Who's Your Favorite Bad Oriole?

[BRobinsonfan]

Reboulet has a better batting average and .obp than manny alexander. He also (go figure) has a better .obp than Tony Batista. Which begs the question - Why wasn't Tony on the list?

[Nuclear Dish]

I'd go with Orsulak. He really was pretty bad, you can look it up. I'd love how the commentators would bring up the fact that he had so many assists. A classic case of a guy with many assists who was a poor outfielder. I once saw him throw behind the runner at 1B trying to catch him off-guard and nail him rounding the bag. Only problem was, the runner just cruised into 2B once he committed to making the throw to 1B. Bush league stuff. Lots of fans loved him for his agressive style but....

FYI, Rob Neyer recently wrote a coumn on the best OF arms of all time. He used a method that calculated assists per 154 games to compare them, then used errors as a means of weeding out the ones who were just arms (e.g., Bo Jackson and Cory Snider).

I wrote to him to mention Orsulak, and he admitted that he should have mentioned him. "Yeah, Orsulak should have been mentioned, along with another Orioles, Alex Ochoa." Take that for what it's worth.

You might have seen one bad example, but overall, I remember Slak as being a pretty good OF - lots of hustle to make up for average speed, good fielding, and a helluva arm.

And he was not a bad hitter either. "You can look it up." In his first 3 years with us (out of 4), his OPS+ numbers were 113, 120, and 120, above average each year. He led the team in BA his first year at .288.

I don't know what you have against him, but he was certainly NOT a bad Oriole.

[DrungoHazewood]

I wrote to him to mention Orsulak, and he admitted that he should have mentioned him. "Yeah, Orsulak should have been mentioned, along with another Orioles, Alex Ochoa." Take that for what it's worth.

I once saw Alex Ochoa pick up a ball that was rattling around the right field corner at Bowie, pivot, and throw a strike that hit the third baseman square in the glove, chest-high. Most impressive throw I've ever seen.

[watermokasin7]

Jim Traber & Ken Gerhart. Two dynamic hitters of the 1988 Orioles. I remember Gerhart batting 200 for most of that year, and Traber being fat and not batting much better. Fred Lynn was another awful Oriole.

[Patient O.T.]

Drungo,

Sorry to anyone if this is common knowledge on this board, but I never realized exactly how obscure Drungo Hazewood is as a major league player. According to the Orioles website, he played in 6 games for the O's, had 5 at bats, zero hits, 4 strike outs, but on the bright side he was a perfect fielder with a whopping total of 1 chance and 1 put out. And he probably would have been forgotten to time if there were no OH : )

Getting back to my favorite bad Oriole, I would say Chito Martinez like someone else suggested. I don't remember him being that awful, I just remember he was really short and he reminded me of Speedy Gonzalez. Yipa yipa, andele arriba!

As far as truly bad Orioles, I remember that an outfielder named Mark Smith really sucked for us in the mid-nineties. One play where he ran into the outfield wall really stands out in my mind.

[Nuclear Dish]

Drungo,

Sorry to anyone if this is common knowledge on this board, but I never realized exactly how obscure Drungo Hazewood is as a major league player. According to the Orioles website, he played in 6 games for the O's, had 5 at bats, zero hits, 4 strike outs, but on the bright side he was a perfect fielder with a whopping total of 1 chance and 1 put out. And he probably would have been forgotten to time if there were no OH : )

Last year, when I was on this board as theklaffer, I had the follwoing as my signature:

"I've never cut a guy hitting that high before. But he was making the rest of us look bad with that average."

Earl Weaver, in March of 1980, about demoting OF Drungo Hazewood to the minors after he batted .583 in spring training.

I liked Drungo for having one of the all-time best names in baseball history. And best of all, it's his real name, not even a nickname!

As far as truly bad Orioles, I remember that an outfielder named Mark Smith really sucked for us in the mid-nineties. One play where he ran into the outfield wall really stands out in my mind.

Mark Smith was perhaps the worst draft pick the Orioles ever made. (Well, at least until we took Townsend this year). It was so obvious that he would never be anything more than a mediocre major leaguer, and we took him with the pick right before the Indians took...

Manny Ramirez

Oops.

[calsmanystances]

Brian, I believe the picks after Manny in the first round then included Rondell White and Aaron Sele just to name two. Seems we have the rare distinction of being a horrible drafting team that spans many different administrations!

[illinio]

I picked Willie Miranda because he was an original Oriole an he was actually a regular and then semi-regular despite being so bad.

G AB R H D T HR RBI TB BB K OBP SLG BA

1955 153 487 42 124 12 6 1 38 151 42 58 .313 .310 .255

1956 148 461 38 108 16 4 2 34 130 46 73 .287 .282 .217

1957 115 314 29 61 3 0 0 20 64 24 42 .249 .204 .194

1958 102 214 15 43 6 0 1 8 52 14 25 .250 .243 .201

1959 66 88 8 14 5 0 0 7 19 7 16 .221 .216 .159

584 1564 132 350 42 10 4 107 416 133 214 .285 .266 .224

I haven't looked up the others but I can't imagine that anyone else with those numbers got so many ABs in an O uniform

[AmaralFan1]

Aww not too much love for Joltin Joe Orsulak. He was probably my favorite Orioles of all time.

I think the worst Orioles (or atleast the one I hated the most) was Jimmy Haynes. He just got in at 30 games, and he was pretty horrible. How the guy went on to win 15 games in a season I will never know.

Nick

[mefogus]

I had to go with Billy Ripken. Nevermind that he was a fantastic fielder; he really couldn't hit a lick (save for 1990 -- were he hit exactly a lick). He was one of the first players (along with Randy M and Fruit Loops boy) that I recall causing me to truly analyze the game. "How is he a full-time player?" I would exclaim. I don't think that I ever came up with a good answer to that question.

-m

[AmaralFan1]

I had to go with Billy Ripken. Nevermind that he was a fantastic fielder; he really couldn't hit a lick (save for 1990 -- were he hit exactly a lick). He was one of the first players (along with Randy M and Fruit Loops boy) that I recall causing me to truly analyze the game. "How is he a full-time player?" I would exclaim. I don't think that I ever came up with a good answer to that question.

-m

Aww what was wrong with Mickey Tettelton. He was in Little Big League so he can't be all that bad.

Nick

[DrungoHazewood]

I had to go with Billy Ripken. Nevermind that he was a fantastic fielder; he really couldn't hit a lick (save for 1990 -- were he hit exactly a lick). He was one of the first players (along with Randy M and Fruit Loops boy) that I recall causing me to truly analyze the game. "How is he a full-time player?" I would exclaim. I don't think that I ever came up with a good answer to that question.

-m

Maybe they're not good answers, but I think there are clear reasons for Billy's seemingly inexplicable stay in the Orioles' lineup:

1) His last name.

2) HWBS - hustling white boy syndrome. How can any manager worth his salt bench a guy who says all the right cliches, bunts three times a game, and goes all-out so much he gets his uniform dirty in games he doesn't even play?

3) If you don't really understand Earl, you take "pitching, defense, and 3-run homers" and think one outta three ain't bad.

4) If your other choices are Tim Hulett, Juan Bonilla, Rene Gonzalez, Jackie Gutierrez, Jeff McKnight, Kelly Paris, Rick Schu, and Alan Wiggins, the answer might be, frighteningly enough, Billy Ripken.

[mefogus]

Aww what was wrong with Mickey Tettelton. He was in Little Big League so he can't be all that bad.

Nick

Actually, I liked Tettleton. When I said that he, BRip, and Milligan made me interested in analysis I didn't mean that they were all bad. In fact, Milligan and Mickey helped me to realize that there was more to hitting than AVG.

-m

[mefogus]

Maybe they're not good answers, but I think there are clear reasons for Billy's seemingly inexplicable stay in the Orioles' lineup:

1) His last name.

2) HWBS - hustling white boy syndrome. How can any manager worth his salt bench a guy who says all the right cliches, bunts three times a game, and goes all-out so much he gets his uniform dirty in games he doesn't even play?

3) If you don't really understand Earl, you take "pitching, defense, and 3-run homers" and think one outta three ain't bad.

4) If your other choices are Tim Hulett, Juan Bonilla, Rene Gonzalez, Jackie Gutierrez, Jeff McKnight, Kelly Paris, Rick Schu, and Alan Wiggins, the answer might be, frighteningly enough, Billy Ripken.

Of course these are essentially the conclusion that I came up with... although I do not really remember the names, but I can recall being very upset that Billy played essentially full-time while IMO better players were floating around in free agency. It used to infuriate me that at the time Billy was described as a key player because he "did a lot of things that didn't show up in the box score" (like getting hits, scoring runs, or stealing bases) and was "good at the fundamentals." It still kinda makes me mad.

-m

[Nuclear Dish]

Of course these are essentially the conclusion that I came up with... although I do not really remember the names, but I can recall being very upset that Billy played essentially full-time while IMO better players were floating around in free agency. It used to infuriate me that at the time Billy was described as a key player because he "did a lot of things that didn't show up in the box score" (like getting hits, scoring runs, or stealing bases) and was "good at the fundamentals." It still kinda makes me mad.

-m

The thing that annoyed me most about Billy (other than the incident which I described here) was that he kept Pete Stanicek from ever getting a good shot at the big leagues.

Stanicek should have been given the job full-time and allowed to win the job permanently. His defense wasn't as good as Billy's, but he could hit at least as well. Yet he got half as many ABs as Billy in his 2 years with the team.

I think the biggest contributing factor in our keeping Billy wasn't even his last name. It was his .308 AVG in '87, even though he did nothing else. Tht was proof enough that he had the potential to be a major league hitter, so once they saw that, his name kept getting him chances to prove himself. And we fell for that for 4 more years before finally bringing in Harold Reynolds.