1899 Cleveland Spiders season

To strengthen the Perfectos, they transferred the Spiders' best players to St. Louis before the season, leaving Cleveland with a severely depleted roster.

This remains the worst single-season record for an MLB team in terms of winning percentage (.130).

[1] In early 1899, the owners of the Spiders, the Robison brothers, Frank and Stanley, bought the St. Louis Browns baseball club from Chris von der Ahe, renaming it the Perfectos.

However, they continued to retain ownership of the Cleveland club, an obvious conflict of interest that was later prohibited by Major League Baseball.

[2] The Robisons decided that a good team in St. Louis would draw more fans, so they transferred most of the Cleveland stars, including future Hall of Famers Cy Young, Jesse Burkett and Bobby Wallace, as well as manager Patsy Tebeau, to St. Louis.

Jack Clements (known to history as one of MLB's few left-handed throwing catchers) and Joe Quinn were at the end of successful careers, and player-manager Lave Cross was traded back to St. Louis after the Spiders got off to an 8–30 start.

After their first game, in which they were beaten by the Perfectos, 10–1, the headline of the April 16 edition of The Plain Dealer proved to be prescient: "THE FARCE HAS BEGUN."

On June 2, the Spiders led the Brooklyn Superbas, 10–0, in the sixth inning, but they blew the lead and ended up losing, 11–10.

He had little speed today, was quite as wild as usual, and the Brooklyns had little or no trouble in making runs and plenty of them."

[10] Two days later, the Spiders played a local amateur team in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and lost, 7–5.

[12] On October 15, the Spiders ended their season by losing both games of a doubleheader to the Cincinnati Reds, by scores of 16–1 and 19–3.

"Mournfully the Clevelands departed for the west this afternoon with nothing to show for their pilgrimmage east but three games lost and a few dollars that barely compensated for making the trip.

The Clevelands are so utterly bad that they can't even draw in a city where the prospective champions are playing."

Currently, the 2024 Chicago White Sox (121) has the post-1900 AL and MLB records for most losses in a season.

Infielders Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg.