sport—needed a September surge to merely finish 82-80, 3rd in the NL West, 18 games behind the Dodgers.

This was supposed to be the year San Diego challenged its neighbor to the north for the top spot in the West. As it turned out, the Padres spent the entire season looking up at not just the Dodgers but also the D-Backs and even trailed the Giants in the division standings for the majority of the year.

The Yankees, #2 in spending, barely finished above .500 (82-80). And the Ohtani/Trout Angels, with the Game’s 6th-highest payroll, went a lamentable 73-89.

Then there are the Dodgers (with the 5th-highest payroll) and the Blue Jays (7th-highest), who both made the playoffs but failed to even win a post-season game.

Simply put, it wasn’t a great year for Baseball’s biggest spenders.

But what about from an individual perspective? I wrote a piece in August about the worst contracts in Baseball history.

Sunk cost

But who were the biggest financial busts in 2023?

I reconvened our esteemed VIEW FROM THE BLEACHERS panel of experts and—after 2 1/2 days of deliberation—today I present, position-by-position, the worst team money could buy in the just-completed season.