Big markets, superstar payrolls, and October dreams can make great television. On the books, though, they can turn into some of the ugliest operating losses Major League Baseball has ever seen. This is the side of the sport where checks bounce only in spreadsheets and risk shows up as red ink.
Operating losses are the bill that comes due when the show is over. In simple terms, these are the seasons when a club’s operating expenses outstrip its revenue, and the team records a negative operating income. For MLB front offices that chase wins with massive spending, operating losses have become a regular part of the story.
In recent years, the biggest operating losses have clustered around a familiar group. New York, Chicago, San Diego, Toronto, Minneapolis. Different markets, same math problem. You push payroll, tax payments, and stadium investments to the limit, and the operating line turns into a warning light.
This list looks at the teams that leaned hardest into that tradeoff and wound up with the largest reported operating losses in the modern era of aggressive spending.
Why Operating Losses Matter
Operating losses do not mean an MLB team is broke. Franchise values keep climbing, media deals stretch for decades, and owners can tap outside businesses or future borrowing. Still, a heavy operating loss puts real pressure on how a club behaves in the next cycle.
It can affect everything fans actually feel. Roster churn instead of extensions. Deferred money instead of fresh commitments. Payroll cuts right when a core should be getting help. And for small or mid tier revenue clubs, a big single season loss can push ownership straight into a reset.
The other reason this matters is competitive balance. Recent Forbes work shows that league wide EBITDA would have ticked up in 2022 if not for a handful of very aggressive spenders, led by the Mets and followed by the White Sox, Padres, Blue Jays, and Twins, all running large operating losses while carrying their highest payrolls of the era.
Those clubs were not reckless. They were making a choice. Spend today, worry about the books later. This list is about what that choice looked like when the accountants closed the year.
This ranking uses Forbes Business of Baseball estimates for the 2022 MLB season and follow up reporting from trusted outlets, weighted first by the size of each team’s single season operating loss, then by how far payroll sat above league norms, with ties broken by context such as revenue base, tax payments, and trajectory in the standings.
The Costly Seasons That Stand Out
1. Mets Operating Losses Go Nuclear
For the modern story of operating losses, you have to start in Queens. Forbes estimates that the New York Mets posted an operating loss of roughly 138 million dollars for the 2022 season, by far the worst figure in the league that year.
Here is the thing. That loss came in a season when the Mets actually won. They went 101 and 61, shared the best record in franchise history, then fizzled in the Wild Card series at Citi Field. The defining moment off the field was Steve Cohen telling everyone he was going to spend, then proving it. Payroll pushed near the top of MLB in 2022, then soared past 300 million dollars plus a record competitive balance tax bill in 2023, when total player costs neared 420 million dollars.
Inside the organization, people felt the tension. Coaches and players spoke openly about the expectations that came with a roster full of expensive veterans and star names. The front office juggled win now moves with the knowledge that every extra veteran year added another eight figure hit to an already bloated expense line. When 2023 collapsed into a 75 and 87 mess, with a record operating loss in the neighborhood of 290 million dollars, the club flipped Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander and tried to reset the timeline without turning off the spending spigot entirely.
From a fan perspective, it felt like living in a baseball experiment. I have watched that Wild Card loss to the Padres more than I care to admit and you can almost see the weight of those checks in the body language. The crowd carried a mix of gratitude and dread. Thank you for spending. Please do not let this blow up the window.
2. White Sox Operating Losses Bite
Move from Queens to the South Side and the story looks different but the spreadsheet pain feels similar. Forbes valued the Chicago White Sox at just over 2 billion dollars in 2023 and reported that the club ran an operating loss of around 53 million dollars for the 2022 season.
The emotional side of this one is brutal. White Sox fans had already been sold a rebuild, then a “championship window,” then a managerial pivot back to La Russa. The players were not shy about the stakes. Tim Anderson talked about the group needing to bring energy every night. La Russa’s staff spoke about urgency. Inside the clubhouse, veterans believed they had enough talent to contend deep into October. Outside the park, you could hear the frustration building, especially as attendance and television audiences slipped despite the spending.
There is a quiet behind the scenes detail here that matters. All that red ink did not push ownership into a sudden teardown. Instead, the club rode the group longer than fans expected, then scrambled once the losses on the field matched the losses on the books. Front office changes followed, a sale process has been discussed, and the White Sox now sit at a strange crossroads where the market size and local media footprint still support a strong valuation, but the competitive plan and financial comfort level do not feel aligned.
Maybe it is just me, but when a team runs a loss like that in what was supposed to be the good part of the cycle, you sense a deeper problem than one bad season.
3. Padres Operating Losses And Pressure
If you watched the Padres during that Fernando Tatis Junior, Manny Machado, Juan Soto run, it never felt like a small market club. That was by design. Under owner Peter Seidler and general manager AJ Preller, San Diego pushed into the top tier of MLB payrolls and carried one of the most aggressive balance sheets in the sport.
Behind the scenes, though, the bills stacked up fast. Reports later detailed that the club had to borrow around 50 million dollars, that debt service ratio rules became a real constraint, and that those operating losses were a big part of the problem. When you are sending out that kind of money for star contracts, tax payments, and a loaded supporting cast, you have to keep advancing deep into October or keep growing revenue streams just to tread water.
The fan culture twist here is fascinating. Padres fans had waited a long time for this kind of push. Petco was full and loud, brown and gold everywhere, and baseball people kept talking about how San Diego had become one of the great atmospheres in the sport. At the same time, you could sense the anxiety about what might happen if the run stalled. People on talk shows and message boards started asking whether this version of the Padres was sustainable or a beautiful but short lived spike.
In the years since, that pressure has shown up in real ways. The payroll has been trimmed, some stars have moved on, and the club looks more like a normal contender again, not a financial outlier. That 53 million dollar loss stands as the fullest expression of what it looked like when the Padres tried to punch in the same weight class as the richest clubs in the sport. [Link: Team Profile]
4. Blue Jays Operating Losses And Ambition
On paper, the Toronto Blue Jays should be a money machine. They are the only MLB club in Canada, backed by a giant telecom company, and play in a city that Mark Shapiro once called “a world class city and sports mecca.” For a long time, though, Rogers Centre felt tired and the on field product sat somewhere between solid and stuck.
Shapiro has leaned into the long view. He has talked about the renovations as a way to “build a championship level experience on and off the field,” and has framed the spending as a commitment to compete with the heavyweights. For fans, it feels like both a blessing and a test. You get a modern ballpark experience, prime time free agent signings, and a team that expects to play meaningful games every September. You also watch ownership swallow repeated eight figure losses with the promise that better days are coming.
From the outside, the vibe in Toronto has been restless but hopeful. The ballpark looks better, the team often sits in the upper half of playoff odds models, and the seats behind home plate are full of people who look like they came straight from Bay Street offices. At the same time, the club has not broken through in October, and that gap between ambition and results keeps the conversation spicy.
I keep thinking about one small scene here. A weeknight game against a middling opponent, renovated outfield sections buzzing, and a fan turning to a friend and saying that the place “finally feels big league again.” That is what those operating losses are buying. The open question is how long ownership will keep paying for that feeling if the playoff runs stay short.
5. Twins Operating Losses And Reality
The Minnesota Twins do not fit the stereotype of a financial wild child. They are often labeled a mid market operation and have spent plenty of time on the cautious end of the free agent pool. That is part of what made their 2022 numbers so striking.
According to reporting that dug into the Forbes data, the Twins posted an operating loss of about 30.3 million dollars for the 2022 season. That was the fifth worst figure in MLB, behind only the Mets, White Sox, Padres, and Blue Jays. This was not a case of a small club barely scraping by. That year, the Twins carried the highest payroll in franchise history, pushed well past what their traditional revenue base would suggest, and still missed the playoffs.
Culturally, that season felt odd. Target Field crowds remained solid, the ballpark experience stayed strong, and fans were thrilled to see the club spend on players like Carlos Correa. At the same time, there was a nagging sense that the margins were thin. When injuries hit and the club sagged, it did not feel like there was another gear the front office could hit without taking on even more risk.
As a neutral observer, I have watched some of those late season Target Field games on television and felt a mix of pride and concern for that fan base. They finally got to see ownership act like winning mattered more than margin. The balance sheet made sure nobody forgot the cost.
What Comes Next
Operating losses on this scale do not vanish. They roll forward into budget meetings, roster decisions, and quiet conversations between owners and league offices about debt tests and comfort zones. The Mets, Padres, Blue Jays, White Sox, and Twins are all trying to find the new line between staying aggressive and keeping the numbers from spinning out again.
The next phase will probably not be about fewer resources. MLB revenues keep setting records, new streaming and sponsorship deals keep emerging, and the richest clubs are not going to pretend they are small. What changes is how often an owner is willing to sign off on a season that ends with tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in operating losses.
Look, maybe I am reading too much into this, but it feels like we are entering a stretch where fans will have to ask a hard question.
Are you ready for your team to chase every possible win if it means living with more seasons like these on the books?
Also Read: Highest ROI: 10 MLB Teams Getting the Best Value for Every Dollar Spent on Payroll
I bounce between stadium seats and window seats, chasing games and new places. Sports fuel my heart, travel clears my head, and every trip ends with a story worth sharing.
