I was suprised by this. We rank fourth out of all major league teams ahead of the Yankees even. The Hatred Index The Hatred Index Using an algorithm designed by Nielsen Co. that measures positive and negative reactions on the Internet, here are the 10 most despised teams in baseball (scale is -5 to 5). Team Score 1. Cleveland Indians 0.9 2. Boston Red Sox 1.1 3. Cincinnati Reds 1.5 4 Houston Astros 1.8 5. New York Yankees 1.8 6. Washington Nationals 1.9 7. Chicago White Sox 2 8. Baltimore Orioles 2 9. New York Mets 2.3 10. Los Angeles Dodgers 2.4
I think they used the wrong word to describe the results of this. My guess it should read "most criticized" and not "hated". They probably ran searches on keywords conveying displeasure for each team, and with the way our team has been run since 2005 it is no surprise that we would show up as "most criticized". All of us on the message boards and our sportswriters talk about our displeasure with moves, but it doesn't mean we hate them. I mean, why would anyone outside of a select few hate the Reds?
The term hated seems out of place. There is no way you can convince me that the Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs are not the most hated teams in baseball.
Go to Mlbtraderumors.com and look at the comments for anything Astros. This makes perfect sense to me. The Northeastern media hates our guts.
I think they took into account both positive and negative things said about the teams and weighed them against each other. The Yankees and BoSox are definitely the two most hated teams in the league. They're also two of the most loved teams so it kind of cancels out the hatred. It's not that teams like the Astros, Reds, and Nationals are more hated than the Yanks or Sox, it's just that there's not a lot of positive things being said right now to offset the level of criticism.
To compare the Reds and Nationals to the Astros isn't very fair. The Astros dominated in the late 90's and made the World Series in 05 with other playoff appearances. The Reds and Nationals just don't weigh up to the Astros success recently. I could see why people hate the Astros. We dominated alot of these "journalists" favorite teams in the late 90s and early 2000s. Also, we aren't the most sabermetric involved team when sabermetrics are widely respected among most sportswriters. We get all kinds of flack for not following this trend. I would totally agree with our Astros being hated nationally even though its unjust for the most part.
EXACTLY what i was thinking. then again...maybe it's because they haven't won anything in over 100 years....
Outside of the Yankees and Mets, all of the other teams on that list are terrible this year. I'm betting that the "negative" includes people saying how terrible the teams are, which is incorrectly translated to "hate". I don't think random people care enough about the Astros to actually hate them.
No one here in California cares about the Astros at ALL. I could see the Rangers being hated more than the Astros. Some of the negative sentiment might be Clemens carry-over effect. And perhaps Miguel Tejada's controversies contributed to negative publicity.
wrong list. If a team its not a division rival, and hasnt won anything why you hate them? Maybe nobody writes positive reviews about the Astros, so if you want to to put the positive vs the negative, obviously its going to be more negative. and one thing about that list, the Astros and the Yankees both have 1.8 so why the Astros are above the Yankees?
This. I'm guessing the vast majority of the "hate" that the Astros get comes from people in Houston that are constantly frustrated by this team's performance.
When I was in college it seemed like all the schools I interacted with (TAMU, UT, UH, UNT, TXS, etc) were all cool with the Astros. The Rockets everyone hated. But the Astros the entire state seems to cheer for. Weird.
GUYS and gals! The reason the Astros are disliked around the Majors is because of how our front office utilizes very little sabermetric tools. We are looked down upon because of this and it only gets worse the more we lose. Sabermetrics are used in not all but most front offices as a way to value and measure players using new statistics like VORP, WAR, and wOBA. Because our front office doesn't utilize or believe these are the only means of measuring a players strengths and value, Ed Wade and Co. are believed to be incompetant or "old school". Several sabermetricians have issues with judging a player on his "make up" and "hard work", but instead to value them strictly with numbers. I love statistics and have always believed that the stats never lie. I commonly use the statistics and they can be very telling. However, I have a huge issue with finding it wrong or "old school" to judge a player by his attitude or make up as an individual. That is also very telling. I like utilizing both and I will continue to do so. You will not catch me in some weird cape at some sabermetric party drinking their awful Kool-Aid though. The Astros are also hated upon because we romped through teams like the finely tuned machine we were from 1992-2006. We weren't the Yankees because of ZERO rings, but from 1992-2006, the only below .500 season we had was in 2000. Now that the 'Stros have had two out of the last three seasons as losing seasons, we are now baseball blogs new "whipping boy." We are constantly being ridiculed for our front offices "old school" philosophies. Another reason we could possibly be despised is because we grew two all star (hopefully Hall of Fame) quality players through Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell which we were able to hold onto their whole careers. For both of those guys to play out their whole careers together and become the face of our franchise is a rarity in professional sports. Honestly, I could see why media outlets all over the country would hate our guts for that and the other reasons I listed. Tell me what you think guys.
