Deadspin 100 Worst Baseball Players Of All Time

[Can_of_corn]

They looked beyond the stats with this list. Here is the first half.

http://deadspin.com/5820716/

[Remember The Alomar]

Shocking lack of mid 2000's Orioles.

[Can_of_corn]

Guillen made the list.

The O's are more consistently mediocre then historically bad.

[MikeAD]

Ponson and the great Manny Alexander are in part 2. I sort of wish Alexander was around today so we could see posts about him having "some pop" at the plate when Hardy or Roberts are hurt. Tony Muser is at 95, hell hes better than some of the guys we've had at first in the past decade

93. Drungo Hazewood, 1980 (Orioles)

In spring training 1980, Drungo LaRue Hazewood was batting .583 for the Baltimore Orioles when he was demoted by manager Earl Weaver. Hazewood, then 20 years old, was a former No. 1 pick and already a successful minor leaguer. In 1979 he hit 21 home runs and got on base at a .378 clip in AA ball. "I've never cut a guy hitting that high before," said Weaver, "but he was making the rest of us look bad with that average." Hazewood never recovered. He came up for a bitter cup of coffee in September of 1980, striking out four times in six plate appearances —then spent three anonymous seasons hitting home runs, reaching base at high rates, and stealing bases in the minors before finally leaving baseball after 1983. In his short big league stint, Hazewood was terrible. But blame his presence on this list on Earl Weaver. And Ken Singleton, who gave Weaver incentive to find a room for a young right fielder.

[Can_of_corn]

Link to part 2

http://deadspin.com/5820622/the-100-worst-baseball-players-of-all-time-a-celebration-part-2

[OFFNY]

.

The ironic thing about Steve "Bye Bye" Balboni is that when he was on the biggest stage of his baseball career in the 1985 World Series, he batted .320 with an OBP of .433, going 8-for-25 with 5 walks ............ And his 8 hits ??? ALL SINGLES.

It was the complete antithesis of what he was for the rest of his entire career (lots of home runs and extra base hits, low batting average, low OBP).

[scOtt]

No Izturis? I guess it could be worse for us.

[Oriology]

Tim Raines Jr. for father-son...pretty dreadful.

[DrungoHazewood]

Here's where I insert the observation I make about all of these lists: The title should be "The 100 Worst Baseball Players of All Time Selected From The Top 0.001% of All Baseball Players In the World When They Were Active."

Put a 25-year-old Mario Mendoza in your local adult men's baseball league and he'd win the triple crown and the Gold Glove and the MVP award and hit .675. And for good measure he might be the best pitcher in the league. He was probably the best player on almost every team he played on from age 5 to age 18.

And the list is no good anyway. By #3 you can tell it's all screwed up. Fred Merkle as the 3rd-worst player of all time? He had six years where he was at least an average MLB regular, he had a career value of almost 15 WAR, and was getting meaningful at bats in the majors under John McGraw before he turned 20. He's probably not among the 10000 worst major leaguers of all time.

The rest of the list seems populated with a good number of good or even very good players with one outstanding weakness or even one big mistake. I didn't get all the way through, but I'd assume they think the ball that went through Bill Buckner's legs was more than enough to counter his 2800 or so career hits.

[ShaneDawg85]

I found Curt Blefary being on the list rather hilarious, mainly because half the time when I think of him I think of Oldfan#5 ranting about some incredible play that Blefary made that he never actually saw.

[DrungoHazewood]

I found Curt Blefary being on the list rather hilarious, mainly because half the time when I think of him I think of Oldfan#5 ranting about some incredible play that Blefary made that he never actually saw.

Curt Blefary >>>>>>>>>>>> Nick Markakis

[Icterus galbula]

I found Curt Blefary being on the list rather hilarious, mainly because half the time when I think of him I think of Oldfan#5 ranting about some incredible play that Blefary made that he never actually saw.

Thompson saw a play, described it, OldFan's grandfather heard the call on the radio, told OldFan about it much later, OldFan tells us about it decades later. That kinda airtight anecdotal evidence is good enough to convince me Blefary's reputation was undeserved.

[DrungoHazewood]

Thompson saw a play, described it, OldFan's grandfather heard the call on the radio, told OldFan about it much later, OldFan tells us about it decades later. That kinda airtight anecdotal evidence is good enough to convince me Blefary's reputation was undeserved.

As we know from UZR discussions, the best way to characterize someone's defensive ability is to be fartherest removed from actually paying attention to it.

[Can_of_corn]

Here's where I insert the observation I make about all of these lists: The title should be "The 100 Worst Baseball Players of All Time Selected From The Top 0.001% of All Baseball Players In the World When They Were Active."

Put a 25-year-old Mario Mendoza in your local adult men's baseball league and he'd win the triple crown and the Gold Glove and the MVP award and hit .675. And for good measure he might be the best pitcher in the league. He was probably the best player on almost every team he played on from age 5 to age 18.

And the list is no good anyway. By #3 you can tell it's all screwed up. Fred Merkle as the 3rd-worst player of all time? He had six years where he was at least an average MLB regular, he had a career value of almost 15 WAR, and was getting meaningful at bats in the majors under John McGraw before he turned 20. He's probably not among the 10000 worst major leaguers of all time.

The rest of the list seems populated with a good number of good or even very good players with one outstanding weakness or even one big mistake. I didn't get all the way through, but I'd assume they think the ball that went through Bill Buckner's legs was more than enough to counter his 2800 or so career hits.

Yes, yes, we know, heck Deadspin knows it would be why they said this at the start of the piece

But by worst 100 baseball players I don't just mean the objective worst, the statistical worst, the most physically discomforting to watch. I mean the players whose failure was enduring, endearing, perplexing,and spectacular. It's easy to identify bad players—sabermetrics has made a truly effective science of it—and it's easy to name cup-of-coffee guys who never had the ability, physical or mental, to stick in the major leagues. But a list like that might mean leaving out guys like Jose Lima, Ray Oyler, or the Rev. Aloysius Stanislaus Travers. In other words, while Rafael Belliard does appear below, nobody wants to read about 100 versions of him.

It was an entertainment piece, pure and simple. Sorry you didn't find it entertaining but you probably should have known better then to click the link if you were going to take it that seriously.

[waroriole]

Growing up in the south, I was a big fan of Rafael Belliard. He couldn't hit anything, but I remember him being a defensive wizard (though backup to Jeff Blauser). I don't know what advanced metrics would say, but as a kid that played SS I loved watching him play.