The Worst: A Rundown of Positions

[RonCo]

I’ve been inspired by a recent article I read (I think it was on ESPN), where they ran down the worst position player ate every role. I figure, that the hell, it can’t be that hard, right? My only real ground rule here is that, since we’re about 60 games in, players had to have started at least 40 games. Otherwise I pretty much just waded into the stank.

It’s a tough thing, really, to be the worst of something. I mean, it turns out that sometimes you stink with the bat, but you do too well in the field, or you steal a few too many bases and your overall value goes up too far. Or your glove stinks, but you pound out just enough doubles to be almost worthy of a slot. That kind of performance won’t do the job here.

I mean, to be the worst, you’ve got to beat the worst all around. So what we have here is a misfit collection of toys that includes slow-starts, odd slumps, and downright bad players. Which, to be honest, was kind of fun to look at.

So, here we go…starting at:


CATCHER

The candidates here are a pretty tight group. Charm City’s Luis Miguel Carrillo (.141/.285/.288), Valencia’s Jose Moleno (.220/.257/.308), and San Antonio’s Antonio Tobias (.147/.275/.282) are the solid contenders. Omaha’s Antonio Robles (.196/.233/.368) is staking a claim, but that slugging percentage is a little too bright for my eyes. But wait, we have to throw Carrillo out because he’s DHing fulltime, so maybe we’ll get to him later). This leaves Moleno and Tobias to battle it out—and it’s quite a battle, indeed. Moleno’s .565 OPS beats Tobias’s .557, but Tobias is having a less horrible season behind the plate than Moleno, throwing out 24% vs. 19% or runners, and posting a slightly less negative ZR.

Our vote for worst Catcher in the BBA: Jose Moleno (Valencia)

FIRST BASE:

Phoenix’s Mario Deortez is putting up some pretty remarkably crappy numbers (.236/.310/.373), as is Montreal’s Charles Martin (.288/.315/.401). But the fairly clear winner for the worst first baseman of the year so far is pretty clearly at Boise’s Carlos Munoz (.223/.286/.337). At 21, Munoz is in his second season, and is seeing a significant Sophomore jinx—he dropped a 1.9 WAR year in 2036, but is on a considerably sub-replacement level pace in 2037.

SECOND BASE:

Look, we could dilly dally around and talk about Charm City’s Buddy Bruggeman and his .194/.273/.316 bat, or maybe even Phoenix’s Arturo Barron’’s.188/.261/.401. But those guys are doing it in the field well enough to be providing slightly plus WAR overall. No, friends, to really get into a crappy second baseman you just have to go to Nashville, where Manuel Martinez’s .199/.221/.309 use of the lumber is so anemic that the slightly plus leather has no chance of overcoming it.

It’s hard to imagine how far this guy has fallen in only a couple seasons. One assumes he’ll bounce back to some degree. But for now, he’s the low guy on the list.

SHORTSTOP

Louisville’s Joey O’Brien’s .267/.313/.345 is hollow enough to register as a 70 OPS+. Vegas’s Miguel Rodriguez (.227/.349/.271) and Omaha’s Harlan Moore (.269/.311/.355) are at 74. Their gloves have them at gentle positives, though. Same fore Brooklyn’s Arief Alatas (.240/.290/.352, .8 WAR). But in the end, this race has Vancouver’s Zi-jing Lou (.217/.261/.349, -.1 WAR) is in a battle with … wait for it … Calgary’s Tony Gustafson, whose .251/.261/.311 is good for a -.2 WAR.

It would be easy to say -.2 is worse than -.1 WAR, but that would be silly. We all know WAR is a weakfish measure for this kind of thing. Bottom line here is that Lou’s glove is at a sub-zero ZR, and that probably “makes up for” his 38 point lead in slugging. IT’s a hard call, but we’ll give Lou the Golden Toilet Seat award here. (Special call-out to Des Moines shortstop William Hardy, who missed the cut by 2 games started).

THIRD BASE

There’s a mess of guys in this hot-mess corner fight (what is it with crappy play this year?), specifically including Boise’s big-name phenom (last year) Yunosuke Terada, who got sent back to the minors earlier. Other names are New Orleans’ Julio Montoya. Twin Cities’ Chris Limon, California’s Nico Eijpe. These guys all are putting up wRC+ in the 80s, though, and gently plus WAR (sometimes very gently), and that just won’t cut it in the race for the bottom.

To make it here, you’ve got to throw down something like a .230/.303/.351 line like Nashville’s Sam Wade, or a .231/.322/.308 like Wichita’s Lew Driscoll (okay, maybe I was wrong about him). Or you could go whole-hog and blast out a .187/.252/.438 line like Phoenix’s Brendan Kerndl. To be honest, the race is super-tight. Their wRC+ are all 68-73, their WARs are all between 0 and -.2, and their gloves are all creating -1.1 or -1.2 ZR.

Let’s call it Driscoll, but you can’t go wrong with any of the above.

LEFT FIELD

There’s a little less controversy in left, where you’ve got a few guys underperforming: yes, looking at you Pedro Costa (New Orleans), and Scott Martin (Louisville). But no one is really close to Vancouver’s Gebre-Egziabher Mwaka, who in 52 games has dropped a .242/.279/.349 stink bomb that includes a -1 ZR and a -.5 WAR. It’s an interesting line since Mwaka has been mostly platooning, and his past record doesn’t suggest a major drop like that.

Slumps are a bitch, though, and twice on Tuesdays.

CENTER FIELD

The sweet-spot in the outfield has been home to some spectacularly crappy play to date this year. I mean, in most year’s you get the feeling that Twin Cities’ Wes Savage’s .225/.264/.397 and Brooklyn’s William Belcham’s .273/.286/.372 would be in the fight. And, with Belcham’s glove weighing him down, he’s almost in the mix. Roy Lynn’s .242/.292/.323 in Long Beach would be in the running, but he’s been able to field his position well enough to make up for some lumber shortages. Same for Louisville’s Maximo Quezada, who has only hit .222/.288/.311, but whose glove has him at replacement level.

The winner here, though, is Des Moines’ Roberto Lopez, whose usually elite glove has sputtered this year, leaving a deliciously atrocious .144/.290/.253 batting effort to stand on its own. Note we should really give a call-out to Yellow Spring’s Mauro Saucedo, who would be in the solid running for this if he hadn’t missed a chunk of time with injury.

RIGHT FIELD

In right field, you’ve got quite a few guys fighting for the belt, but in different ways. Vancouver’s Guy Webb (.206/.263/.374) is pretty bad. Rockville’s Yi-ke Zhang and his .238/.300/.605 is challenging his numbers from last year. In Des Moines, Aloysius Gonzaga has stunk it up to the tune of .221/.287/.368, and in Hawaii, Gerbrand de Best as been not so Best with a .226/.327/.328 line. WE could pick any of these and make a case, but none so strong as Madison’s Steve Dempsey.

Yes, Dempsey is hitting .283, which in this mess, looks like the freaking Holy Grail. But it’s a totally hollow .283 (.283/.298/.377), and it’s accompanied with a glove made of such concrete that his WAR to date drops to -0.5. Certainly, we expect the 4-time All-Star to make a bounce back, but right now, he’s just not very good.

DESIGNATED HITTER

Okay…I said above that we’d find Charm City’s Luis Miguel Carrillo in the DH conversation, but I lied. Or, rather, I over-spoke my case. At present I’m not smart enough to know how to sort out data in the game to show me DH-based appearances. So we’ll leave this one undone…except, perhaps to name Carrillo as the honorary winner!

[ae37jr]

And, with Belcham’s glove weighing him down, he’s almost in the mix.

My defense is the Rodney Dangerfield of the league. Belcham leads all BBA LF in defensive effeciency and is 4th in ZR(as a part time player). I could argue that he is the best defensive LF in the league right now. But I won't cause his noodle arm makes Juan Pierre look like Vlad Guerrero.

[bigmike13]

Boy, has Tobias fallen off a cliff. I just DFA'd him because I am sick of seeing that crap every sim.

[agrudez]

Not even an honorable mention for Yelainen at 3B? What is his agent paying you Ron?

[Spiccoli]

Fun article... Too bad there's two River Monsters on the list. Wes Savage is always going to be borderline offensively, but the Chris Limon thing hurts with that contract.

If he goes all year like this again, I might just cut him out of spite... lol.

[Lane]

Not even an honorable mention for Yelainen at 3B? What is his agent paying you Ron?

Hasn't started enough games it looks like.

[RonCo]

Not even an honorable mention for Yelainen at 3B? What is his agent paying you Ron?

Probably could have given him a shout-out, but he didn't qualify based on games started...and the others are pretty ugly.

[7teen]

Fair enough with Dempsey. Good thing you didn't write this feature at the end of May when his WAR was -0.9. It's actually improved thanks to hitting .422/.438/.533 in June thus far.

It's the only reason I stuck with him. Any other guy putting up a near negative 1 WAR in 2 months deserves to be benched but I felt he'd have a huge bounce back before the year is over. He's hitting that stride. I dont' expect his WAR to go very high obviously but if he can get the average back over .300 and approach 200 hits then he'll at least break even and justify his spot in my eyes. haha

[Bumstead]

No spuds....weird...

[GoldenOne]

No fair.... Manuel Martinez is hitting .221/.246/.342 with 11 SBs now and is still playing stellar defense. He's getting back around his career averages here in June (hitting .271/.314/.396) so hopefully whatever issues he was having to start the season are gone.

[StormZ_23]

Always nice for my players to be noticed