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The Most-Hated MLB Owners in Baseball According to Each Team's Fanbase
Updated: | First published:
Written by Nick Slade, Chief Content Officer
Reviewed by Dave Garofolo
Which MLB team owners are the most hated by their team's following? We scraped the internet to capture each fanbase's overall sentiment towards their team's front office to find out.
Baseball fans have spoken. Well, actually, they've screamed, cursed, and rage-posted on Reddit. After analyzing thousands of comments about MLB owners, we've crowned the kings of contempt and the darlings of the diamond.
The Science of Saltiness
Our data analysts dove deep into the digital dugout, analyzing the 1,000 most recent posts from each of the 30 MLB team subreddits. Using a sophisticated emotion-detecting AI model (the wonderfully named RoBERTa), they classified comments mentioning team owners into six emotional categories: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, joy, and surprise.
The resulting "Owner Hate Score" (from 0 to 100) combines emotional intensity, frequency of negative mentions, and something called "emotional volatility" – essentially measuring how wildly fans' feelings swing when discussing their team's brass. Think of it as a Statcast for saltiness.
The Hall of Shame: Your Top 5 Most Despised Owners
1. 🥇 John Fisher - Athletics (Owner Hate Score: 92.24)
The Stats That Sting:
1,220 total negative comments about team owner (51.3% of all mentions!)
26.17% anger rate (highest in MLB)
622 angry comments alone
337 disgust comments (14.18% disgust rate)
Only 6.23% of comments expressed joy
Why the Hate? Cat feces in the Coliseum. A $57.8 million payroll. Moving the team to Vegas. Fisher basically speedran "How to Destroy a Fanbase 101."
2. 🥈 Jerry Reinsdorf - Chicago White Sox (Owner Hate Score: 73.83)
The Numbers:
285 total negative comments about team owner
13.61% of comments expressing anger, 13.34% expressing disgust
Less than 7% of comments expressed any joy
Emotional volatility: 0.0968 (fans are all over the place)
The Beef: Jerry watched his team lose 121 games while demanding $1 billion in public stadium money. Bold strategy, Cotton.
3. 🥉 Mark Lerner - Washington Nationals (Owner Hate Score: 71.06)
Fan Fury Facts:
434 total negative comments about team owner
157 anger & 155 disgust comments
Only 3.45% of comments expressed any joy (second-lowest)
Nearly 50% of comments were neutral (resigned acceptance?)
37.5% of all mentions are purely negative
The Grievance: Won a World Series in 2019. Immediately traded away Juan Soto and everyone else. Imagine winning the lottery and immediately declaring bankruptcy.
4. Paul Dolan - Cleveland Guardians (Owner Hate Score: 65.63)
The Damage:
275 total negative comments about team owner
19.39% of all comments expressed anger (second-highest rate)
15.38% of all comments expressed disgust
44% negativity rate overall
Why So Serious? Telling fans to "enjoy" Francisco Lindor before trading him is like your mom saying "enjoy your dog" before taking it to live on a farm upstate.
5. Bob Nutting - Pittsburgh Pirates (Owner Hate Score: 60.66)
By the Numbers:
332 total negative comments about team owner
114 anger + 135 disgust comments
Less than 6% of comments expressed any joy
14.11% disgust rate
11.60% surprise (probably shock at new lows)
The Nutting Special: Released Rowdy Tellez 4 at-bats shy of a $200K bonus with six games to play. That's akin to firing someone on December 23rd to avoid paying a Christmas bonus.
John Fisher is Public Enemy No. 1 of the A's fanbase.
The Teacher's Pets: Your 5 Most Tolerated Owners
26. Stuart Sternberg - Tampa Bay Rays (Owner Hate Score: 5.13)
33 total negative comments about team owner
58.4% neutral comments
Only 10 anger + 8 disgust comments
Balanced emotions across the board
Why the Love? Consistently fields competitive teams on a shoestring budget. It's like being the clutch friend who always finds the best happy hour deals.
27. Ken Kendrick - Arizona Diamondbacks (Owner Hate Score: 4.13)
15 total negative comments about team owner
13.46% surprise (highest positive emotion)
53.85% neutral
Just 4 anger + 3 disgust comments
The Secret: Stay quiet, win occasionally, don't move the team. Revolutionary concept!
28. Christopher Ilitch - Detroit Tigers (Owner Hate Score: 4.05)
13 total negative comments about team owner (practically invisible)
61.9% neutral
Zero fear comments (!)
Only 6 anger + 2 disgust comments
The Strategy: His dad built Little Caesars. Fans still get $5 Hot-N-Ready pizzas. Hard to hate that.
29. Tom Ricketts - Chicago Cubs (Owner Hate Score: 3.83)
58 total negative comments about team owner
62.59% neutral (highest neutral rate)
Only 11.48% anger despite recent struggles
31 anger + 11 disgust comments
The Buffer: Won a World Series in 2016. That bought him approximately 108 years of goodwill.
30. 👑 John Sherman - Kansas City Royals (Owner Hate Score: 2.04)
The Golden Child:
46 total negative comments about team owner
74.13% neutral (fans are chill)
Only 4.1% anger (lowest in MLB)
13 anger + 14 disgust comments
Minuscule 1.89% joy (they're not happy, just not mad)
The Magic: Bought the team in 2019. Hasn't had time to screw up yet. Give it a few years.
Most-Hated MLB Owners - Complete Rankings
See the table below for the full rankings for all 30 MLB team owners as well as their score in the six different emotional categories and resulting Owner Hate Score (OHS).
Scroll sideways to see the full table on mobile.
| Rank | Team | Owner | Anger | Disgust | Fear | Sadness | Joy | Surprise | Final OHS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oakland Athletics | John Fisher | 20.79% | 17.06% | 11.69% | 11.30% | 3.74% | 6.77% | 92.24 |
| 2 | Chicago White Sox | Jerry Reinsdorf | 25.80% | 22.32% | 3.99% | 7.14% | 4.65% | 6.49% | 73.83 |
| 3 | Washington Nationals | Mark Lerner | 17.57% | 13.73% | 4.92% | 7.87% | 2.61% | 5.69% | 71.06 |
| 4 | Cleveland Guardians | Paul Dolan | 15.63% | 17.51% | 2.22% | 5.98% | 4.78% | 9.87% | 65.63 |
| 5 | Pittsburgh Pirates | Robert Nutting | 15.06% | 17.55% | 3.49% | 8.08% | 5.47% | 6.22% | 60.66 |
| 6 | Colorado Rockies | Charlie Monfort | 13.79% | 12.37% | 8.07% | 7.02% | 3.56% | 9.36% | 56.57 |
| 7 | Boston Red Sox | John Henry | 17.12% | 28.39% | 3.95% | 4.44% | 3.59% | 6.45% | 54.14 |
| 8 | Seattle Mariners | John W. Stanton | 14.09% | 9.06% | 2.27% | 20.39% | 4.97% | 10.78% | 49.41 |
| 9 | Minnesota Twins | Jim Pohlad | 11.11% | 13.89% | 1.65% | 14.87% | 7.55% | 11.49% | 47.81 |
| 10 | Cincinnati Reds | Bob Castellini | 18.25% | 8.74% | 4.56% | 11.36% | 5.00% | 5.04% | 44.45 |
| 11 | Los Angeles Angels | Arte Moreno | 13.63% | 14.14% | 3.35% | 7.04% | 6.71% | 13.55% | 39.42 |
| 12 | St. Louis Cardinals | William DeWitt Jr. | 11.38% | 12.30% | 9.84% | 9.79% | 7.33% | 5.74% | 37.86 |
| 13 | New York Yankees | Hal Steinbrenner | 11.28% | 9.05% | 6.65% | 11.79% | 6.49% | 8.36% | 31.95 |
| 14 | Houston Astros | Jim Crane | 19.51% | 12.25% | 5.51% | 10.19% | 3.56% | 18.88% | 30.85 |
| 15 | New York Mets | Steve Cohen | 18.59% | 12.03% | 3.08% | 7.15% | 13.05% | 10.07% | 27.97 |
| 16 | Atlanta Braves | Atlanta Braves Holdings Inc | 22.40% | 13.22% | 1.32% | 4.93% | 2.73% | 11.74% | 27.62 |
| 17 | Miami Marlins | Bruce Sherman | 12.73% | 9.51% | 3.08% | 8.66% | 4.12% | 5.99% | 20.47 |
| 18 | Milwaukee Brewers | Mark Attanasio | 14.10% | 13.16% | 3.26% | 11.27% | 6.01% | 14.27% | 20.19 |
| 19 | Philadelphia Phillies | John Middleton | 10.04% | 7.44% | 24.91% | 7.42% | 4.07% | 6.70% | 17.68 |
| 20 | Baltimore Orioles | David Rubenstein | 6.69% | 11.05% | 4.50% | 10.75% | 3.10% | 10.09% | 17.34 |
| 21 | San Francisco Giants | Charlie Johnson | 12.10% | 15.40% | 5.88% | 12.51% | 2.49% | 9.75% | 15.75 |
| 22 | Toronto Blue Jays | Rogers Communications | 4.07% | 3.89% | 45.23% | 7.48% | 3.50% | 10.21% | 9.51 |
| 23 | San Diego Padres | Sheel Seidler, Peter O'Malley, Eric Kutsenda | 10.68% | 9.41% | 5.21% | 5.60% | 30.66% | 8.88% | 9.35 |
| 24 | Los Angeles Dodgers | Mark Walter | 8.86% | 10.66% | 2.28% | 11.10% | 23.85% | 4.43% | 5.71 |
| 25 | Texas Rangers | Ray Davis | 14.33% | 6.70% | 2.64% | 5.99% | 7.87% | 10.19% | 5.53 |
| 26 | Tampa Bay Rays | Stuart Sternberg | 10.77% | 6.77% | 2.00% | 7.95% | 6.80% | 6.97% | 5.13 |
| 27 | Arizona Diamondbacks | Ken Kendrick | 10.34% | 16.19% | 11.90% | 5.00% | 3.24% | 9.43% | 4.13 |
| 28 | Detroit Tigers | Chirstopher Ilitch | 11.32% | 4.60% | 6.62% | 12.05% | 6.70% | 5.10% | 4.05 |
| 29 | Chicago Cubs | Thomas Ricketts | 10.80% | 5.62% | 2.43% | 6.16% | 7.08% | 7.41% | 3.83 |
| 30 | Kansas City Royals | John Sherman | 8.13% | 8.44% | 9.93% | 6.75% | 2.48% | 9.68% | 2.04 |
The Bottom Line
The data confirms what we already knew: Oakland's John Fisher is baseball's ultimate villain. With 1,220 negative comments and a 26% anger rate, he's lapped the field.
Meanwhile, Kansas City's John Sherman sits pretty with a 2.04 score and only 46 negative comments. The secret? Do literally nothing noteworthy.
The real winners? Fans of teams with corporate ownership (Dodgers, Blue Jays, Braves). Can't hate a faceless corporation as much as you can hate Jerry Reinsdorf's smug face.
Remember: These owners are worth billions. Your anger only makes them stronger. But hey, at least we have the data to prove who deserves it most.
Methodology
This analysis examined fan sentiment toward MLB team owners through a systematic review of Reddit discourse. We collected the 1,000 most recent posts and all associated comments from each of the 30 MLB team subreddits, focusing on content that mentioned team ownership.
Emotional classification was performed using a RoBERTa model fine-tuned for emotion detection, categorizing each mention into six emotions: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, joy, and surprise, plus neutral.
Our composite scoring system integrated three metrics: Raw Emotion Score (emotional intensity), Emotion Count Score (frequency of negative emotions), and Emotional Volatility (standard deviation across emotions). The final owner sentiment score ranges from 0-100, where higher scores indicate more negative fan sentiment. A smoothing penalty was applied based on mention volume to ensure statistical validity.
Teams were categorized into sentiment tiers: Very Negative Image (70+), Negative Image (50-70), Neutral-Negative Image (30-50), and Relatively Positive Image (0-30).
From these metrics and tiers, we were able to craft the rankings for all 30 MLB team owners as you see above.
So, if you belong to one of these fanbases, did we get your feelings towards the team ownership right?
To give you the most accurate and helpful information, this article has been reviewed and edited by Dave Garofolo through our fact-checking process.
Nick Slade, with nearly two decades of experience, is the Chief Content Officer at Cipher Sports Technology Group, overseeing content for Dimers. He specializes in soccer, NBA, and NHL betting, leveraging predictive analytics and machine learning to provide accurate betting insights.
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