(And just who is) The Worst MLB Position Player of All Time

[Funketown]

Here are the rules:

 

>2,000 PA's. That is all.

 

Here are a couple possibilities:

 

Bill Bergen, C: 1901 - 1911

.170/.194/.201/.395 in 3,228 plate appearances. Career OPS+ of 21.

 

Denny Hocking, UTIL, 1993 - 2005

.254/.310/.344/.654 in 2,632 plate appearances. Career OPS+ of 69.

 

Juan Castro, IF, 1995 - 2010

.228/.268/.327/.595 in 2,834 plate appearances. Career OPS+ of 55.

[greeg35]

neifi perez

.267BA

.297OBP

.375SLG

.672OPS

64OPS+

in 5510 PA's

[RockCoCougars]

Since I've followed the Brewers more closely than all of the other teams combined, I can think of a lot of worst Brewers ever, but I think you have to set a threshold of a thousand at bats or so. I've seen several brutal players through the years, but they generally have a very brief stay and disappear, never to be heard from again. For example, Peter Zoccolillo sticks out in my mind as the worst Brewer player ever to see the field, but his time was brief (didn't he have a unibrow too?). Guys like David Hulse and Bobby Clark were right up there as well, but they were only around a few seasons. As for guys who've had 1,000 at bats as a Brewer, right now I'm torn between Tim Johnson or Rick Manning, though I may think of someone else later. Even though I'll never forgive Manning (though it's not his fault) for being the return for Gorman Thomas, I'm going with Tim Johnson. Even as a young child, I knew he was brutal. The guy never hit a single home run in his career, and the fact that he lied about his Vietnam service much later in life seals it for me.

 

EDIT: I didn't see the 2,000 PA threshold above.

[RockCoCougars]

OK, two other brutal former Brewers popped into my head.

 

Jeff Huson qualifies with 2126PA 8HR/.234 BA/OPS+ 64

Pedro Garcia just missed qualifying with 1967 PA .220BA/ OPS+ 75 - since he was also a clubhouse cancer, I'm going to bump him the 33 PA he needs

 

Another one that popped to mind that sadly doesn't qualify was former Pilot (thus kinda Brewer) Ray Oyler. He had a .175 CAREER batting average in 1445 plate appearances with an OPS+ of 48. In 1968, he hit .135.

[MarquesJohnson2000]

Hal Lanier: .228/.255/.275 in 3,940 PA, OPS+ 49

 

Walked only 136 times in his career and 25 of those were intentional.

[bjkrautk]

Rey Ordonez OPS+ of 59 in 3115 AB over 9 seasons (...but how the heck did he manage to hit .316 in 2003?)

[bucksbeat]

It doesn't count, but in doing some searching Cleveland Indian's SS John Gochnaur (1901-1903) OPS + of 46 in his career, unfortunately only 1,030 PA's... but he wasn't one dimensional... Career Fld% of .901 including committing 98 errors in 748 chances in 1903 for a % of .869.

 

Gochnaur had 146 career errors in 1,479 chances compared to Omar Vizquel who has 183 career errors in 11,894 chances.

[Ennder]

It is most likely Bergen with his career -15 WAR.

 

Jack Ryan was pretty bad too. In 2327 career PA he managed a .217 career average but just a .249 OBP and .281 SLG. He played almost every position but was pretty poor at all of them.

[pogokat]

Rafael belliard...ops + of 46...actually had a year where his ops + was 2 in 148 PA's...sure, he was versatile, but he may have been the worst hitter in history

[DHonks]

Two I can't justify as major leaguers both fall short of 3000 PA's, Garlos Gomez and Tsuyoshi Shinjo (who amazingly was a fan favorite!)

[DuWayne Steurer]

Hal Lanier: .228/.255/.275 in 3,940 PA, OPS+ 49

 

Walked only 136 times in his career and 25 of those were intentional.

I'd like to know what circumstances warranted walking this guy on purpose 25 different times. It's not like you're going to 'work around' this dude to get to the pitcher. If so, that's just an awful strategy.

[davego]

Johnny LeMaster

 

http://www.baseball-refer...layers/l/lemasjo01.shtml

[craigharmann]

What about combining bad offense with bad defense? Then, and only then, would you have the worst position player.

[bando1234]

3 time all star & 2 time cycle hitter Chris Spier matches up well with Hocking

[RockCoCougars]

3 time all star & 2 time cycle hitter Chris Spier matches up well with Hocking

Chris Spier is kind of an interesting case. When I was just getting into baseball as a kid, he was considered one of the rising stars of the game. Then he just completely lost it (though he seemed to hang around forever anyway). Right now, J.J. Hardy seems like he could have the same career track if he doesn't get things together.

[topper09er]

Ron Wirght played in only 1 game in his entire career and as DH he struck out, grounded into a double play, and hit into a 1-6-2-5-1-4 triple play. Thats it, that was his entire career.

[JohnBriggs12]

Tough to quantify if you include fielding but the worst offensive player of all time in my book was easily Dal Maxvill who hit .217/.293/.259 and he managed 3,898 plate appearances. He "slugged" a measly 6 HR, never had more than 19 extra base hits in a season and couldn't run either with 7 career SB in 18 attempts. You could argue that he played half of his career before the mound was lowered but that didn't help him. After they lowered the mound, to help the hitters, he dropped from .253 (his best year in 1968) to .175 (his worst year in 1969).

[topper09er]

Maxvill was still almost 3 times (57 OPS+) the hitter that Bergen was (21 OPS+)

[logan82]

Corey Patterson should be in the discussion. At least his bat should.

.253/.293/.405/.698

[sbrylski]

Marv Thornberry

[JohnBriggs12]

Maxvill was still almost 3 times (57 OPS+) the hitter that Bergen was (21 OPS+)

Bergen played in the dead ball era. I wouldn't consider any player from that era.

[topper09er]

So did all of the other players but they posted a league average OPS 80% higher.

[reillymcshane]

Rob Picciolo was awful. Played mostly for Oakland, but a little in Milwaukee. he only had 1720 ABs with a 56 ops+

 

Picciolo had only 25 walks in his career. Wow.

[ecjimg]

Ryan Langerhans has to be one of the worst. How does this guy keep getting picked up? Batting .182 for Jack Z's Mariners. Career .229.

[homer]

Picciolo was on the 82 Brewers World Series team.