Bad Baseball Hall of Fame
Posted: March 30th, 2010 | Filed under: Baseball | 295 Comments »
In honor of King Kaufman’s tribute to Neifi Perez, I was thinking it might be fun to start our own “Bad Baseball Hall of Fame.” I think it’s important to start, though, with a few thoughts about what it means to be a bad baseball player. And, for that, I think we need to start with Gookie Dawkins.
Gookie Dawkins is probably the worst hitter I have ever seen in the Major Leagues. I say this with admiration — it seems impossible to me that someone with Gookie Dawkins swing could make it to the Major Leagues. It looked from affair to be an almost perfect up-and-down swing, like Dawkins was trying to ring the bell at one of those state fair sledgehammer games. He had 110 plate appearnces in the big leagues, struck out a third of them, hit .163 and never managed anything beefier than a double. With that swing, I consider this to be an overachievement.
And yet … Gookie Dawkins in the great scheme of things is a fabulous hitter. He hit 81 minor league home runs. He has had more than 1,100 minor league hits. He hit .300 in a combined Class A-AA season when he was 20 year old and with some power. This puts him in select company. According to Little League Baseball, there are about 20 million kids who play baseball in America — and there are at least 5 to 10 million more around the world who play. And Gookie Dawkins is, pretty conservatively, one of the best 3,000 hitters. That would put him, roughly, in the 99.999th percentile of hitters. And that’s with a swing that he clearly learned by working on the railroad.
So, you start there: Nobody who makes it to the Major Leagues is a “bad” baseball player, not in the larger picture. And when you consider the Bad Baseball Hall of Fame — well, I think there should be a minimum 6 seasons and 843 plate appearances for hitters (The Bob Uecker Rule) and minimum 462 1/3 inning for pitchers (The Jim Walkup Rule*). And anyone who got 843 plate appearances or pitched 462 1/3 innings is even more certainly not a bad baseball player, not in the big pictures. Anyone who played that long provided something to a team something useful — competent defense, a little bit of speed, the occasional home run, a sunny disposition, a fiery personality, the ability to throw strikes, a heavy sink on the fastball, something. So to make the bad baseball Hall of Fame, you must be very good at something. That’s why I think our BaBHOF should be a celebration of these players.
*I am thoroughly fascinated by the Jim Walkup mystery. You should know, there are two pitchers in baseball history with the name Jim Walkup, one a lefty and the other a righty. It’s fun to consider that that two men named “Walkup” decided that pitching was the life for them. No matter. Both Jim Walkups were born in Havana, Arkansas. They both lived long lives — the lefty Walkup lived to be almost 95, the righty Jim Walkup lived to be 87. The lefty Jim Walkup only pitched in two games in the big leagues, but the righty Jim Walkup earned a bit of bizarro-fame for going 1-12 with a 6.80 ERA for the St. Louis Browns in 1938 and for finishing his 116 game career with a 16-38 record and a 6.74 ERA.
Here’s the thing: They have to be related, right? I mean, two pitching Jim Walkups from Havana, Arkansas? Thing is, I can’t find anyplace that SAYS they’re related. Baseball Reference, which does an excellent job of connecting relatives, does not say anything about them being related. A cursory Internet and Nexis-Lexis search does not say anything about them being related. The Baseball-Almanac online does not list them as fathers or brothers. And the dates of their birth are fuzzy enough that it seems unlikely (though not impossible) for them to be father and son. The lefty Jim Walkup had just turned 14 when the righty Jim Walkup was born. They could be cousins or nephew/uncle or something. Well, they just HAVE to be something.
Anyway, we are taking nominations for the bad baseball Hall of Fame. Please restrict your nominations to one hitter and one pitcher, and please include your various reasons for why this person is worthy of being in the BaBHOF. And please remember the spirit with which this is intended … that is, you are looking to nominate players who:
1. Played a relatively long time in the big leagues.
2. Showed a remarkable Hall of Fame level consistency for playing poorly.
3. Provided some bad baseball intangibles that make their case even stronger.
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David Glass.
Circle me, Jackie Gutierrez.
Angel Berroa…Guy was once rook of the year at the age of 45 and now in his 60s somehow is still in the game of baseball!
Circle me David Eckstein.
Yeah, I said it.
How about Steve Jeltz? 2041 PAs with an OPS+ of 61! Apparently, he was notable for his glove.
Additionally, he is the all-time leader in PAs for players born in France!
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/jeltzst01.shtml
Steve Trout
It’s really a joy to look at Jackie Gutierrez’s page on baseball -reference. He was a truly terrible hitter, showing no talent whatsoever. At least he was young, I suppose. The Sox were able to trade him to Baltimore for Sammy Stewart after the 1985 season. Stewart really wasn’t a bad player — ERA+ of 112 in 1985, for example.
Anyway, Jackie was terrible for Baltimore yet somehow got a contract from the Phillies for 1988. That’s a discussion I would love to see a transcript of.
Just because there is a line named after him….
Mario Mendoza.
Oh come on, it took this long for someone to say Yuni? Yuni.
Derwood Morris
Benji Gil: 65 OPS+ in 1800 PAs
Royce Clayton wasn’t a lot better, but probably too good to make this list.
Ray Oyler. He put in nearly a full season at shortstop for the 1968 Tigers and hit 135/218/186. Again, he slugged .186. Even in 1968 that’s an OPS+ of 20.
And of course his team won the World Series, though he was mostly benched in favor of Mickey Stanley, who wasn’t really a shortstop and couldn’t hit much either.
I’ll assume Bill Bergen is in the inaugural class and doesn’t even need a nomination.
For pitchers, Claude Willoughby, who managed to go 4-17 with a 7.59 ERA for the 1930 Phillies. A rabbit ball year in a ridiculous bandbox, but still.
Paul Householder, Rafael Belliard
Really enjoyed the Gookie Dawkins bit. Man I love watching guys with bizarre swings in the big leagues. It’s easy to dismiss a guy like, for example, Craig Counsell as a kind of slap-hitting novelty, but (as Joe points out) you know that, when that guy was in high school, he was the best player for hundreds of miles in any direction, probably the best player of his generation in the Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin area. And there had to have been all kinds of kids he played with who watched him flat-out rake with that goofy swing and thought, “Well, what the hell am I doing wrong?”
Note: Not nominating Counsell for the Bad Baseball Hall of Fame. Just a tangent.
Kaufman’s article and your entry takes me back to when as a very young boy I first started watching baseball with my parents. I would occasionally ask when a major league player was named “Is he any good?” and my dad and/or mom would always answer “he wouldn’t be in the Big Leagues if he wasn’t good”…..on reflection they were absolutely correct.
Abraham O. Nunez.
Just over 2800 career plate appearances over 12 seasons (11, if you don’t count his 0-2 in 2008 with the Mets). A career OPS+ of 62 (with a career high of 85).
Al Newman is a nice contender. Career OPS+ of 58 in 8 seasons, 2,409 PAs. Career year in 1989 with a 78 OPS+. Did manage to homer in 1986 while playing for the Expos….and never, ever did it again. Had the ability to play 3 INF positions and drew a decent amount of walks, but best known for fantastic choreographed handshake with Kirby Puckett after winning the 1987 World Series.
Alex Gordon?
I’d like to nominate a pair of former Mariners:
Mario Mendoza and Bobby Ayala.
They don’t call it the “Mendoza line” for nothing and Mariners fans still recall Bobby Ayala whenever someone blows a save.
Pitcher: Jim Acker. We used to boo him when they announced he was warming up in the Blue Jays bull pen. While some of his stats (like ERA) look good today, he played on playoff teams, which made me conclude he underachieved.
Player: Chris Speier. When he was with the Expos, I nicknamed him ‘The Rally Killer’. Again, I feel he underachieved on playoff teams.
Joe your point about how good even the worst pro athletes are is excellent. Because most make it look easy, your final BaBHOF candidates will make many think they could’ve made it instead. Not true. An athlete (even Yuni) has to be tremendous relative to the general publlic to even get a taste of the top level.
David Howard……..career OPS of 0.594.
The term “journeyman” seems to be the most popular adjective to describe all the candidates I’m thinking about for the BaBHOF. Which makes sense since teams are always looking for a warm body to take up space on a bench or fill an empty spot on the diamond. Even if playing short-handed would be a better percentage play.
BATTER: Because I had the “honor” of seeing his .049/.093/.073 season (his 12th and last) with the Boston Red Sox: CRAIG ALLEN GREBECK
PITCHER: MLB teams seemed to revel in this journeyman pitcher’s mediocrity – best known for pitching and LOSING an 8-inning no hitter. That achievement seems to be the very definition of BaBHOF-ness = MATT YOUNG
William Aloysius Bergen, who played 947 games, racked up 3,228 plate appearance, and hit .170/.194/.201 with a 21 OPS+ is clearly the measuring stick for the BaBHOF.
Willie Blair: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/blairwi01.shtml
Why? In 1997, he went 16-8 for the 79-83 Tigers, pitching a good part of the season with a jaw broken by a line drive. A 12-year career with an ERA+ of 88.
Joe — I really think length of career should be taken into account for the BBHOF. For example Denny Hocking held on for 13 seasons with a 69 OPS+. He was the prototypical “I’ll do anything to get on the field” guy. I just think that length of career coupled with bad stats should be a differentiator.
Anthony Young
He falls two innings short of your benchmark, but I think we can make an exception.
Young, of course, produced the greatest losing streak in baseball history — 27 consecutive games in which he had a decision, he lost. This is the Bizarro-Dimaggio streak.
He had to be doing something right. They kept putting him out there.
I second Steve Jeltz. How he managed to stay in MLB for so many seasons says a lot about the quality of the mid-late 80s Phillies.
I nominate Billy Ripken, Cal’s idiot brother. I got stuck with him on a Rotisserie league team once in the late 80s. Hall of Fame levels of s*ck and he probably never makes the majors without his dad and his brother. And yet he played 12 seasons. Career .612 OPS
Jose Lima.
Juan Castro?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/castrju01.shtml?redir
Gotta be David Howard and/or Johnnie LeMaster (ok, that’s two position players)
He hasn’t played long enough to make the Bad Baseball Hall of Fame, but I nominate Rob Johnson as the catcher for the 2009 Bad Baseball All-Stars and is on the short list for Captain of the 2010 All-Stars (with Yuni).
He can’t hit, he has no power, he’s the reason Felix led the league in wild pitches, he’s a passed ball machine, and the only apparent reasons that he’s a big leaguer are: 1) he’s cheap, and 2) his coach, Don Wakamatsu, was a lousy journeyman catcher too.
I’m high on the Mariners this year, but the more games that Rob Johnson catches, the M’s chances diminish accordingly.
Since this is kind of like bizzaro-HOF, I thought I’d nominate a position that has no chance of ever making it into the actual Cooperstown: the pinch hitter. So I am formally announcing the candidacy of Lenny Harris, baseball’s all-time leading pinch hitter, who played for 9 teams over 18 years with a career OPS+ of 80, and is now a minor league hitting instructor for the Dodgers (insert Ned Colleti joke here). Currently recovering from quadruple bypass surgery, Lenny excelled at keeping clubhouses loose, and has recently inspired Ross Gload to accept his role as a bench player.
I love this idea.
I’m nominating my least favorite player in baseball right now, Nick Punto. 2500 career at bats, OPS+ of 73. His on-base and sluggin percentage are roughly equal (.322 and .324). To me, he epitomizes the idea of the bad baseball HOF. He provides nothing at the plate, and yet has gotten at least 377 at-bats every season since 2005. His value, I suppose, is that he can play numerous positions defensively, although I’ve never seen him play so fantastically defensively that I thought it was worth putting that bat in the lineup every day.
Bottom line: Nick Punto is an awful player, and if he doesn’t make the bad baseball HOF I’d be disappointed.
David Howard – 9 seasons 1795 PA, 57 OPS+!
Johnnie LeMaster – I got his baseball card about 300 times growing up and he was just AWFUL… but he played 12 seasons! 3515 plate appearances at a 60 OPS+. He got traded from SF to Cleveland in 1985 from that point on he posted a negative OPS+…. It looks like that deal was a 3-teamer… what kind of scrubs were in the rest of that deal???
I would like to nominate the fabulous John MacDonald, current backup shortstop for the fantastic Toronto Blue Jays. Johnny Mac’s numbers speak for themselves, although Johnny probably wishes they wouldn’t: career OPS+ of 57, career high (in a “full” season) slash numbers of .277/.326/.384 (season high in OPS of .655, and high OPS+ of 75). A career-high 4 HR last year – maybe the juice? – 3.5/1 SO/BB ratio, and so on, and so forth. I think there are three things that make Johnny Mac the perfect bad baseball player.
First, he is good, or appears to be good, at defense. This is pure “eye-witness” anecdote, but it seems that every game he plays in, he makes a great defensive play. Even his screw-ups tend to be after getting to balls that most guys couldn’t (Joe’s “what is unearned” diatribe comes to mind).
Second, Johnny Mac just can’t hit. And Lord knows he has tried – after all, hitting is obviously the thing keeping him from being a major-league regular. But his hitting is so comically bad – I believe he bunted into a bases-loaded double play last year, for example – that the Jays have brought in such illustrious names as the almost-deceased Alex Gonzalez to play shortstop. It is clear that no amount of effort or coaching will ever make Johnny a passable major league hitter.
Third, for what it is worth, the Jays fans absolutely LOVE Johnny Mac. This might say more about the Jays’ other players, or Toronto fans themselves, than it does about Johnny, but it has to matter, right? I’ve been to a lot of baseball games, and the greatest thrill I can recall was seeing Johnny Mac hit his one-and-only HR of the season against Seattle.
Johnny Mac!
I nominate Les Sweetland for the Veteran’s vote. He’s so bad that the award for the worst pitcher is named after him. XD
There is a difference between good, and good enough to play a lot on a professional sports team. All of these guys are phenominal athletes and ball players. But, that doesn’t make them good professional baseball players.
Alexi Casilla will be on the list eventually….
I’ll throw Rafael Santana into the mix. Career OPS of .601, OPS+ of 68. Not even that good a defensive shortstop.
“Super” Joe McEwing. Proof that being able to fake seven positions is better than having any discernible skill.
I had a couple of people in mind, due to my perception of them, but in looking at their career numbers I realize they were not as bad as I thought they were.
Mike MacDougal seemed to be the poster child of the Royals horrible bullpens in the mid 2000′s, but he has a career 114 ERA+.
Marv Thornberry was the best player on probably the worst baseball teams of all time. It is great to watch some of the old Mets games just to see how bad they were when they began. But Marv actually put up a career OPS+ of 97.
Go figure. I guess perceptuon really doesn’t match reality.
Kyle Farnsworth.
I’ll second Dave’s (# 13) recommendation of Rafael Belliard. He posted a fabulous 46 OPS+ for his career.
I see that a few people have already nominated Bill Bergen, but I jsut need to point out a few of his highlights (lowlights?):
In 1909 he played in 112 games, had 372 PAs, and put up a .139/.163/.156 line that was good for a 1 OPS+. That’s right, 1.
Two years later he was given anoteher 250 PAs, and he put up a -4 OPS+, which is the worst ever for someone with that many chances.
In his 3,228 career PAs, he had 68 extra base hits and he walked 88 times.
I really can’t imagine a more inept hitter to ever come along. At least he was supposed to be good defensively.
Kevin Jarvis. Defines “journeyman,” and didn’t have one season with an ERA better than the league average.
Rafael Belliard for first-ballot induction.
I’m particularly awed by his 1996 season in which he punched up an OPS+ of 2 by hitting .169 and drawing 2 walks in 148 plate appearances.
How about Fred “Chicken” Stanley? Career .216/.301/.263, for an OPS+ of 62. Despite this, he racked up 1906 PAs over 14 seasons. In this time, he had 10 home runs, 5 triples and only 38 doubles. If you think speed was his game, think again. Only 11 SBs in his career.
But, Billy Martin loved him.
I see some David Howard nominations… I’d like to add that during the expansion drafts, KC protected Howard and not the up and coming Jeff Conine. That little bit has to add to his appeal.
Neifi Perez … After the 2005 season Dusty Baker actually said that Neifi had “saved” the Cubs season. This was in response to criticism of his indefensibly writing Neifi’s name on the lineup card every day.
This is the same Dusty Baker who said, while with the Cubs, that on-base percentage was overrated and walks just “clogged up the bases”.
He is my pick for manager of this team.
Gene Michael – as a kid, I could never understand what he did. And now that I look him up – I was correct in my misunderstanding.
Played the better part of 10 seasons. Career .572 OPS.
Also noted for being squeamish – From si.com 5/7/1990: “In 1973, Yankee shortstop Gene Michael went out to his position, only to discover a hot dog in one of his glove’s fingers. “He started cursing, took the glove off, threw it down, took the hot dog out and tossed it all the way to the warning track,” says Nettles. “Stick blamed Johnny Callison because he laughed the hardest. But George [Steinbrenner] was at the game in Texas, and he wasn’t laughing. He had someone pick up the hot dog. He was mad because we were fooling around. We always referred to that as the Great Dallas Hot Dog Caper.”
I realize that this list is likely to be middle-infielder heavy…but I nominate Johnnie LeMaster. I always felt he was an unfortunate scape-goat for the frustrated masses who followed some very bad SF teams in the early 1980s but he also put up some numbers that, when further investigated with the advanced stats of today, bear out that he was not terribly useful (at least at the plate). 12 seasons: career ops of .566. Career ops+ of 60. One wonders how he ever made it 12 seasons.
Todd Van Poppel.
He gave up 107 runs in 99.1 IP one year… 9.06 ERA, 2.02 WHIP.
Jim Mason played 9 seasons with a line of .203/.259/.275 for an OPS+ of 54. I believe a study was done that ranked him as the worst hitter of the 1970′s. Since he had 2 stolen bases but 8 caught stealings in his career, he had no speed to accompany his lack of power, a real zero-tool player. But here’s what makes him truly immortal. He is the greatest hitter in World Series history! His World Series line is 1.000/1.000/4.000, as he homered in his only plate appearance. Now there’s a record that will never be broken.
Brad Ausmus – 17 seasons, 75 OPS+, which was artificially high because he was walked to get to the pitcher more than he probably should have been. Reputedly an awesome defensive catcher.
Just off the top of my Twins-flooded head are these two guys:
Scott Leius, 3B/SS
9 years (6 MIN, 2 KC, 1 CLE)
1536 AB, .244 AVG, .316 OBP, .353 SLG, 77 OPS+, 236 K, 161 BB
Pat Mahomes, P
709 IP, 5.47 ERA, 85 ERA+, 452 K, 392 BB
I nominate Donnie Sadler.
861 plate appearances over 8 seasons. Career OPS+ of 39. Only 1 season of an OBP over .300. Considered speedy but somehow only stole 25 bases over his career.
Intangibles – managed to play every defensive position except 1b and C.
Since rules were meant to be bent….
Tom Nieto
7 seasons, but only 697 PA’s, so slightly below the Uecker-line. However consider;
1). career 56 OPS+, including -54 in 62 PA’s in 1988 for the Twins. That year included 4 singles, a walk and a run scored. And that’s all.
2). He was a significant “contributor” to TWO world series teams, the ’85 Cards (losers) and ’87 Twins (winners). Had 288 and 121 PA’s for those clubs, respectively. Punched up 65 and 55 OPS+.
3). The ’87 Twins opted for Slammin’ Sal Butera and his .171/.214/.273 to back up Tim Laudner in the playoffs instead of Nieto. That alone should make Nieto a first ballot BaBHOFer… but I’ll throw in one more…
4). Uecker himself is in Nieto’s comps at baseball-reference.
How about Jason Tyner? ONE home run over 1467 plate appearances. Speedy and made decent contact, but a career .323 SLUGGING percentage. He then complained Minnesota was being unfair when they decided to let him go.
Rafael Belliard the guy that made Jeff Francoeur look disciplined at the plate.
Julio Cruz – kid was given 4500 PA’s over 10 years, put up a career .299 SLG. I really want to know who gave him an MVP vote in 1983.
Angel Salazar, he couldn’t hit, he couldn’t field and totally undermined a very good 1987 Kansas City Royal team.
Candy Maldonado:
His career numbers (.254, .322, .424) aren’t terrible… no wait, they are. Regardless, he also has the infamous dropped ball play and received a vote for MVP in 1986 when he carried a BA of .256 and OBP of .286. (question, do voters sometimes joke around with their votes? surely the answer is ‘yes’)
He was granted free agency 5 times and played on 8 teams in 15 seasons which includes 9 years split between LA and SF (leaving 6 years for the other 6 teams).
Candy Maldonado is to outfield power hitters what Nefi Perez (.267, .297, .375) is to slick-fielding shortstops.
However, Candy does have 1042 career hits… and 864 strike outs. Fewer hits than Nefi and 75% more strikeouts.
Lastly, his post season numbers (if we care about such things) are .165, .225, .291 in 103 at bats.
Oooooo…..good one, Jeremy. Salazar sucked. He cost the Royals the division title in 1987.
razzball.com did a series on historically bad seasons. You should talk with them. Sure they have some players that jump out for them.
Joe,
Baseball-reference.com lists the two Jim Walkups as being James Huey, born 1895, and James Elton, born Dec 1909.
Poking around in genealogy websites, I found that James Huey Walkup had a first cousin who was listed on the 1920 census form as “Elton J.” with an age of 10 years. Elton J. was living in 1920 in Yell County, which is where Havana is located.
Damon Berryhill!
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/berryda01.shtml
Me!
I’d like go jump on board with the Rafael Belliard supporters. How in the world did he get 2524 PA with his:
46 OPS+
2 HR
.221 BA
597 TB
That’s simply amazing.
Rod Kanehl
I think he is the perfect candidate, especially given your last criteria. He was considered a real sparkplug, someone who would run through a fence for the team.
But he was not much of a fielder and could not hit. His career line is .241/.277/.300 in 843 PAs. In his 3 year career, he actually got worse each year. His BA went from .248-.241-.232. His OBP from .296-.268-.256 and his slugging from .322-.288-.280. His OPS+ ended up at 61 but over the 3 years declined from .66-.61-.53.
And he hits your PA criteria right on the nose.
As long as we are considering original Mets, Jay Hook deserves some consideration for the pitcher. Apparently he could explain the dynamics of the curve ball but could not throw it effectively.
I’m rather surprised no one has nominated Joe’s hero yet: Duane Kuiper. Played 12 seasons, hit 1 HR in 3,379 ABs. Stole 52 bases, caught stealing 71 times. Except for a couple of 10-game stretches right at the beginning and right at the end, he only had an OPS of .700 or better ONCE, and then just barely (.706 in ’82). During his four seasons as a regular with Joe’s Indians, he had .615, .656, .649, and .608. His career OPS is .641, compared to Betancourt’s .689. Betancourt’s career won’t last 12 years, of course, but someone needs to explain how Kuiper stuck around so long. It sure wasn’t for his defense…
Dal Maxvill deserves recognition for the BaBHOF. He had a 0.552 career OPS in 3,443 ABs over a 14-year career.
I also have to vote for the Giants Johnnie Lemaster. Career line in 12 seasons .222\.279\.289
We called him LeMaster the Disaster…
He looked like a tall stick wearing a giant cup when he was at bat…
@Utek #53 –
Beat me to it — I was thinking of Mason before I finished Joe’s column.
And speaking of his WS record: I was at that game with a bunch of friends (first row, roughly in line with the visitor’s on-base circle) and I CALLED it. Yes, before he hit it, I said “Mason’s gonna hit a home run.”).
The reason I mention I was there with a bunch of friends is that, if necessary, I can produce eyewitness accounts.
C – Kirt Manwaring
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/manwaki01.shtml
He lasted 12 years in the bigs, and his BEST OPS+ was 90 (career 69).
P – Bryan Rekar
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rekarbr01.shtml
a lovely 1.8 K/BB ratio and 99 HRs surrendered in 655 innings! Traditional stat-ers will love his 25-49 record and 5.62 ERA.
Bill Ripken — 3000 PA. OBP .294
Frank Pastore
I grew up in Cincinnati in the 80s, and Frank Pastore was the epitome of a no-name average-or-worse pitcher. I had his 83 Donruss card, and his baseball card screamed “who?” to this ten year old.
He was always the default answer on Gary Burbank’s “Sports or Consequences” on WLW. Whenever the hosts were stumped, they would simply answer Frank Pastore, then strangely chant “frank… frank… frank…”, then blow up the caller and pretend they got the question right. It was amazingly fresh programming in its day.
The name popped up while I was flipping through channels on television over the weekend. He held the record for eating a 72 once “Big Texan” steak in under 10 minutes. I wiki’d him and he now has a big christian/political radio show. Kind of sad that my boyhood no-name pitcher didn’t live out his days quietly (I am simply projecting my romantic vision of retirement) but he has obviously led a more exicting and full life than I can ever hope to have. Good for him.
Some Kuiper vs. Neifi comparisons: Kuiper hit 1 HR in 3,379 ABs, Neifi hit 64 in 5,127 (both played 12 seasons, so the massive disparity in ABs ought to tell you how bad Kuiper’s bat was). Kuiper had 263 careers RBIS, Neifi had 489. Kuiper’s career OPS was .641, Neifi’s was .672. Neifi wasn’t very good, but he was significantly better than Kuiper…
Batter: I’ll nominate Jiggs Parrott, a 3B/2B for the Chicago Colts (later Cubs) in the mid-1890s under Cap Anson. Yeah, he’s kind of an old-timer, but I give him points for his name.
Career: 1369 PAs, .234/.258/.309, 48 OPS+.
Salazar is a fantastic choice too though. Career .212/.230/.270 hitter, 36 OPS+. Managed to strike out about 8 times as often as he walked.
Pitcher: I second Phil@45 on Kevin Jarvis. Pitched 780.2 innings over 12 seasons, career 74 ERA+. Interestingly, in 2000 he had a 98 ERA+ for the Rockies, which is his best by a fair margin. I suppose part of the reason for that is the Coors ballpark factor. When Coors Field somehow HELPS your career pitching numbers, you belong in the bad HOF.
Sidney Ponson
91-113, 5.03 ERA
Ponson should be at the top of the list for active players. Teams inexplicably continue to pick him up because he can supposedly eat innings and he lives off of one decent stretch with the Rangers in 2008 and, of course, his breakthrough season with the Orioles in 2003. Typically, though, he pitches like he did with the Royals in 2009: 1-7, 7.36.
Luis Gomez – 8 seasons and almost 1400 PA with a career OPS+ of 40. 40!!! And he was just as offensively inept in the minors.
I have no clue how he was defensively, but I can’t imagine it was good enough to make up for that.
You guys want an outfielder? I’ll give you an outfielder! How about this lifetime line for ELEVEN seasons
.226 BA – 52 HR – 175 RBI
He should be in the inner ring of the Bad Baseball Hall of Fame.
Buddy Bradford.
Cecil Espy – Used as a lead-off batter in Texas and Pittsburgh even though he couldn’t get on base (.301 career OBP), lead the league in caught stealing once, and career OPS+ of 74. Was a pretty poor OF defender despite his only asset being speed.
And yes Joe, Mr. Bradford put some time in the Cleveland outfield (1970-71).
Some good ones in these posts. I will second one, if I may. Tiffany @23 nominated Matt Young. That guy was awful. Classic lefty with “great stuff” who couldn’t pitch. It got so bad he couldn’t even throw the ball over to 1st base after a while.
In that no-hitter he pitched (losing 2-1), he pitched 8 innings and allowed 2 runs on 0 hits and 7 walks.
In 1992 with Boston, he had 6 errors in 70 IP.
The catcher was a spy…Moe Berg!
Under 700 games in 15 seasons, mostly as a 3rd-string catcher. He mixed in a few games at short and third, couldn’t hit or hit with power or run. His OPS+ was 49. But he spoke multiple languages, had a quick wit, helped the war effort, and then pretty much went nuts.
He’s one of the m0st fascinating stories in the history of the game.
Pitcher? Hugh “Losing Pitcher” Mulcahy. Nine seasons winning one out of three with an ERA of 90 in over 100 innings. He lost 20 or more twice and just missed a third time. And you have to love that nickname.
#34: It pains me to say this as a Twins fan who has had to watch him over the course of a few hundred games over the last few seasons — including his reverse-Lofton screwup in that last ALDS game versus the Yankees — but I say Punto should be out of the running for the following reasons:
1) Inconsistent badness. True, in 2007 he was easily one of the worst hitters in the league, and his 2009 was scarcely better, but can someone really be BBHoF caliber if they’ve had not one but TWO seasons with a 90+ OPS+ (2006; 2008)?
2) Defensive capability. Yes, it does tend to be greatly exaggerated, based largely on his tendency to show up on Web Gems. But Punto’s defense, while declining, is still at or better than league average at multiple positions. Punto is not five-tool terrible.
3) Uncanny ability to draw walks. Punto falls somewhere between “lucky slap-hitter” and “noodle-swinging stumblebum” when he actually makes contact, but when keeping his bat on his shoulder he can actually provide decent bottom-of-the-order on-base table-setting. His .337 OBP in 2009 is mighty impressive when you take the fact that his batting average was over a hundred points lower. And if a notable offensive career mark is comparable to a HoFer (Punto: .322; Andre Dawson: .323), that should be taken into account.
I mean, sure, between his missed stop sign in the ALDS, his inability to lay down a good bunt and his goofy-as-hell tendency to slide headfirst into first instead of legging out a grounder, Punto bears the hallmarks of a truly bad player, but why go by mere intangibles?
Besides, Denny Hocking is right there.
Eric Bruntlett.
Turned an unassisted triple play, and has the worst OPS+ of anyone to do it.
He also scored the winning run of a World Series. Played for three pennant winning teams with a career batting average of .231.
He’s doing something right, but nobody knows what it could be.
Vince Coleman
Willie Taveras
Pokey Reese
Is this hall going to be open for executives/managers/umpires like the “other”HOF?
Doug Flynn – accumulated over 4000 PA, many of them for good to great teams (the early ’80s Expos were good, the Big Red Machine was great). Career OPS+: 57.
Everett Scott – the guy who held the consecutive games played record before Gehrig. Also played for some excellent teams – the late teens Red Sox and early ’20s Yankees. Career OPS+: 65. OPS+ only including the years of his streak: 66.
Elio Chaon…Mets
Billy Hunter, SS
Career line: .219/.264/.294
Career OPS+:53
Career Plate Appearances: 2052
All Star Appearances: 1953 (with a 37 OPS+, the mind boggles)
Dave Chalk. Dave somehow made 2 All-Star teams in the 1970s, and had a career OPS of 0.635.
Chalk had a career 85 OPS+.
Wow, no one has mentioned Ruben Rivera? Played in the bigs from 1995-2003. Ended up with a career OPS+ of 82. But the intangibles … well, everyone knows the intangibles, right? Kicked off the Yankees for stealing Derek Jeter’s glove, and then had the ugliest display of baserunning ever (with commentary from Jon Miller here: http://is.gd/b76Hk ) All this from a guy who was considered to be a pretty good prospect (see http://is.gd/b76D9 ) He’s got to be on the first ballot.
I can’t believe we made it this far on this website with noone mentioning the immortal Ross Gload, who’s career highlight has to be providing the inspiration for the Gloaden Rule. Eight years of playing either first base or corner outfield and notching a robust .328 OBP.
You can’t just pick bad guys. And you can’t really pick journeymen. Journeymen are journeymen because they can’t play all that well and like Posnanski said they’re still better than 99.9999% of the people out there.
Its got to be a player like Neifi. Someone who’s handed a position year in and year out. David Eckstein who we all know and hate isn’t objectively terrible. 88 OPS+ and always a positive WAR.
Marvin Benard has to be there. His ex-teammates talk about the fact that he didn’t do ANYTHING well. Couldn’t hit, run, throw or often catch. And he was apparently a bad teammate, too.
As for pitchers, I’ll just go with Atlee Hammaker, who just needs to be mocked more often.
Bill Bergen, who played from 1903-1914. He was a Catcher that started with Cincinnati. His career batting average was .170 (3000 Career AB’s) and he only had one year with a .200+ Batting Average.
Tom Veryzer comes to mind, as does Joe Charboneau.
I was beaten to the Angel Salazar punch by a pair of tortured Royals fans, but I’d like to add to the nomination by noting that since WWII Salazar has the lowest career OPS+ of any position player who meets the 843 PA minimum criterion. His career mark was 36. His career high OBP was .266, and his career high SLG was .326. And, yes, he was a starting shortstop for the Kansas City Royals for a couple of years. Of course he was. I think he may have even been the trendsetter in Royals shortstop futility.
As far as pitchers go, I’d like to nominate Jack Hamilton. Not only did he manage to post a career ERA+ of 78, and a 1.545 career WHIP, and walk nearly as many hitters (348) as he struck out (357), and bounce around between 6 teams in only 8 big league seasons, but he’s also the guy that damn near killed Tony Conigliaro with a fastball to the eye.
Nicknames in () are my own for them:
Andy (Stanky) Stankiewicz
Pat (Tim) Kelly
Alvaro Espinoza
Luis (Clutch) Sojo*
Rey Sanchez
Dale (Duck!) Sveum
Enrique (He’s got good numbers against Pedro) Wilson
Jose Molina
Man those early 90′s Yankee teams were awful.
*I nominate the .300 OBP line be named for him. I loved him as a Yankee fan and he had some big hits, but he was awful, .297 career OBP and for 13 seasons. Also career 71 OPS+.
[...] TRS wrote an interesting post today Here’s a quick excerpt So, you start there: Nobody who makes it to the Major Leagues is a “bad” baseball player, not in the larger picture. And when you consider the Bad Baseball Hall of Fame — well, I think there should be a minimum 6 seasons and 843 plate … [...]
Andy Allanson. Or, if you can take a platoon, Allanson (.240/.283/.310 for a 64 OPS+) and Chris Bando (.227/.300/.329 for a 72 OPS+).
Hard to believe Rick Sutcliffe didn’t want to pitch for that team.
Jamie Navarro. After eh signed a big free agent contract to go from the Cubs to the White Sox, he became the anti-Pedro in the late ’90s. He single-handedly destroyed my friend’s fantasy baseball pitching staff in 1997, and became He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named on subsequent draft days.
Joe,
I’ve got two fairly recent ones for you.
1. Heathcliff Slocumb – 10 years, 631 IP, 8 teams.
28-37, 4.08 ERA, 1.575 WHIP, 5.1 BB/9, 31 Blown Saves, 76% Save Percentage. Not to mention that, in 1997, he was traded from Boston to Seattle for Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek.
2. LaTroy Hawkins – 15 years, 1200 IP.
60-81, 4.51 ERA, 1.437 WHIP, 50 Blown Saves, 64% Save Percentage.
Glendon Rusch – This guy STILL plays baseball (for the Rockies)!! That’s prolonged below average performance.
I’d say Tony Pena Jr., but I don’t think he meets the requisite PAs.
An addendum, spurred by Mike @97:
If we’re going for “worst regular,” then I’ll nominate Herm Wehmeier. Eight seasons of qualifying for the ERA title, career ERA+ of 84, more walks than strikeouts!
“Led” the league in:
walks – 3 times
wild pitches – twice
ER – once
Hit batters – once
And still he logged over 1800 IP in the bigs.
A couple of observations…
1) I can’t believe it took 34 posters to bring up Nick Punto, thought he’d be the ‘circle me’ winner.
2) It looks like the Twins organization, certainly the AL Central, could fill this HOF
Which brings me to this, has Joe ever done a survey to see where his readers lie?
re David in NYC
Didn’t Jim Mason also call his shot, by pointing to the bleachers just before he hit it? Or was that Babe Ruth?
Anyway, I too was robbed. Adam #27 beat me to Anthony Young, and I saw the game where AY “ended” his losing streak. He came in the 8th inning of a tie game, gave up the go ahead run (naturally), but was the winning pitcher when the Mets scored 2 in the 9th. He promptly started a new losing streak after that. So like DiMaggio’s, as impressive as the streak was, it could have been even longer.
Alfredo Griffin. 7330 PA’s. Rookie of the Year. 3 World Series rings. An All-Star appearance because Alan Trammell got hurt and Griffin just so happened to already be there. Career .604 OPS.
Also, an un-vote for John McDonald. He can’t hit, but he’s the best defensive shortstop I have ever seen.
I nominate Ski “Spinach” Melillo. Old Spinach played 12 seasons, 1377 games, 5536 PA, with an OPS+ of 63. THREE TIMES he finished in the top 12 in the AL MVP voting despite never punching up an OPS+ higher than 95 (1931, the year he finished 8th).
It begins and ends with former Red Sox catcher, Marc Sullivan. His dad, Haywood Sullivan, owned the team and he was the backup catcher for more than five seasons.
Just a dreadful, dreadful player. And the nepotism part just sucks. Even as an 11-year-old, I knew that something was wrong at Fenway.
Find out all about him right here:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/sullima02.shtml
Even though he is short of PAs, he should be looked at as the Sandy Koufax of suck. Just terrible.
As a young Royals fan, this will be slanted, but these are two guys that pop to in my mind.
Darrel May: 660 IP, 5.16 ERA, 1.7 HR/9, .283 BAA, .509 SLGA
Dee Brown 874 PA, .233/.280/.330, 57 OPS+
Ray Oyler. 6 seasons, 1445
PA. .175/.258/.251 BA/OBA/SA.
Carees 48 OPS+.
And a RF/9 for his career BELOW the league average for shortstops during his career.
Tommy Matchick who played for the Tigers at the same time as Oyler, also 6 seasons in the bigs, 878 PA.
.215/.254/.270 slash stats, 49 OPS+.
And again, a below-average fielder at short, compared with his contemporaries.
Unfortunately, the guy who followed them at shortstop for the Tigers (after a year of Tommy Tresh), Cesar Gutierrez, doesn’t make the 6-season cutoff, although he was almost equally bad (55 OPS+ in 600 PA; again, below average fielding). Or the Tigers would have a three great candidates from the same era–at the SAME POSITION.
I don’t have a pitcher, but as a hitter I would nominate Gary Disarcina. Career OPS+ of 66 in 4000+ PA’s. The one good season he had (put up an OPS+ of 108!!!), he broke his hand sliding into second base and sent the Angels into their monumental collapse in 1995. 47 SB’s, 44 CS.
As bad as Anthony Young’s record was, I don’t think he’s near being bad enough for the BaBHOF. But I do think he deserves to be in a separate wing celebrating bad luck. Consider Young’s 1993 season: He had a terrible 1-16 record, all while pitching a 108 ERA+. That’s incredible. He pitched BETTER than league average but still managed that record. For his career, he won less than 24% of his games while pitching a 100 ERA+, exactly average. I’m not saying ERA or ERA+ are the be all and end all, but that’s remarkable and a testament to how bad the early- to mid-90s Mets were.
Anyway, my nominees:
Hitter – Todd Benzinger (he’s not the worst but I don’t see him nominated, plus I always hated getting his baseball card in a pack)
Pitcher – Tanyon “The Grand Tanyon” Sturtze
Stu Flythe.
There’s no disgrace in leading the league in Wild Pitches one year, someone has to…but you would think the leader would pitch at least 40 innings.
And most pitchers would hope for more strikeouts than wild pitches, but no…14 K, 16 WP.
Holds the record for most career Earned Runs, 57, by a pitcher with an ERA above 12 (actually 13.04): more than 50% above second place.
Moving on, let’s not stop at players, let’s have some teams… the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. And the Wilmington Quicksteps (two games won in their major league history).
In fact, let’s not stop at teams, let’s throw in a league: it has be the Union Association, not least because Bill James’ essay in NHBA is a thing of great beauty.
Being a Yankee fan, I’ll go with catcher Benny Bengough, who played on four Yankee teams that went to the World Series in the 1920s, winning three of them. OPS+ of 59 for his career and never hit a homer in 10 seasons and 1206 plate appearances. But he did whiff just 45 times!
The pitcher I’ll nominate is Andy Hawkins, just because I saw him pitch what was then a no-hitter, only to have it taken away since he only threw eight innings on the road of his complete game. But his 10-year career ERA+ of 87 did have its moments — posted an ERA+ of 121 one year and over 100 three times, but his other seven campaigns were between 71 and 85. Threw over 200 innings four times, and only once struck out as many as 100 batters. And hey, he still owns the only Worlds Series victory by a San Diego Padre!
Julian Tavarez, been in the leauge forever, but man I used to cringe when he started warming up for the Red Sox…
Turd Cooper…jk.
Phil Haitt as a rookie he led the AL in homeruns for a few weeks at the beginning of the season. He had seven. Then he started to suck after May.
He was on the Mitchell Report.
@Utek #109 –
I know that was tongue-in-cheek, but no, it definitely wasn’t Mason. I don’t think he could have called a loud foul.
@stephen #116 –
So, now somebody beat me to my pitcher nomination. I remember a number of times people who should know better (media, astutue fans like those on this blog) saying (or writing) that Sturtze was going to be the solution to the Yankees’ pitching (or at least bullpen) problems.
My standard response was, “If you’re counting on Tanyon Sturtze to solve anything, your team has some very serious problems, and not just with the pitching.”
@ Eriq #5: I second your nomination of Steve Jeltz! In fact, if the BBHoF has anything like a “founding class,” Jeltz would be like the Honus Wagner of bad baseball.
Jeltz’s finest moment was in a game I attended, circa 1989, at the age of 10 or 11. Jeltz was standing on 2nd, representing the winning run in the bottom of the 10th or 11th inning. Lenny Dykstra (I think) lined a single to right, which the RF bobbled, then dropped, then bobbled some more. Finally, out of frustration that he’d obviously just lost the game, he simply KICKED the ball toward the infield.
Steve Jeltz, at that moment rounding third and being the terrible baseball player he was, turned to see the ball flying in the general direction of home and HELD UP. Skidded to a stop and ran back to third.
I was already jumping up and down celebrating our win, then realized Jeltz hadn’t run home. I couldn’t believe it. I would’ve gotten chewed out by my Little League coach for a boneheaded running error like that. I swore at that moment that if we didn’t win the game, I was done with the Phillies forever.
On the next batter, Jeltz scored on a wild pitch. Phils win.
If they hadn’t won that game, I’m convinced Steve Jeltz would have been tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. He belongs in the BBHoF for that play alone.
I’d also like to note that Mario Mendoza is one of Jeltz’s leading comparables, but Jeltz’s AVG is actually worse than Mendoza’s (.210 to .215). It oughta be called “The Jeltz Line.”
I just want to defend the honor of Anthony Young, who was had a career OPS+ of 100 and had the misfortune for playing for some truly execrable Mets teams.
Another vote for Johnnie LeMaster. Hit an inside-the-park homer in first ML at-bat … hit only 21 more in 1000+ games after that. In his “best” season he hit .240/.317/.307. Typical good glove/no hit, except his glove wasn’t ever good enough to win a Gold Glove. Traded in ’85 after an 0-for-16 start, it took Cleveland only 23 days to realize they’d made a mistake, after which they traded him to Pittsburgh. All three of his 1985 teams finished in last place.
How about some props for rbs @ 65?
Great job by you. It’s trite to say it at this point but it still really does blow my mind what you can find online and how quickly you can find it.
Rafael Belliard as a hitter, because I remember him, and each time you look at his stats… oh wow he’s bad.
Career OPS+ is 46. Career high in OPS+ is 61, if you ignore his 2AB rookie year. In 1154 games and 2524 plate appearances, he rang up a slash line of .221/.270/.259. Counting stats… 2 home runs, an awesome 10 years apart. 136 walks, 386 strikeouts. It’s like art to look at his numbers. The only things I can imagine he did well are not strike out (though even that isn’t spectacular as a rate stat), and he must have been a good fielder to be around that long.
No time to find a pitcher right now
Yuniesky Betancourt!
I would like to Submit for your consideration.
Oliver Perez.
How does a guy with stuff that good, have a career era+ of 93? Because he’s crazy! He has no idea where the ball is going as soon as he pitches it.
Bengie Molina
Career 88 OPS+. Nuff Said. And the Giants so desperately need him to bat cleanup?
Rey Ordonez Career
.246/.289/.310 — OPS+ 59
I’m going with Brian L. Hunter, because he had a .313 on base, but stole bases at a nearly 81% clip. So he stunk, but did one thing fairly well.
Joe, My nomination is in honor of the book “Ball Four”. No Bad Baseball Hall of Fame pitching staff would be complete without Jim Coates, good ol’ snake eyes himself. Maybe Joe Schultz could go in as a manager? Pound That Budweiser!
Ten summers ago, I wrote a couple of columns in Rob Neyer’s space at ESPN.com while Rob was on vacation. I actually spent the bulk of one of them recounting the amazing Bill Bergen. I won’t reprint the whole thing here, but here’s an excerpt: (Apologies for bad formatting in advance.)
“Bill Bergen was a rookie catcher for the Cincinnati Reds in 1901, hitting .179 with a single homer (half his career total) in 87 games. Apparently impressed, the Reds let Bergen catch 89 games (with the equipment of that era, few catchers caught more than 100 games a year) and he, um, justified their faith with those numbers. He was demoted to second-stringer in 1903, and even though he hit a career-high .227, the Reds parted ways with him at the end of that season.
And thus Bergen began an eight-year stretch with the Brooklyn Dodgers, a stretch of offensive prowess unparalleled in major league history. In those eight years, Bergen hit .182, .190, .159, .159, .175, .139, .161, and .132, batting at least 240 times every year but one, never poking more than ten extra-base hits, and never drawing more than 14 walks. In 1906, he played in 103 games, drove in 19 runs, and scored 9. Nine.
And yet the Dodgers, apparently desperate to earn their lovable moniker of “Bums”, continued to play him every year. Play him? He led the team in games caught for six of those eight seasons. In 1909, he caught 112 games, third-most in the league. He remained the Dodgers’ starter even though his backups out-hit him by a wide margin every season. He remained the Dodgers’ #1 catcher even though their pitchers out-hit him.
Yes, their pitchers:
Player AB H D T HR R RBI BB AVG OBP SLG
Bill Bergen, 1904-11 2191 356 27 12 1 83 121 59 .162 .184 .187
Dodger Pitchers, 1904-11 3847 650 64 27 2 242 183 188 .169 .212 .201
For eight years, the Brooklyn Dodgers started a catcher who couldn’t out-hit their pitchers. Tony La Russa’s idea of letting the pitcher bat eighth wouldn’t have been a gimmick on this team, it would have been common sense.
But if common sense had mattered to these Dodgers, Bergen would never have been allowed to suit up year after year. Finally, after Bergen’s worst season ever in 1911, the Dodgers politely told him to look for another line of work. It only took slightly more than 3000 at-bats before the plug was finally pulled on his inglorious career.”
@114: Cesar Gutierrez has a good kicker too. Despite being a terrible hitter, on one day he was awesome. He was 7-for-7 on June 21, 1970, which is a record for hits in a game without an out. It was six singles and a double. I remember reading about it in one of those cheap hardbacks that came out in the 70s, with individual chapters describing one weird/cool feat or another. Seaver’s 10 straight strikeouts (“The 10 K Streak Of Tom Terrific), Haddix’s 12 inning perfect game loss, Gutierrez, Carlton’s 19K game which he lost, etc.
He was too good to really be on this list, but for a guy with a long career, Ivan DeJesus was a really lousy hitter.
Wil Nieves will be on this list, MARK MY WORDS!
He might get to the required PA’s this season.
Career:
597 PA, .234/.282/.293, 53 OPS+, 2 HRs and he’s not a great catcher (i.e. calls a bad game) . The Natinals need him b/c they have no one else!
No one’s gonna nominate the sublime Skeeter Webb? In 12 seasons, he hit .219/.263/.268, punching up a stellar .531OPS and 46 OPS+ in 2,453 PA.
2,543 PA???
Utility Infielder.
I’ll have to second Eric Bruntlett. He’s the prototypical UTIF with a slash line of .171/.224/.238 last year for a 22 OPS+, with a career 64 OPS+. That alone isn’t terribly exciting, but he’s got crazy intangibles. I’ll point out a few:
He hit a home run in the World Series in 2008, naturally in the game the Phils lost. He hit 2 HRs in the regular season.
He scored the winning run in game 3 as a pinch runner on a ball that traveled approximately 40 feet – according to Wikipedia, the first walkoff infield single in WS history.
He scored the winning run in the World Series, again as a pinch runner, in the crazy rain game.
Last year, he managed to turn a walkoff unassisted triple play against the Mets. The amusing thing about that play is that both baserunners were on because of his errors. So he singlehandedly allowed the winning run to come to the plate – it was a 2 run game – and then singlehandedly got both baserunners and the batter out.
I think his beard gives him special powers or something.
C – Bill Bergen
1B – Phil Todt/Todd Benzinger
2B – Duane Kuiper
SS – Angel Salazar
3B – Bobby Smith (D-Rays one)
LF – Jerald Clark
CF – Chuck Carr
RF – Shano Collins
LHP – Scott Aldred
RHP – Sidney Ponson/Jaime Navarro/Jamey Wright
RP – Alan Embree (5 good seasons in 15 years with several terrible ones randomly thrown in; almost identical ERA+ to Ayala)
Malachi Kittridge 4029 AB .219/.277.274
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kittrma01.shtml
Off-topic: How many votes will it take until someone does not vote for Michael Jordan and he drops under 100%? Currently at 37 votes; my guess is 80.
1) Sir Sidney Ponson
2) Played 1998-2009 w/ a ERA+ of 90 over 1760 1/3 innings
3) Had immense talent, but would rather sweat less and end at-bats with fastballs down the middle than expend late night beer-drinkin’ energy. I could be wrong about parts of all of these: Multiple DUIs, punched or ran over a judge while on a sea-doo/jet ski, was hammered at a Metallica show at Ravens Stadium while the O’s were playing at Camden Yards, notoriously fat, multiple drunken altercations, and was knighted. Ponson hasn’t pitched for the Orioles in five seasons. Amazingly, he has pitched in the majors every year, for most of each of the seasons, since he last pitched for the O’s when he was not immediately cut but told to go away halfway through a 3 year 21 million dollar deal. Given the O’s futility where a player who displays 80% of 1 of 5 tools (i.e., Jay Gibbons) is given a $20+ million dollar extension because the O’s a re just happy to have a potential major league player. Even though it has been half a decade and the O’s are building toward respectability, I consider Ponson the face of the Orioles. Stink. Stank. Stunk.
Scott Cooper: The Red Sox let Wade Boggs go to the Yankees and traded Jeff Bagwell to keep this guy. He was a 2-time All Star (still a bewildering thought) even though he was a below-average hitter. The only year he was even average was not even either of the All Star years. Somehow he was hailed as a good defensive third baseman with a strong arm which lead to tons of errors.
Mendy Lopez. Many remember his Opening Day HR in 04′. I remember him being an automatic out ( in many cases double play)
Kurt Bevacqua. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRhu9jUal2Q
Nick Punto should be part of the inaugural class.
off topic but who was that player who had that incredible 1.4 OPS minor league season in 78 or 79? his name escapes me
Being from KC, witnessing historically bad baseball is a treasured pasttime. The Royals should have their own wing in this museum.
I always felt Jose “Chico” Lind was atrocious at the plate – and I guess his OPS+ 70 proves that.
Plus, there was that whole bizarre driving without pants thing.
In his defense, I think he did win a gold glove.
I nominate Andres Thomas, who truly embodied all of the badness of the mid-to-late-1980s Braves teams. In his 6-year career, he hit .234/.255/.334 and punched up a sparkling OPS+ of 61. Somehow he never committed 30 errors in a single season (though he did make it to 29 in both of his full seasons in the major leagues), but it sure seemed like every time you looked up, he was booting another grounder.
In support of Al Newman’s nomination, let me add that he holds the record for triple plays turned in a single game: 2. They came against the Red Sox, and both were Gaetti to Newman to Hrbek. I don’t recall whether Al was playing SS or 2B that night.
Nate Oliver.
63 OPS+ in 1050 PAs
For the hitter I’m going to nominate Zoilo Versalles because he’s got to be the worst player to ever win an MVP award. The year he won the MVP his OBP was .319! And his #1 similarity score as a hitter is Neifi Perez. Anyone who can win an MVP award and have Neifi Perez as his #1 comp has acheived something very special.
It might be early, but he definitely is having a BBHOF career, Gerald Laird. Hits into as many DPs as anyone, no power despite the fact that he is massive, has a career OPS+75 (though that will go down if he gets as many ABs as he might as a Tiger, last year his OPS+ was 64!) Has more SO (341) than BB (124).
His positive intangibles is that he can lay down a good bunt, probably handles the pitching staff OK, and got into a fight at a basketball game.
Also he pretty much cost the Tigers their one game playoff against the Twins. Not to say the Tigers would have done anything against the Yankees, but the dude was 0 for 6, two strike outs and grounded into a DP. Everytime he got up it was nothing but a sigh coming from me.
He is truly awful.
As much as I hate to do this… I was 10 year’s old in this guy’s Red Sox prime and had to suffer through his AB’s. He was, as we used to say, an “automatic out”.
Denny Doyle 2B–
8 Seasons /3572 PA’s
16 HR’s / 237 RBI’s
.250/.295/.316 /.611 – 70 OPS+
I remove my Darrel May nomination and nominate Brandon Duckworth. 511 IP, 5.28 ERA, 79 ERA+, 1.526 WHIP, 1.65 SO/BB.
The Royals really do need their own section, I think I could come up with a whole team, and I haven’t even been alive for that long.
I would like to nominate, at catcher, Joel Skinner!
In 9 seasons, 546 games and 1551 PA Joel Skinner complied .228/.269/.311 lifetime stats. That’s a lifetime OPS of .580 and OPS+ of 60. He also had 3 stolen bases in 10 attempts and 17 HR for his entire career. His OPS+ in 64 games in 1987 was 11! Steve Swisher, Nick Swisher’s father, has distrubingly similar numbers to Joel Skinner, but I don’t remember Steve Swisher as a player. I DO remember Joel Skinner stinking it up in Yankee Stadium.
The Bad Hall needs at least one father-son duo: Ducky and Dick Schofield both had inexplicably long, unproductive careers.
OK, let’s got back to the first season of Royals baseball. their starting SS was a guy named Jackie Hernandez. His Strat-o-matic card was an out-a-matic. Looking at his stats he was remarkably bad for a surprisingly long time. Shortstops weren’t supposed to be big hitters, but my memory of him was that he really couldn’t do anything particularly well. Anyone with Mario Mendoza & Dick Tracewski as his comps is a remarkably good candidate. (Of course, they are too.)
John Wasdin. You can’t have a bad baseball Hall of Fame without him! Let’s take a look: he played parts of 13 seasons in the majors, so he stuck around for quite a while. In that time his ERA never dropped below 4. If WARP3 is your thing, he’s got 5 negative seasons. He topped 1 twice, maxing out at 1.8.
What makes him special is the nickname – “Way back” (Somehow this isn’t on his baseball reference page). He got this nickname the expected way – by giving up a ridiculous amount of home runs – always at the worst time. If the Red Sox were up or down by 4, he was Pedro. Anywhere in between and he was Jose Lima at his worst. It was like some sort of sick Jack Morris pitching to the score thing.
No idea if the game logs bear any of the timing out, but that’s definitely how it felt. The home runs are verifiable. His fangraphs K/9 chart is illustrative:
http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=1768&position=P&page=4&type=full
I love how it just leaves the screen for a few years. He proves you can give up 18 home runs in 65 innings and get invited back to the team the next year.
I was thrilled when he was traded from the Red Sox. I doubled over in laughter when I found out it was to Colorado.
But still, he had talent. He even managed to throw a perfect game in AAA. Not too many pitchers can say that (even if Tomo Ohka can).
I don’t have a pitcher to nominate, but I’ll give a mention to Wendell Kim if this hall expands for coaches. Though I’m not sure there’s anything redeeming about “Wave ‘em in” Wendell’s tenure as third base coach…
I may have missed the exact vote, but at 120 votes, MJ has 119. I am curious as to who did not vote for Michael Jordan as one of the top 10 players in NBA history.
To Brandon @ 137:
I will allow that Bill Bergen’s carrer OPS+ of 21 ( with indidvidual years of OPS+ of 1, 6 and -4! ) is transcendent. But he last played in 1911! I actually had to watch Joel Skinner – without the benefit of steroids – try to hit major league pitchng. You must be on the Old Timers committee.
One more vote for Steve Jeltz. Not only are his stats terrible, but to steal that line about Don Baylor, “he just looked like an out standing up there”. On the plus side he did once homer from both sides of the plate in the same game.
Pitchers are much tougher. We used to call Clay Condrey “the human surrender flag” because that’s what bringing him into the game meant, but he turned into a serviceable reliever. Russ Ortiz had a few effective years, and Carlos Silva at least had one. What about Art “Losing Pitcher” Mulcahey?
I nominate myself.
I played for 15 seasons, never accruing more than 458 at-bats, never hitting higher than .280. My excellent plate defense made me a valuable back-up catcher, though.
Ron Gardenhire doesn’t quite qualify (777 PAs), but what a brutal career line: .232/.277/.296.
But thinking of the ’82 Mets, Dave Kingman did one thing well and everything else miserably: .204/.285/.432 for that team. How do you have 37 HRs with 99RBI and hit .204? Who pitched to you?
I know that Matt Sinatro does not have enough PA to qualify for the BBHoF, but he should have a plaque or display somewhere in the Hall. He is the only player I have ever seen who was thrown out at home while trying to score from THIRD on a clean single to the outfield!
I also nominate Kevin Elster. Talk about your performance enhanced stats. He had 88 career homers, 24 of them in 1996 alone. A career avg. of .228 and an OPS of .677 don’t make up for an 88-game errorless streak at short.
@MDXS:
John Wasdin was one of the subjects of a great sports radio line that I still remember from 1998.
Pedro Martinez at the time was complaining about the level of notoriety one gains as a Sox player, that it becomes impossible to shop and do things in public like a normal person.
The host’s recommendation: “Pedro could easily shop on Comm Ave. if he just dressed up as John Wasdin.”
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYM/1962.shtml
Also, Enzo Hernandez.
Two names immediately came to mind but I had to read through the comments first just for form. I see both my names were nominated so I will concur with those that preceded me.
Mario Mendoza: He didn’t get the line named after him for nothing. In 5 of his 9 seasons he finished with a BA under his line. His career BA doesn’t rest below the line because of his ‘Monster’ year in 1980 when he hit .245 and slammed half of his career total of 4 HRs. I was impressed by the nominations for Ray Oyler but not swayed. Mendoza is the worst.
Matt Young: He did have one winning season, 1986, when he went 8-6. He had nine losing seasons that contributed to his 55-95 record. Led the league in losses for . Seattle in ’85 with 19. They liked him so much they signed later as a free agent so he could lose 18 in 1990. Boston liked him so much they signed him to a huge free agent deal while the nation shook their collective heads in horror. His two year 3-11 record at least left us laughing if only to cover up our shame.
Joe,
Just to quibble with your statement that, “Nobody who makes it to the Major Leagues is a ‘bad’ baseball player.” I think you temporarily forgot about Eduardo Villacis.
Derek Jeter
Don’t think he’d qualify for the number of at-bats, but, Felix Jose.
We should also do this for hyped minor leaguers that were never really given a chance in the bigs but continued to put up huge-ish numbers in the minors for an extended period. Those guys were you just go, “dude, give it up already.”
1. Joe Vitiello
2. Kit Pellow
Hey Andy E, we may put you in the average or (maybe) below average HOF, but the worst? No way. Hell man, you started some World Series games for Godssakes!
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@27 and anyone else who wrongly has Anthony Young on their list: This guy belongs in the hard luck HOF, not the bad baseball HOF! He did go 15-48 over his 6 seasons (an excellent example of why w-l record is a useless stat), but he only had a career 3.89 ERA(another questionable stat). That is pretty darn good for being around for the SE. He also had the hard luck of falling short by 2 1/3 innings of being immortalized by this dubious list!
Deivi Cruz
9 Seasons, 4375 PA, Career 78 OPS+
In a year where he had an OPS of 577 (51 OPS+), he came in fourth in ROY voting (garnering more votes than Mike Cameron), and 25th in MVP voting, right behind Jeter and tied with Radke and Mo.
Played some kind of defense…
Kip Wells.
Jim Deshaies. Three winning seasons out of twelve. Career ERA of 4.14, pitching mostly in the pre-steroids era. Career WHIP of 1.317, including seasons of 1.416 and 1.719. I hated him so much when he pitched for the Twins, but TK kept running him out there.
Don’t be fooled by that HOF vote. That was a joke.
John Cangelosi
May 20, 1990. Bucs trail the Braves 13-7 going into the bottom of the 9th. Cangelosi leads off the 9th with a PH strikeout and the Bucs proceed to score 4 runs and load the bases with 2 outs and bring us around to a second at bat in the inning for Cangelosi. Cangelosi caps his lead off K but ending the inning and the game with a bases-loaded K looking.
That’s Cangelosi in a nutshell.
I am totally on board with Rafael Belliard and I fully believe he should have his own wing. He played 17 seasons, got more than 400 plate appearances in four of them, never posted an OPS higher than .582, never posted an OBP over .300, and only once slugged higher than .300.
His career OPS+ is 46. To put that in perspective, Dwight Gooden’s career OPS+ is 32. And Gooden’s career slugging percentage was higher.
Steve “bye-bye” Balboni !!
Hal Lanier
1196 games played, 3940 AB, .529 OPS
Jorge Fabregas
Randall Simon
As an Os fan, this may be blasphemy, but…Rich Dauer, for all that he is beloved as a member of the ’83 WS team, was a terrible, terrible hitter.
Brook Fordyce, who turned one decent stretch of 40 games into a 4 year, $10 million deal thanks to the senile magnanimity of Syd Thrift.
Despite an inexplicably fantastic year in 1985, Floyd Rayford. How does anyone put up a 131 OPS+ in 105 games, when his next ‘best’ (least worst? less terrible?) year is an 83 OPS+ in 86 games?
I could do this all day just with Orioles.
Ooh, this is tough. All I got to add is Felix Fermin (.259/.305/.303, 67 OPS+, 3,000 PAs, 27-for-48 on the basepaths, although he did play short and second with close to the league average in range factor per nine, 4.68 to 4.71), Doug Glanville (.277/.315/.380, 78 OPS+, 4,000 PAs, although he played center and seems to have been pretty good defensively, and was 168-for-204), and Terry Francona (.274/.300/.351, 78 OPS+, 1,700 PAs, with sub-average defense at first and the outfield corners). Of Francona, current Red Sox consultant Bill James once wrote “What a worthless player. Francona, whose father was one of my favorite players, has the lowest career secodary average of any active player (500 or more games). What makes this especially striking is that almost everybody else in the bottom ten is a shortstop, and not really expected to contribute much offensively… Those middle infielders, if they can chip in a single here and there you’re happy with it, but what exactly is it that Francona does?”
@154 – the hilarious part of that comment being that the Schofield line produced current all-star Jayson Werth.
Mike Benjamin
Miguel Olivo. Terrible at everything but hitting a dinger every once and a while. This has kept him as a “terrible regular” for much of his career. He has only once EVER had an OBP above 300 and that was in a small 115 ABs. Strikes out, doesn’t walk, passed balls everywhere. A mess and a player that managers still believe can start because he has a “good bat.” Miserable.
@162
That’s pretty bad. But did you know (this isn’t really germane, but it’s one of my favorite facts) that Mike Piazza in 2006 had a .342 OBP in 439 PA, and yet did not score from second base on a clean single ONCE the entire season?
Shawn Abner. First pick in 1984 draft, key part of Kevin McReynolds trade, career OPS+ of 65. I remember listening to a Cardinals-Padres game 20+ years ago when the anouncer, think it was Mike Shannon but wouldn’t swear to it, said “you know Abner is a great defensive centerfielder because he is hitting below .200″ (I paraphrase slightly, because 20 years later I don’t remember his batting average that night). NO! You don’t know that. You know he was a highly touted prospect and a key part of the trade for one of their best players so somebody was compelled to play him hoping he would hit. He never did.
Doug Strange – for the category of “third baseman, more than 2000 plate appearances”
In defense of Jimmy D. He did strike out 8 to start a game once. He was a reliable pitcher on an Astros team that was good.
True, he was done when he left Houston which has admitted so if you saw him after that I sympathize.
The HOF vote was not a joke, it was a tip of the hat to a greatly appreciated player.
I am sure he was not the first or the last to be so acknowledged.
@ Eriq #5: I second your nomination of Steve Jeltz! In fact, if the BBHoF has anything like a “founding class,” Jeltz would be like the Honus Wagner of bad baseball.
Jeltz’s finest moment was in a game I attended, circa 1989, at the age of 10 or 11. Jeltz was standing on 2nd, representing the winning run in the bottom of the 10th or 11th inning. Lenny Dykstra (I think) lined a single to right, which the RF bobbled, then dropped, then bobbled some more. Finally, out of frustration that he’d obviously just lost the game, he simply KICKED the ball toward the infield.
Steve Jeltz, at that moment rounding third and being the terrible baseball player he was, turned to see the ball flying in the general direction of home and HELD UP. Skidded to a stop and ran back to third.
I was already jumping up and down celebrating our win, then realized Jeltz hadn’t run home. I couldn’t believe it. I would’ve gotten chewed out by my Little League coach for a boneheaded running error like that. I swore at that moment that if we didn’t win the game, I was done with the Phillies forever.
On the next batter, Jeltz scored on a wild pitch. Phils win.
______________________
The guy who kicked it was Paul O’Neill, then with Cincinnati. In early 1991, I went up to New York for a Yankees fan convention, and the newly-acquired O’Neill was signing autographs. I good-naturedly yelled out to him, “You can’t kick the ball in the American League, either.” Thankfully, he smiled.
Jeltz was a pretty mediocre player, but his one shining night in Phillies lore also came in ’89, when he homered from both sides of the plate as the Phils, who had spotted Pittsburgh 10 runs in the first inning, came back and won at the Vet and Pirates announcer Jim Rooker, who had said he’d walk back to the Pittsburgh if the Bucs didn’t win this game, would do precisely that as an off-season charity fundraiser.
I live near Washington now and am a Nationals fan. We’ve seen several candidates for this anti-Hall the past few years (thank you, Jim Bowden), although Mike Rizzo is now doing his best to get rid of them.
Joe, the Walkups were definitely cousins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana,_Arkansas
Turns out, Johnny Sain was born there, too, oddly enough.
Brian Moehler. It was 1999 when he was suspended for scuffing the ball. At that point his career record was 28-29, and he went on to lead the league in losses. Few expected that eleven years later he would be described as “once again a candidate to lose his spot” in the Astros rotation, a spot he has held consistently for two seasons. With a career record of 83-103 and 1768 hits allowed in 1510.2 innings pitched, he has never had an ERA over 4 in any of his thirteen seasons, except in 2001 when he pitched the second game of the season and then missed fifteen months with a shoulder injury.
He also has 1 career save, got the last win at Tiger Stadium and the first win at Comerica Park, has allowed less than one walk for every four hits, and has only been traded once, but it was for Noochie Varner. Truly a fine plaque could be made for this fine bad pitcher.
Deshaies may have been a mediocre pitcher, but he is a darn good announcer.
Lima time!
as the pitcher: Jose Canseco
@Tiffany Leigh 23 – How could I forget Craig Grebeck…as I mention every time possible, I grew up a White Sox fan…I used to pray and pray that Craig and then Ozzie would somehow get a hit at the end of the game so Frank and Robin would get one more chance.
Many unanswered prayers.
For those of you wondering, I kinda like Hawk Harrelson as an announcer. It’s an acquired taste.
Glenn Hubbard
Zane Smith
Jose “chico” Lind.
Career numbers:
.254 avg
.295 obp
.315 slug
9 career homers in 3,677 at bats
Walked out on Royals in the middle of ’95 season. Who benefited more from that break-up?
I remember him most for having the absolute slowest bat speed through the zone on his swings. One time when I was young I was at a Royals game with my dad and he commented on it. I could never get it out of my head after that.
I forgot some fun things about Deivi Cruz. He played 9 seasons, and in only 1 did he steal more than he was caught. For his career, he was 16 successful for 44 attempted. His career K/unintentional-BB was 429/120. Half of his intentional walks came within the same year. It was one of his better years (292/322/431), but that nobody challenged the up-to-that-point-career 290 OBP player shocks me.
I watch Around the Horn on ESPN and if most writers are anything like that bum Marrioti from Chicago, it is no wonder why deserving guys miss out on the Hall. Let’s hope this doesn’t end up like the Gene Hickerson situation in the NFL. I would hate to see him get in when he either no longer has his wits about him, or even worse, if he has already passed away.
Not as bad as some previously mentioned players, but Tim Flannery kinda sucked…
Or, maybe it’s just his music…
HITTER: Kevin Elster, my childhood shortstop idol.
13 Seasons, career line of .228/.300/.377/.677
Career OPS+ of 83(!)
Decent enough fielder, I guess, though the more recent metrics suggest otherwise. But he didn’t hit, had no power, didn’t steal (only 14 SBs in his entire career) and didn’t walk.
I had his number etched into my little league glove.
It seems to me that so many catchers and shortstops should be able to make this list of offensive grounds. The real challenge is to find players from other positions.
I have to second Andres Thomas’ nomination. Not only for the 61+ career he put together, but for the sheer craptastic suckatude of his 1989 season:
53+, with a .228 (!!) OBP over 571 plate appearances. Which followed a .268 over 627 PAs the year before. The dude LITERALLY made out over 3/4 of his at bats for two seasons, and they just kept writing his name in the lineup card day after day.
He’s gotta be first ballot here.
Joe, I have no idea if you’re still following this thread 200+ comments in, but here’s a nominee:
Tony Batista. When you talked about Gookie Dawkins’ batting stance, I immediately thought of Tony’s ridiculous pigeon-toed, bat-waving show. He was like a mutated version of Julio Franco. Everyone knows about his infamous 110-RBI 2004 season in Montreal (.272 OBP, 80 OPS+!), but the joy doesn’t stop there. In 2000, he hit 41 homers with the Blue Jays and walked just 35 times, leading to a .307 OBP and 102 OPS+. His poor plate discipline was so widely known that he received only one intentional walk that year, and 27 for his career (13 coming with some awful O’s teams in 2002-03). His career OBP was .299 (even Dave Kingman eked out a .302). He managed a career OPS+ of 92 despite cranking out 464 extra-base hits in 11 seasons. And his defense? What defense?
Mark Belanger – 6,600 abs, 68 ops+
I will echo the early nomination of Steve Jeltz.
In 1989 The Pirates scored 10 runs in the first inning against the Phillies. The Phillies rallied to win the game thanks to two home runs by…Steve Jeltz. That accounted for 40% of his career home runs. And he hadn’t even started the game. An epic performance.
Ambiorix Burgos!! He blew more saves for the Royals than Farnsworth!! As our closer in 2006: 4-5, 5.52 ERA, 18 Saves, 12 blown saves!! And if that’s not enough in 05′ in just 60 innings of work he was 10th in MLB in wild pitches!
And yet we still got Bannister for him? People wonder why the Mets can’t get out of their own way no matter how much they spend, that’s why!! And since the trade the only playing time he’s seen is in the prison leagues because he killed two people and then beat his girlfriend…..if he isn’t on this list than no one else should be!!!
Michael Jordan: 504/512. So close ….
I’m a little hurt/astonished that Joe Borowski hasn’t shown up yet. The year that he led the league in saves was a combination of luck and divine providence more than ability, which was exhibited clearly the next year when he got shelled more than the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
Willy Taveras
.276/.321/.328 — 68 OPS+
His OPS + for the past two years has been 55 and 48 respectively. And I think he will become the everyday RF for the Natinals at some point.
I know Royals fans probably won’t believe me, but Luis Rivas deserves to be in the hall. His career 78 OPS+ is bad enough, but take in to account that 12 of his career 34 HRs were hit against the Royals, so he was pretty much useless against everybody except the Royals, and its not like the Twins needed that much help to beat the Royals during Rivas’ career.
Rivas also is unique in that he’s a light-hitting middle infielder that was never used as a utility infielder and wasn’t very good defensively. He was fast and could steal bases (81 total, 31 for a season high), but he had poor range at second and was known to space out in the field. He was excellent at turning the DP, but that was about it. And still, he was the starting second baseman for four seasons for a team with a winning record each season, including three consecutive division titles.
Steve Jeltz has to be in this Hall… 5 career home runs, and two came in one game… The fact is, that game is the first time I can remember really loving watching a baseball game on TV, needless to say he has been my all-time favorite player since then (Along with Cal Ripken, whose career turned out a little different)… The guy could straight up mash, and he was a “Rated Rookie” for Donruss in I think 1985 (I have at least ten of those cards)… Side note, my mom wrote to him a a few times trying to get an autograph for me and never got a response, so she followed those requests with a letter informing Jeltz that he was a terrible player and that I was probably his only fan… I finally did get his autograph though, in a memorabilia shop in Cooperstown in 2005… His one year above average Jeltz had an OPS+ of 101, and got traded to the Royals (who else) that winter, I cried when I found out, his only year with the Royals (and last in the league) his OPS+ was an amazing 12… They don’t make em like they used to
[...] role as a bench player. 34: Chris said at 11:48 am on March 30th, 2010: I love this idea. …More Cancel [...]
Rey Ordonez. Sure he had a great glove, but a 59 career OPS+…
He falls short of the PA standards, but because of his oddball career, I thought I’d throw him out there:
Tom Lawless: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lawleto01.shtml
Career OPS of .521 w/a OPS+ of 47 covering 589 plate appearances.
The reason I’m including Lawless: despite his #’s, he actually managed to get 17 PA in post-season, all in the 1987 season. That year during the regular season, Lawless had a total of 29 PA, and he hit less than .100
Then Lawless gets 17 PA in the ’87 post season, including 10 at bats in the 1987 WS. He hit .100 in the WS, which was better than his regular season average. His one hit in the WS?
A home run against the Twins. In the regular season, Lawless hit 2 career HR’s. After his swing and bomb in the WS, Lawless stared the ball down and gave the bat a flip, like he’d done it a 1000 times in his career.
A great moment for Lawless and he will always have a special place in the hearts of Cards fans because of it. Also shows that despite the fact that he, well lets face it, didn’t exactly have much success at the ML level, that greatness can come from anywhere at any given time.
Brian Kingman might be a little too good to make this team, but his best ERA+ was below the league average and he revelled in his infamy, holding the claim as the last pitcher to have last 20 games in a season from 1980 until 2003. He’d be honored to be on this time too.
Johnnie LeMaster has been nominated by others, but I’ll add another vote for him. Bill James has a great riff about him in the 1986 Bill James Baseball Abstract. LeMaster played for three teams that year and contributed to all three finishing last, back when there were only four divisions.
Timo Perez
DeWayne Wise
The Atlanta Braves’ starting shortstops from 1981-1992: Rafael Ramirez, Andres Thomas, and Rafael Belliard (with a one-year reprieve thanks to Jeff Blauser in 1990).
Belliard has already been covered in depth by other commenters, and the ability to stay in the majors for 17 years despite a career OPS+ of 46 pretty much says it all, anyway.
I also saw a couple nominations for Andres Thomas, and agree with those as well. In his (only) two full seasons, he made 29 errors in each. For comparison, in the last decade (2000-2009, the only year-by-year error stats I could find), only 5 shortstops have made 30 or more errors. He was in the top-10 for outs made and GIDP twice each–impressive since he only was an everyday player for two seasons. Throw in the career OBP of .255 and OPS+ of 61, and you’ve got an BHOF-worthy bad player.
But I am a bit surprised no one (that I saw) has thrown Rafael Ramirez into the mix to complete the group. Sure he could hit a little for a shortstop, but just a little: his career OPS+ was 77. BUT: he was arguably the worst-fielding everyday shortstop in major league history. Granted, this is just going off errors, but he led the league five times in a row (an all-time record for SS), six times in total (also a record, shared with Dick Groat), had five straight years of 30+ errors (which equals all MLB shortstops of the 2000s, and includes the strike-shortened 1981 season in which he accomplished the feat in just 95 games), a sixth with 30 later in his career and a seventh with 29 (if you include 8 from 3B when the Braves just HAD to get a young Andres Thomas on the field). While most of the position players nominated above were tragically poor hitters, here is at least one guy who deserves a nomination for his leather.
But the bottom line is, growing up in Atlanta in the 1980s as a Braves fan, i had the “privilege” to see some of the very worst shortstoppery of all-time, with three legitimate contenders for the Bad Baseball HOF in a row. Memories!!
@ #123 and #172:
Anthony Young’s ERA might not have been that bad, but the dude lost 27 games in a row.
27. Games. In a row.
Last year, Kyle Farnsworth had a 97 ERA+. He was about league average. Except those of us Royals fans know it was much worse. He put up good numbers when it didn’t matter. He bombed in any pressure situation.
Young had a bit of that in him. It’s the only way to lose 27 consecutive decisions. That means he had to enter in to 27 games where his team was tied or leading, and allow runs — at least in those of the 27 games where he came in from the ‘pen.
Besides, I think the BBHOF can stand to make way for one terrible streak. It’s the all-time mark for pitching futility.
i’m sure i’m not the first, but have to nominate the legendary (snicker)
johnny lemaster. he was an awful hitter and (supposedly) an awful defensive shortstop.
First I wonder if you ever considered that they might actually be the same guy? I mean 2 guys with the same name from the same small town just seems impossible unless they are father/son or the same guy.
As for BBHoF, in my mind it can only be Craig Paquette. I am sure there are players who were worse than he was but they are hard to recall readily; despite his ineptitude (relatively speaking) he was always praised as a key, an important team mate.
I never understood it – still don’t.
As for SP I am going to make a controversial pick, because this guy really was much better than a fringe pitcher. However, precisely be cause he seemed to have so much talent which he could harness and destroy a team once in a while before lapsing into painfully bad results.
He put up ERA+ of 136, 141 and 148 in separate years where he pitched fewer than 100 IP but also had one year of 136 while throwing 162 innings. So he really did have talent but he also really couldn’t harness it that often as witnessed by the fact he managed to lose 19 games TWICE in MLB.
So he doesn’t qualify as the worst MLB pitcher by any means, but since his stuff was so good, he actually could have been HoF material – had he ever figured out how to be consistent with it – so that means Jose DeLeon deserves a place in the BBHoF.
No one ever drove me more crazy that Jose – no one – not even Craig Paquette.
Forgot to put in the baseball reference quote on Jose’s page by Ralph Kiner:
“Best 2-19 pitcher I ever saw.”
That pretty much sums it up for me
Jeff Reboulet
Jim Lindeman 9 years!!! .244 BA, .289 OBP, 670 AB, 173 SO.
“Belliard has already been covered in depth by other commenters, and the ability to stay in the majors for 17 years despite a career OPS+ of 46 pretty much says it all, anyway.”
This is a great bar bet — name the only two players to play at least one NL game every year from 1982-1998.
Tony Gwynn and Rafael Belliard.
Jose DeLeon was electrifying to me as a fan of those awful mid-80s Pirate teams.
I know this wasn’t the case but in my memory it seems like he took a no-hitter into the seventh like ten times. He was a threat to throw a no-no every time he got on the hill, and yet he did in fact go 2 and 19.
Probably belongs in a “bizarre career” or “wasted talent” HOF more than a bad baseball hall of fame.
Daniel Cabrera
He only got worse as he approached his prime. Has a career 88 ERA+, 884 hits, and 520 BBs in 892 1/3 innings. Bad.
Yeah, I feel like you have to look at those 80′s Pirates teams. I’m 32. The earliest I could possibly be expected to have truly followed them would be around 1984, as a 7 year old. They have had 4 winning seasons in that period of time. That is breath-taking.
You can take the whole squad for all I care.
Bob Kipper, Marvell Wynne, Joe Orsulak, Doug Frobel, Tim Foli, Jim Morrison, Sammy Khalifa, Junior Ortiz…
Who? Wil Nieves! I know he doesn’t yet meet the standards but I have to really talk about Wil Nieves because those who don’t watch the Natinals have to appreciate his suckitude. I believe this year will be the year he will meet the PA threshold. Now, as mentioned Wil has a career line of .234/.282/.293 with an OPS of .575 which gives him a whopping OPS+ of 53. His first season he “produced” a .181/.224/.250 line in 76 PA for an OPS+ of 31. Thankfully, he was spared from most fans eyes till 2005 and didn’t really get enough PA’s till 2007 in which he posted a .164/.190/.230 with an OPS+ of 10 in 66 PA’s. For that glorious season he signed as a free agent in DC and had his legendary Natinals moment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkoireYWwMY. That commercial by itself should get him entry! Of his total of 127 hits, 101 of them were singles. Hell, there is a blog named “Passing the Time between Wil Nieves’s Bombs.” He’s slower than molasses and he can’t bunt. Consistently his defense has been relatively lousy with an overall Rtot/yr at -8.7. He throws out runners at a 24% clip (MLB Avg 29%). And he just calls a bad game. Yes, the Natinals have bad pitching, but his RAvg (Runs average/9) is 5.19 and the career ERA of the games he caught is 4.71. Let’s put it this way, when he calls a game, expect the opponent to put up 5 runs. His overall WAR has never been above a 0.3. And my favorite is that he is in his 30’s, the perfect time for catcher DECLINE!
What is his benefit? I think it’s that he is cheap and the Lerner’s don’t like spending money.
@220 Adam: Check out my post @116. Young wasn’t that bad. In fact, for his career, he was exactly average as far as ERA+ goes. The Mets as a TEAM were bad, which is why Young accrued the streak. Heck, Burnett, Pettite, and Joba all pitched worse than Young this past year, and they combined to be 36-23! In fact, as far as ERA+ goes, the 2009 Yankees as a team pitched far worse than 1993 Young and they had the best record in baseball!
Darnell Coles
.225/.316/.341 over 14 seasons, 3223 PA, good for -2.2 career WAR per Rally.
Ben Davis. Couldn’t hit, couldn’t catch, but he was the number 2 pick in the 1995 draft and hung around for seven seasons of suckiness (.237/.306/.366).
As a Mariners fan, I want to mention two players who don’t qualify but deserve special citations:
Glenallen Hill was the worst defensive outfielder I’ve ever seen. He couldn’t have misplayed more fly balls if he was blindfolded.
And the Great Jamie Moyer, who is amazing and ageless and a great human being, is about to break the career record for most home runs allowed. He’s 14 away from Robin Roberts’s 505, and with a spot in the Phillies rotation he’s sure to get there if he stays healthy!
Many would probably think that Anthony Young of the famous losing streak in the 1990s would make this list. He of the 15-48 career record. It turns out that he happened to be league average. 100 ERA+.
Horace Clarke
Can’t believe I read all those comments and didn’t see his name. Career line: .256/.308/.313 and almost all of it was as the Yankees lead off batter. In 1968, he had 607 plate appearances and finished with a 59 OPS+. Others have had lower career numbers but not in 1272 games, most of which were as a lead off batter.
Of course, you could probably nominate the entire line up of the 1968 Yankees. If any team in history had a worse hitting infield, I don’t know who it was.
Righty Mark Lemongello – Astros then ’79 Toronto (1-9 for latter, 6.14 ERA). Four seasons and 537 IP, producing a 22-38 record; faced 2294 batters, career: 569 got hits, 159 walked, and 15 were HBP. Nine fielding errors in 124 chances – .938. .121 career BA. Pitching credentials admittedly “only” mediocre but fielding, hitting, place him directly at Square Bad.
Following his stint with the Blue Jays, itself on the heels of his hauntingly mirror-like ’77-’78 seasons (9-14 each year; allowed 20 dingers & started 30 games, etc. etc.) ML left MLB at 24, and was arrested three years later for kidnapping and holding for ransom his ex-pro-bowler cousin Peter Lemongello. Currently said to lead peripatetic, gypsy-like existence. A storied character perfect for Bad Hall: MLB = Mark Lemongello, Bad.
> If any team in history had a worse hitting infield, I don’t know who it was.
1B Mantle, .237/18/54
2B Horace Clarke, .230/2/26
SS Tom Tresh, .195/11/52
3B Bobby Cox, .229/7/41
Pretty pathetic, yep. However, this was Mantle’s last year and he was a mere shadow of his former self, and Tresh was also an injured former star on his last legs (lifetime 245/335/411 OPS+ 113, high OPS+ 139). Clarke and Cox? Well, Bobby at least went on to greater things. . . .
Keith Moreland – if only because he was immorilized in Steve Goodman’s song “A Dying Cubs Fan Last request”
Somebody go get Jack Brickhouse
to come back,
and conduct just one more interview
Have the Cubbies run right out into the middle of the field,
Have Keith Moreland drop a routine fly
Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a frosty malt
And I’ll be ready to die
Would Mark Belanger fit here? Really good defense. Played 18 seasons in the major leagues with championship teams. Hit 20 doubles once. Lifetime .228/.300/.280. Made one All-Star team. Actually got MVP votes in three years.
Felix Jose. Terrible baserunning as a special talent to go with his lack of production in other areas.
John Wasdin
Byung-Hyun Kim
Yuniesky Betancourt
Wow D.J. (#237) That’s quite a story. Maybe a book should be written about that.
Definitely have to second the Alfredo Griffin vote above (a little sad that someone mentioned him before me). He’s BaBHOF MVP if you up the PA requirement substantially. Of those players with more than 200 SBAs (and retired after 1989), only Greg Gagne has a worse SB% at 58% (I think…don’t hold me to that).
Mark Belanger does not fit.
Mark Lemke does.
Buddy Biancalana
I always figured he was maybe the 6th best player on his HS team.
Felix Fermin: automatic out and an average fielder. Plus, was traded (straight up, I think, for Omar Vizquel).
Jamie Easterly: About as many walks as strikeouts, more hits than IP, low ERA+.
Plus, their names just don’t SOUND like baseball player names . . . and they both played for some pretty bad Indians teams.
Doug Flynn, no question. The worst player with 4000+ plate appearances in the last 50 years.
.238/.266/.294, ops+57, (-12.1) WAR, that’s a NEGATIVE 12.1 WAR for his career.
A defensive specialist who couldn’t play defense and couldn’t hit. Maybe they felt obligated to play him because of the Seaver trade. Who knows?
I’ve often felt the only reason they played him was because he was a good-looking white guy that could attract the female Met fans from Long Island and New Jersey.
From today’s SI piece by Tom Verducci
“By the way, here is the list of the worst ERAs of all time by anyone who threw at least 900 innings:
1. Todd Van Poppel (1991-2004) 5.58
2. Jimmy Haynes (1994-2004) 5.37
3. Scott Elarton (1998-2008) 5.29
4. Jose Lima (1994-2006) 5.26
5. Brian Bohannon (1990-2001) 5.19
Van Poppel, Elarton and Bohannon all were first-round picks — out of high school.
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/tom_verducci/03/30/verducci.forward/index.html?eref=twitter_feed#ixzz0jnVdRAey
“
Bobby Richardson: .299 OBP. 77 OPS+. 7 time All Star. MVP voting: #2 in ’62, votes in 5 other years.
Nick Punto!!
Duane Kuiper and Johnnie LeMaster. Kuiper hit 1 career HR(off Steve Stone) and his all time slugging % was .316. He stole 52 baseas and was caught 71 times!! LeMaster is maybe worse. 222 BA,.277 OBP, .289 ops and the amazing thing is he played long enough to get over 3500 ab’s. And the best part is these 2 guys played together, they will never be confused with Whitaker/Trammell.
Manny Alexander
1271 AB, .282 OBP, .606 OPS
Corey Patterson
Leo Durocher
Let me explain.
I think there should be a special class for a) players who get the absolute LEAST out of marvelous natural talent, and b) players who get the most out of ZERO talent.
Leo is in the Hall of Fame. Career OPS+ of 66.
Career line of .247/.299/.320, despite playing for offensive powerhouses like the Ruth/Gehrig Yankees and the Gashouse Gang, at the peak of a historic offensive era.
Bonus points for inducing the usually jovial Babe Ruth into beating him senseless by stealing hundred-dollar bills out of the Babe’s wallet.
Obviously The Lip got a lot out of his meager “talents,” but Corey P. represents the opposite: mind-blowing physical gifts, completely wasted. A reputation for vehemently fighting any efforts to change his approach. Ten seasons, career OPS+ of 79…from an outfielder.
You have to be a Cub fan to truly appreciate the following: in 2005, Dusty Baker (definitely a candidate to manage this BbHOF team) batted Corey leadoff. His numbers in nearly 500 AB’s?
.215/.254/.348 (OPS of .602, OPS+ 54)
Leadoff!
It gets better. Batting second? Neifi!
OBP of .298, so he outhit Patterson by a mile. Did I mention that poor Derrek Lee picked that season to have one of the greatest seasons in Cub history (led the league in batting average, hits, slugging, OPS and OPS+ (yes, ahead of Pujols), 50 doubles and 46 home runs, nearly 400 total bases,etc.
RBI-107
That’s what you get when you have a 1-2 punch of Corey and Neifi hitting in front of you.
mark lemke.
he really did start for a world series winner. wow.
Might be a couple of solid candidates here:
http://razzball.com/worst-outfielder-ever/
I’d like to nominate Senators firstbaseman Dick Nen. 893 PA, .288 OBP, .335 SLG. A dead pull left-handed batter, my childhood memory of him rests on countless foul balls just sailing past the wrong side of the right field foul pole.
Bill bergen- worst player ever look it up
Larry Bowa. 16 seasons. 9100+ PAs. Five-time all-star. Two-time gold glover. Career stats of .260/.300/.320. Career OPS+ of 71. OPS+ during his five all-star seasons: 75, 95, 64, 92 and 71.
Bobby Meacham used to make me depressed. I felt sorry for him even though he was a major leaguer and felt sorry for myself for watching him all the time growing up. So bad that he over ran a base runner on one of his few HRs and was one of the two runners out on a double play tag play at home plate…
Wayne Tolleson! Career OPS is 600 even. Didn’t walk, didn’t hit for power, wasn’t an especially good fielder, and insisted on stealing bases despite getting thrown out 40% of the time. Even as a 10-year-old I wondered why he was in the Majors.
Terrence Long. Lousy for the A’s, Padres and Royals, painfully my three favorite teams. The guy was a strikeout machine, especially in clutch situations. He did end a game against Boston with an unbelievable catch one year, which I think kept him around with the A’s. The A’s had to trade Ramon Hernandez to the Padres just to get T. Long off their hands.
Pitcher – Mark Davis – One great season with the Padres, then onto the Royals for big money and horrible pitching. Maybe you just remember guys who played for your team (or teams, in my case) better.
i second mario mendoza. he should be the first inductee
Some great finds here! #81, Buddy Bradford: I cannot believe that the White Sox twice reacquired a guy with no bat. #107, Herm Wehmeier: Not only what you said, but Wehmeier started on Opening Day in 1952 and 1957. I guess Harry Perkowski and Vinegar Bend Mizell weren’t available. #117, Stu Flythe: I’d never heard of him. His stats make my blood run cold, as they should any fan’s. #155, Jackie Hernandez: His 1968 OPS+ for the Twins was 30, and his fielding percentage at shortstop was .927. No player ever had less reason to complain about being left unprotected in the expansion draft.
I’d like to make an additional nomination: Bob Heise, a banjo-hitting reserve infielder who played for several teams from 1967 to 1977. He never walked and couldn’t hit (64 OPS+), plus he couldn’t hit at all for extra bases. I’ve long wanted to do a study on players with the lowest historical ISO rates, and I think Heise would figure prominently in that project. (César Gutiérrez and Chicken Stanley, two Heise contemporaries mentioned in this thread, both had slightly higher ISO rates.) Heise deserves some kind of special consideration for having been left off three excellent post-season rosters — the ’69 Mets, ’75 Red Sox and ’77 Royals.
Even among backup catchers, Gary Bennett stands out – 64 OPS+ on the juice!
Having suffered through the terrible Yankee teams of the late 60′s and early 70′s, it seems that there should be someone from those teams in the babhof. I’ll go with Ruben Amaro, Sr. — OPS+ of 29, 70, and 35 for his 3 Yankee seasons — Career of 71 over 12 seasons. Career of .234/.309/.292 (.214/.292/.247 for those unforgettable Yankee years). Career stolen bases 11 v. 14 caught stealing. And Total Fielding Runs per 135 games for his career was -1.4 runs so let’s say there is at least a question about whether his fielding was as good as some folks thought. He did win a gold glove in 1964, and actually got some MVP votes, but as a shortstop his total fielding runs per 135 games was a whopping -9.2. He seems to have been a good fielder as a first baseman that year for 158 innings based on total fielding runs, but with an OPS+ for the year of 84?
Also, Sidney Ponson or Kyle Farnsworth would both be fine with me on the pitching side.
Pitcher: Anthony Young – 460 career IP (all of 2-1/3 innings short of the Walkup standard), but certainly a place can be made for the man who holds the record for consecutive losses?
As for a player, I would have picked Ken Harvey (all star!) or Kevin Maas, but neither of them played 6 years. How about Billy Beane? .219/.246/.296 over 6 years, and a 1st round pick besides.
Joe, you already pointed out that these players were NOT bad, so the Bad Baseball Hall of Fame is a terrible name.
What about the Bob Uecker Hall of Fame? Uecker has made a career out of celebrating major league baseball ineptitude, so it’d be fitting to name this Hall after him.
If not that, you could go with the Gookie Hall of Fame.
Or how about the Better Than You Hall of Fame? Because now matter how lousy these guys were as big leaguers, they are still better at baseball than all of us commenters.
Also, too many nominations of players who were great defensively. No one who was great at an important part of the game should get in this Hall.
So why didn’t anybody fix Gookie Dawkins’ swing when he first hit the low minors?
And it isn’t just professional athletes who are exceptional. Look at college professors. They’re the intellectual equivalent. All those millions of kids in school and only the top third or so of those make it to college, only the best of those make it to grad school and only the best of those get Ph.D’s and manage to land an job in a university
How about Moe Berg, the catcher that was a spy. Man played in 15 seasons with a career OPS+ of 49. Managed only 6 home runs in 1813 at bats. Plus there is the is quote about him (paraphrasing) “being fluent in 12 languages but couldn’t hit in any of them.”
How did Kerry Robinson not get mentioned?
795 PAs, 3 HRs, .303 OBP, .640 OPS — only 37 walks.
Apparently a speedster, but only stole 36 bases in his career.
And was an absolutely disasterous outfielder that had one of the most laughably bad plays in baseball history when he climbed the wall and let the ball bounce behind him in the field of play.
I’m all for David Hulse: best known for chuckling with Jose Canseco after the homerun due to “noggin” incident.
Plus, he had a career .296 wOBA with an absolute robust 77 wRC+. First ballot!
Hideki Irabu
4.97 FIP and a 22.9% HR/FB rate in over 500 innings.
And he’s a “fat pussy toad”.
Who knew Steinbrenner was a modern day Camus?
Dale Sveum was the worst player I have ever seen. It was a mystery how that guy ever made it to the big leagues
Don Hahn. Growing up, this was considered the worst baseball card you could get.
.236/.304/.308
May I submit OF Dave Nicholson:
7 seasons, 212 career ave, 1661 PA, 573 K’s., 6 SB, 10CS terrible fielder. Memorable 1963 season when he led the AL in K’s, Errors by OF, but did manage 2SB.
2 words to end all.
Adam Eaton.
The (admittedly) biased Giants fan in my would like to nominate A.J. Pierzynski, not because of his stats, bue for being an epically bad teammate, and the butt of one of the worst trades ever made.
The more objective side of me would like to nominate Livan Hernandez. While the beginning of his career was pretty decent, he’s spent so many years as an innings sponge that I think he has moved himself into consideration.
Also, I would like to submit:
P: Brett Tomko
IF: Deivi Cruz
And let me tell you, those were the high times for Giants fans when they had Deivi Cruz and Neifi Perez fighting it out for the SS job. Wooeee!
Corey Patterson
rey ordonez
rey sanchez
enrique wilson
Mick Kelleher and his 42 OPS+ needs to join Luis Gomez in the infield. Mick’s .213 BA with 0 HR would nearly mirror the Gomez numbers, but Mick’s 9 SB with 10 CS might overshadow the 6 bases (in 28 attempts) Luis Gomez stole.
Rany! Bill Bergen is amazing. He so far out of the norm that there are no 900+ similarity scores. Usually something like that is a Babe Ruth sort of thing where quality separates…. well, I guess quality separates here, too…
But, remember he made PRODUCTIVE outs. He had 112 sacrifice bunts.
This is hard.
I didn’t see him listed, I may be wrong… I nominate Lenn Sakata. Better-known as one of the last players to wear glasses on the field of play. Career OPS+ of 71. Only a regular in 1982, had a decent 1983, and hung around long enough to earn 1400+ plate appearances in 564 games covering 11 years.
Oddball stat – he caught one inning in an emergency and threw out the only runner who tried to steal on him. That kind of thing should get the man a place at the table.
[...] Except for a couple of 10-game stretches right at the beginning and right at the end, he only had an OPS of . 700 or better ONCE, and then just barely (.706 in ‘82). During his four seasons as a regular with Joe’s Indians, he had .615, … He was always the default answer on Gary Burbank’s Sports or Consequences on WLW . Whenever the hosts were stumped, they would simply answer Frank Pastore, then strangely chant frank frank frank, then blow up the caller and pretend …More [...]
Rafael Belliard: Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
Dale Berra also deserves a little consideration.
I finally got to see my first Yankee game as a 13 year old in 1985 and Bobby Meachem hit a home run and was called out for running past the guy in front of him.
How this guy hung on as a Yankee SS for more than one season boggles my mind. Career OPS of 621.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/meachbo01.shtml
Christopher John (C.J.) Nitkowski was the 9th pick (by Cincinnati) in the first round of the 1994 amateur draft. When the Tigers got him in a trade for David Wells in the middle of the ’95 season, he was a starter with great promise, despite his 6.12 ERA to that point. The Tigers gave him 11 more starts that year, and he was brutal – 7.11 ERA, 1.86 WHIP, 68 ERA+. He went on to eventually become a LOOGY, but to me, he typified a certain kind of thinking – that he was left-handed and had a heartbeat – so he kept getting chances, despite repeated evidence that he just was not good. He played 10 years, with ERA+ of 86, SO/BB of 1.32, and WHIP of 1.633. We once saw his wife at spring training, and she was very hot, so we thought maybe that was why they kept him around.
Duke Sims comes to mind…. as does Dion James or Chris James in the OF… Mitch Webster lasted a decade…. Jerry (the Governor) Browne was awful for quite awhile @ 2b.
I’m sure that Chuck Hinton was no prize either or Tom McCraw @ 1b.
Roy Foster (OF) or Alan Foster (P). Plus there was a no-hit John Vukovich for the Phillies for quite awhile!
Daniel Cabrera, the pitcher
Brad Ausmus, the hitter
James Elton Walkup & James Huey Walkup were 1st cousins; their fathers were brothers.
The Walkups are cousins. My cousins. Never knew ‘em though.
I have to say, there are two batting positions on the baseball field where good enough defense may justify a terrible bat: shortstop and catcher. Some would even argue second base. Brad Ausmus won three gold gloves and was an All-Star. His similarity scores include three HOFers, plus other decent long lasting catchers like Bob Boone and Tony Pena (no, not the Pena who deserves consideration here). His career percentage of base stealers caught is 35% (excellent) and twice he hit 48%. He even had two seasons of average OPS+ (100 or above) and has been above 90 the last two seasons (in his 40s!) while backing up Russell Martin. Ausmus has appeared in 1951 major league games. This is somebody with real value. I don’t think anybody who won a GG at a defensive position (let alone three of them) deserves consideration for this HOF.
Tony Pena, OTOH, has 870 PA (enough) and a career OPS+ of 44. And you’ve got to be really bad to get 235 PA in a single season with an OPS+ of 7. So I suggest adding him to the list. Compared to Pena, Betancourt’s a Silver Slugger at shortstop.
Since this list is really heavy on up-the-middle players, I’d like to nominate a couple of first basemen.
First, Johnny Sturm, first baseman for the 1941 Yankees. Now, this isn’t entirely fair to Sturm because his career was essentially ended by his service in World War II, but his one year has to be one of the worst full seasons at his position (or at any position, really) ever. In 568 PA he put up a .239/.293/.300 line, good for a 58 (!) OPS+. Bonus points: despite his .293 OBP and base-stealing ineptitude (3 SB, 5 CS) he batted leadoff most of the year.
Again, this man was an everyday first baseman on a team that won the World Series. Simply unbelievable.
Among 1Bmen who had decently long careers, the worst I could find was Todd Benzinger. In over 3000 PA he batted .257/.301(!)/.386, for an 88 OPS+. I’m guessing teams kept him around for his decent-seeming glove (.994 career fielding percentage) but baseball-reference.com has him at 15 runs below average for his career, for whatever that’s worth. Overall, BP has him at -1.8 WARP. How a replacement-level player gets over 3000 PAs at the most talent-rich position on the diamond is beyond me.
Amusingly enough, Benzinger also won a World Series title with the 1990 Reds.
Granted, Sturm doesn’t actually meet the criteria for nomination, but I think his absolutely miserable one season deserves some kind of mention. Consider Benzinger to be the real nominee.