Ranking the Most Depressed MLB Fanbases so Far in 2021 Season

Fans are back in the stands at ballparks around the country and normalcy is slowly being restored as the weather gets warm. Summer means baseball season and no summer is complete without a trip to the ballpark. But fans of some teams are more likely to have their peanuts and Cracker Jack at home as a form of protest against bad baseball. 

Last-place standings, porous defenses, bad bullpens and poor management can be difficult to deal with. Being a sports fan is tough enough, but being a fan of a bad team can make even the most diehard fans question their loyalty. 

Here are the 10 fanbases in baseball that have it the worst this year and why. Some have hope for next season. Some should just wait this season out.

They're at the bottom of the NL West standings and have exactly one interesting storyline to follow this season: Is Madison Bumgarner still good or not? 

MadBum had a disastrous start to his Arizona career with a 6.43 ERA last year in 2020, the first year of his five-year, $85 million contract. His first few starts in the desert weren't great this year, either. But then he threw a seven-inning no-hitter…and now he's lost his past two decisions. 

It's tough to know what kind of pitcher he is now. The San Francisco ace has yet to emerge in Phoenix. 

The Diamondbacks are just sort of...there. They're a pretty nondescript team.

The Philadelphia Phillies have Bryce Harper, one of the faces of the game. They have the best two-way catcher in baseball in J.T. Realmuto. They have two aces in Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler and a World Series-winning manager in Joe Girardi. 

So why can't they put it all together?

The Phillies are only as good as their bullpen, which is only ranked 24th in MLB with a 4.68 ERA. Closer Hector Neris has been good (2.18 ERA, seven saves). Sam Coonrod (1.80) ERA and Jose Alvarado (3.60 ERA) were good acquisitions, but Connor Brogdon, David Hale and Brandon Kintzler have some bloated ERAs. 

At this point, Philadelphia hasn't been to the postseason since 2011. Better luck next year, Phillies fans. The NL East is a tough division and they don't have the bullpen to be able to climb the standings.

The city of Oakland has already lost the Raiders to Las Vegas and the Warriors to San Francisco. Now, the East Bay may lose the A's too.

The club is threatening to relocate if the city does not pay for a new ballpark. The A's have played in Oakland since 1968 and no one wants to see a historic franchise like that relocate to Las Vegas, but MLB has suggested the club explore relocation if the city doesn't approve their plan for a new waterfront stadium in Howard Terminal.

The A's have consistently been one of baseball's best regular-season teams but can't seem to make a run in the postseason. They haven't made it past the divisional round of the playoffs since 2006. Plus, the shoestring budget makes it difficult to keep fan favorites around for a long period of time. 

It's pretty frustrating to be a fan in Oakland right now.

The winners of the 2015 World Series looked to be making strides in their rebuild when they shot to the top of the AL Central standings in April. But they've fallen back to Earth. Currently, the Kansas City Royals are 6-4 in their past 10 games and in third place in the division. 

This is just kind of their identity. They're the good bad team in the Central. Wade Davis (7.53 ERA) might be nearing the end of his career at 35 years old. The team ranks toward the bottom in hitting, starting pitching and relief pitching. They're just kind of...meh. 

But they do have some prospects on the way next season, like Bobby Witt Jr., and it's not like 2014 was that long ago. These fans also have the Kansas City Chiefs and back-to-back Super Bowl appearances with one win isn't bad, so things aren't too bad on the prairie. 

The good: Trey Mancini made a full recovery from stage 3 colon cancer in the feel-good story of the season. Another positive: Left-hander John Means tossed a no-hitter, so there has been some success on the player-development side of things. 

The bad: Outside of Means, the rotation has been pretty bad. Only one other team in the American League has been worse (and we'll get to that team in a minute). Not that there was a ton of hope for a Chris Davis comeback story, but any hope is now fully gone since he's out for the season after undergoing hip surgery. 

Also, the Orioles play in the AL East. If the New York Yankees are having trouble keeping up in the division, then the O's have no shot. 

But Camden Yards is a great ballpark. So, there's that.

The Minnesota Twins had high hopes for a season with a healthy Byron Buxton in a division with some down teams. As it turns out, the Twins are actually the down team. They're tied with the Detroit Tigers for last place in the division and have one of the worst records in the league (18-29). And the oft-injured Buxton is injured again, although he is eyeing a return. 

The club found itself at the center of an unwritten-rules controversy with the Chicago White Sox last week. Lucky for the Twins, Chicago manager Tony La Russa made some tone-deaf comments and threw his own player, Yermin Mercedes, under the bus, taking the attention off the Twins and manager Rocco Baldelli. 

Minnesota hasn't won a playoff game since 2004 or a playoff series since 2002. Tough times in the Twin Cities.

The two best players in baseball call Orange County home. Joe Maddon is considered one of the smarter managers, and yet, the Los Angeles Angels can't get those two players, outfielder Mike Trout and two-way player Shohei Ohtani to the playoffs. The Angels sit at the bottom of the AL West standings. They haven't made the postseason since 2014 when they were swept by the Royals. 

Also, they released first-ballot Hall-of-Famer Albert Pujols. It was a strange ending to a mostly unsuccessful tenure in Anaheim.

The Angels tend to spend a lot of money on their lineup and it comes at the cost of pitching (worst starting pitching ERA in baseball) and player development. The farm system was consistently ranked among the worst in baseball over the past five years. 

At the very least, Halos fans get to watch two generational talents at the Big A every night. But that's no solace come October when baseball's best talent is on display and Trout and Ohtani are sitting at home.

Rebuilds are arduous. They're not fun. They can take a long time to complete and fans aren't often patient enough to be able to wait them out. The Detroit Tigers are still rebuilding in 2021 and it's not going to get better right away. 

Some of the prospects the club received in the Justin Verlander trade with the Houston Astros aren't quite panning out (Daz Cameron is not on the major league roster and Franklin Perez was released ahead of season-ending shoulder surgery), however, the club does have a World Series-winning manager in A.J. Hinch and a burgeoning star in outfielder Akil Baddoo. 

Be patient, Detroit fans. You're going to need all of the patience you can muster.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are working on a sixth straight losing season. Their top prospect, third baseman Ke'Bryan Hayes, was injured early in the season (though he is playing in rehab games right now in anticipation for a return) and early-season sensation Phillip Evans has come back to Earth. 

It's a rebuild. There isn't much else to say. General manager Ben Cherington didn't see a path forward other than to tear it all down and start over again. So, the next step is to develop the talent they have, like Hayes and the players received in return for Joe Musgrove, as well as trade off some assets at the deadline in July.

After that? Cherington might want to consider expediting things because these fans aren't going to wait around forever.

The club is in a state of disarray. General manager Jeff Bridich resigned a few months after trading Nolan Arenado, a power-hitting third baseman who was the face of the franchise, to the St. Louis Cardinals. Shortstop Trevor Story has no incentive to stay and sign a long-term contract and he could be traded at the deadline this summer. 

The face of the franchise now? Coors Field. Ownership will get its revenue from ticket sales without having to even try to field a competitive team. 

Go ahead and tank, because at least tanking signals a rebuild and that the club intends to be competitive in the future. But the Rockies are just doing nothing, just kind of existing, and the fans deserve better.