Saturday, October 18, 2008

2008 Least Valuable Players

Each and every year there's a variety of players throughout the MLB that cause you to scratch your head and wonder as to why a big league manager would continue to put their name on the lineup card day in and day out. The 2008 season was certainly no exception. The following is a list of some of the absolute worst seasons that took place this past summer. They're categorized by position (C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 3 OFs, SP) and each hitter was required to have a minimum of 375 plate appearances. Unfortunately, Andruw Jones does not qualify. These very prestigious awards are only reserved for the ones who continued their (lack of) performance embarrassingly deep into the season.

So, without further adu, YOUR 2008 LVP's!



C-Kenji Johjima, Seattle Mariners
Stats
409 Plate Appearances
112 Games Played
.227/.277/.332
64 OPS+
-19.7 BtRns
-1.9 BtWin
.220 EQA
Apologies to: John Buck, Ramon Hernandez






1B- Ross Gload, Kansas City Royals
Stats
418 Plate Apperances
122 Games Played
.273/.317/.348
75 OPS+
3 Homeruns
0.8 WARP1
.236 EQA
Apologies to: Daric Barton, Billy Butler





2B- Freddy Sanchez, Pittsburgh Pirates
Stats
608 Plate Appearances
145 Games Played
.271/.298/.371
76 OPS+
21 Walks (1 BB per 29 PA)
1.2 WARP1
.236 EQA
Apologies to: Jamey Carrol, Alexi Casilla







3B-Jose Castillo, San Francisco Giants/Houston Astros
Stats
455 Plate Appearances
127 Games Played
.246/.292/.376
74 OPS+
-17.0 BtRns
0.9 WARP1
.229 EQA
Apologies to: Bill Hall, Chone Figgins, Jack Hannahan



















SS- Khalil Greene, San Diego Padres
Stats
423 Plate Appearances
105 Games Played
.213/.260/.339
63 OPS+
-20.7 BtRns
1.1 WARP1
.215 EQA
Apologies to: Jeff Keppinger, Bobby Crosby







OF- Michael Bourn, Houston Astros
Stats
514 Plate Appearances
138 Games Played
.229/.288/.300
56 OPS+
-31.5 BtRns
1.8 WARP1
.223 EQA







OF- Melky Cabrera, New York Yankees
Stats
453 Plate Appearances
129 Games Played
.249/.301/.341
70 OPS+
-18.6 BtRns
1.7 WARP1
.231 EQA





OF- Corey Patterson, Cincinnati Reds
Stats
392 Plate Appearances
135 Games Played
.205/.238/.344 (Holy Shit!)
48 OPS+
-29.9 BtRns
0.8 WARP1
.201 EQA (Holy Shit!!!)
Apologies to: Juan Pierre, Gary Matthews Jr., Emil Brown, David Dellucci, Jeff Francoeur




SP- Livan Hernandez, Minnesota Twins, Colorado Rockies
Stats
180.0 Innings
31 Games Started
6.05 ERA
71 ERA+
1.667 WHIP
.895 OPS Against
0.6 WARP1
Apologies to: Nate Robertson, Brandon Backe, Brian Bannister, Barry Zito


Congratulations John Mclaren, Trey Hillman, John Russell, Bruce Bochy, Bud Black, Cecil Cooper, Joe Girardi, and Dusty Baker. Your decisions to give these guys so much playing time not only resulted in the receiving of a fantastic award, but it also resulted in each one of your teams missing the playoffs. See you next year!

7 comments:

Grif said...

Now THAT is some quality formatting.

Goose said...

Though he falls short, I'd like to give a special dispensation for Tom Gorzelanny.

105.1 IP
120 H
70 BB (!!)
20 HR (!!!)
63 ERA+
1.804 WHIP

The worst thing about it is that, aside from an inflated HR rate, his batted ball stats aren't so out of whack as to make it as though he were extremely unlikely.

Rook said...

Yeah, Gorzelanny definitely deserves a shout out. I probably should've delved deeper into the pitchers, the research just eventually got to be a little exhausting.

For some reason, which is incredibly frustrating, Baseball Prospectus doesn't have the 2008 numbers for Kenji Johjima. I'm sure his EQA has to be scary low. And his WARP? I'm thinking 0.7? Maybe?

Grif said...

That's really weird about Johjima's DT card. His stats are, however, on the EqA page.

He had a .220 EqA which is, frankly, higher than I expected. I'm pretty sure at one point in the year he was the worst offensive catcher seeing regular time in baseball this season.

He had 33.7 Equivilent Runs, and -1.7 Runs Below Positional Replacement.

He's a good defender, I would say being worth a win on defense might be about right, so. . yeah, .7 WARP sounds like a good guess. Might be selling his defense short, though.


Look at me! I'm a geek!

Grif said...

I'm quite certain Bourne is yelling at Bill Hohn in that picture. I'd recognize that mustache anywhere.


I will always support yelling at Bill Hohn.

Rook said...

Yeah, the fact that his (Johjima) defense is usually above average caused me to be a little skeptical as to whether or not I should give him the top spot (or lowest depending on how you look at it). Not having the BP page as a reference point was a little discomforting, too. But in the end it seemed foolish to think that his defense could be good enough to make up for a .277 OBP.

I didn't even think about going on the EQA page. Wow, I must've been tired. Thanks for helping me out with my stupidity, Grif.

I'll now replace Johjima's OWP with EQA. If anyone can ever find out his WARP I will be forever in your debt.

Skye said...

Ugh, Michael Bourn. I WANT MY LIDGE BACK.