MLB Worst Record Odds: The Race Nobody Wants Is On Kalshi
Most Augusts, the interesting markets point up: pennants, MVPs, the home run chase. But Kalshi also runs a market on the other end of the standings: which team finishes with the worst record in baseball. It has $339,000 in open positions, three genuine contenders, and a plot twist — because the favorite wasn't supposed to be here at all.
In mid-June, the Athletics were a .500 team. Since then they have lost 37 of 48 games (including a 5-22 stretch since June 30 that is the worst run in baseball), fired GM David Forst, and dropped, in Sports Illustrated's words, "alone at the bottom" of the sport at 48-75. A club that won 76 games last year and was supposed to be ascending toward its Las Vegas debut is now the 48-cent favorite to finish dead last. A price in cents is a probability: the market makes the collapse about a coin flip to go all the way.
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How A .500 Team Became The Favorite To Lose
The short version is that the roster went to the infirmary and never came back. Brent Rooker: done for the season in June. Shea Langeliers: torn meniscus in July, likely done. Jacob Wilson, Tyler Soderstrom, Nick Kurtz, Denzel Clarke, JT Ginn: all hit the injured list. Luis Severino, the $67 million pitching bet meant to anchor the Vegas-era rotation, made 12 starts and is likely out for the year with a shoulder injury.
The backdrop makes it sting more. The A's are playing their second of three seasons at Sutter Health Park, a minor-league stadium in West Sacramento, while the Las Vegas ballpark rises for 2028. Ownership actually raised payroll to $131.9 million this year (20th in baseball, a real increase), and owner John Fisher still says the franchise loses money, projecting a $40 million loss this season. The fans have rendered their verdict in person: Fisher was booed and cursed walking through the stands behind home plate during an August home game, and fans in "SELL" T-shirts keep slipping past security into TV shots. That's the documented mood around a team the market says is the best bet in baseball to finish last.
The Field: A Legacy Program Of Losing
| Kalshi worst-record board | Record (~Aug 10) | Price (Aug 21) |
|---|---|---|
| Athletics | 47-71, since fallen further | 38-48¢ |
| Colorado Rockies | 46-72 | 25-27¢ |
| Los Angeles Angels | 45-73 | 22-23¢ |
| Kansas City Royals | 49-70 | ~2¢ |
The Rockies are the incumbent power in this space. Last season they went 43-119 — and here's the fact everyone gets wrong: they did not break the modern loss record, finishing two defeats short of the 2024 White Sox's 121. What they did set was the worst run differential in baseball history, minus-424, obliterating a record that had stood at minus-345. This year's Rockies are merely bad rather than historic, which in Colorado counts as progress and in this market counts as a 26-cent contender.
The Angels are the sport's longest-running quiet crisis. They opened the year with the worst record in baseball at the quarter mark, run a bullpen ranked 29th of 30, haven't had a winning season since 2015 or a playoff game since 2014, and handed the job to first-time manager Kurt Suzuki on a one-year contract, the detail critics keep citing as proof of how much ownership is really investing in this. No Ohtani, no Trout renaissance, no plan anyone outside Anaheim can name.
The Punchline: Losing Doesn't Even Pay Anymore
Here's the part that makes this race genuinely absurd: finishing last doesn't get you the No. 1 pick. MLB's draft lottery hands the top six picks to a weighted drawing of all non-playoff teams. The worst club isn't even assured a top-six selection, and in the lottery's first year the three worst teams each had just a 16.5% shot at first overall. There are anti-tanking rules on top: teams that receive revenue sharing can't land lottery picks three years running. So the A's, Rockies and Angels are racing toward a finish line with no prize, in front of fanbases that have already priced in the pain. It's the one market on the exchange where every "yes" holder is rooting for something everyone involved would rather not happen — and honestly, that's what makes it worth reading. It's the sport's misery, quantified daily. We do exactly that at the Kalshi hub, alongside the boards where somebody actually wants to win.
Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange; each contract pays $1.00 if that team finishes with the outright worst record, settling October 29. Watch the Angels' September schedule (brutal), the A's injury returns (few), and whether Colorado's young arms can lose gracefully enough to stay out of it. Someone has to win this thing. Nobody will celebrate.
Prices quoted are live Kalshi market prices as of Thursday, August 21, 2026, and will keep moving until the market settles at season's end. Standings figures are as of the most recent published league summaries. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange (18+; availability varies by state). OddsShopper covers prediction markets as an independent analyst; any figures referenced are market prices or model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. Trading involves risk; contracts can go to zero.
Hero illustration: OddsShopper, in the house collage style. Sutter Health Park photo by Quintin Soloviev, licensed CC BY 4.0; photos cropped, toned, and composited.
