Who is the worst player on the Orioles?

[SurhoffRules]

20 minutes ago, atomic said:

To me it is Mark Reynolds.  Struck out all the time and botched play after play in the field. I dont think WAR is accurate in his case.  No coincidence that soon as they took him off third the team started winning.

Mark was a poor-man's Adam Dunn and I know that type of player can get a lot of flak but I don't even think he was the worst player on the roster those years.  In 2011, Felix Pie posted a -1.7 bWAR in 85 games and Vladdy was barely above 0 in 145 (though he was a full-time DH). games. He (Reynolds) was worse in '12 but that year we also played Ryan Flaherty in every other game despite negative value on both sides of the dish (had to carry him for Rule 5) and gave BRob 74 at-bats to post a ~400 OPS.

Despite having a limited toolbox, I never minded Reynolds. He seemed like he was trying out there. Though, I will admit to being surprised he still had an MLB job as recently as this July.

[Can_of_corn]

I'm thinking if a guy is still in the league seven years later he might not have been that bad.

[Enjoy Terror]

Chris has been bad, certainly. Cedric Mullins was horrific.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

Alright, @DrungoHazewood, worst player in Orioles history, who is it?  

From 1954 onwards.  Don't wanna hear any malarky about some guy that played for the 1896 Orioles of the Federal League who batted .118.

And, obviously, have to have a steady amount of at bats and playing time.  Use your discretion. 

I could do a bunch of research, or I could just throw out Jackie Gutierrez.  .414 OPS for the '86 Orioles, started 46 games and the O's were 14-32 in those games.  And this was after two years with the Sox where he combined for -3.4 wins. 

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'm thinking if a guy is still in the league seven years later he might not have been that bad.

The Orioles have had hundreds of players worse than Mark Reynolds.

[OFFNY]

3 hours ago, atomic said:

 

To me it is Mark Reynolds. Struck out all the time and botched play after play in the field. I dont think WAR is accurate in his case. No coincidence that soon as they took him off third the team started winning.

 

o

 

Reynolds was both part of the problem and the solution for the Orioles' infield defense in 2012. 

The team went through 3 stages over the course of the season, evolving from one of the worst infield defenses in baseball to one of the best. 

 

 

First 1/3 of the season:   )  Horrible overall, with glaring holes at both corners with Chris Davis at 1st base, and Mark Reynolds and Wilson Betemit sharing time at 3rd base.

 

Second 1/3 of the season:   )  Decent overall, with Mark Reynolds doing a good job taking over at 1st base, and Chris Davis moving to DH. One of the 2 glaring holes at the corners was filled (by Reynolds at 1st base), but we still had one left (at 3rd base.)

 

Final 1/3 of the season:   )  Excellent overall, with Manny Machado being promoted from AA-Bowie to the Orioles, filling the last glaring hole (3rd base) at the infield corners.

 

 

At the start of the 2013 season, I was concerned about Chris Davis being our regular 1st baseman because of the fact that he had played so poorly there the year before in the first 1/3 of the season. But Davis played very well at 1st base in 2013, and the infield defense continued to be excellent (picking up where it left off in the final 1/3 of the 2012 season.)

 

o

[BRobinsonfan]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I could do a bunch of research, or I could just throw out Jackie Gutierrez.  .414 OPS for the '86 Orioles, started 46 games and the O's were 14-32 in those games.  And this was after two years with the Sox where he combined for -3.4 wins. 

Can you believe we traded Sammy Stewart for him?  

[sportsfan8703]

Chris Davis 

[DrungoHazewood]

8 hours ago, BRobinsonfan said:

Can you believe we traded Sammy Stewart for him?  

I didn't know that, or I'd forgotten.  Stewart had all kinds of personal, drug, and legal problems.  That sounds like a trade to get rid of a problem.  He had one mediocre season for the Sox, one really bad year for the Indians, then was out of baseball.  

But why Gutierrez?  He was coming off a season where he hit .218/.250/.274 with nine extra base hits in Fenway in 103 games.  Fielded .943 and had 23 errors in 99 games.  So even by the relatively primitive metrics of the day he was completely terrible.  His career AAA OPS was .622, and in the minors he averaged 45 errors per 162 games at SS.  Over his MLB career he was -2.5 wins per 162 games (i.e. one Chris Davis per season), and he didn't even have a giant contract keeping him in the majors.

[DrungoHazewood]

One other thing... Worst player in Oriole history is completely dependent on where you draw the playing time line. I vote for Gutierrez, but you have to draw the line at like 40 games started.  If it's one game started it'll be someone else.  If it's 300 it'll be someone different.  If it's worst player drafted by the Orioles who played a pro game it'll be someone who wasn't even all that good a high school player, I sure there's some 1977 48th-round draftee who was a courtesy pick who went 1-for-23 at Bluefield and got released.

The Orioles had bonus babies in the 50s like Tex Nelson who were only in the majors because of the rules of the day.  Tex had a .549 OPS as a corner outfielder, but he was 18-20 years old.  Think of them as teenage Rule 5 picks who should have been in Class A ball, but instead were sitting the bench in Baltimore.

Luis Hernandez was probably as bad as Jackie Gutierrez, he had a career minor league OPS of .634, and that included playing in AAA in his late 20s and early 30s.

We're really trying to bound the question "who was the worst player that someone still thought enough of to play significant time in the majors?"  What's the biggest disconnect between results and management expectations?

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Chris Davis 

This brings up another question on how to bound the problem.  Davis could well be the answer to who was least productive in a single season, or even multiple seasons, in the context of his position and era.  But over the course of his Oriole career he's 31st in position player rWAR among the 1098 players who've played for the Orioles.  He was more productive in individual months of 2013 than John Shelby or Mark Trumbo were in their entire times in Baltimore.

[McLikin]

If we're indeed venturing into single season worst ever – and the sentimentalist in me is loath to say this - may I present one Chris Tillman, 2017? 19 GS, 93 IP, 7.84 ERA, 6.93 FIP, 1.89 (!) WHIP, 12 H/9, -2.2 WAR.

Two years removed, it’s remarkable to see in the cold, hard numbers just how ineffective he was that season. Perhaps even more remarkable that management saw fit to bring him back for the following season, although that experiment was understandably and mercifully short-lived.

[Redskins Rick]

13 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'm thinking if a guy is still in the league seven years later he might not have been that bad.

Cant use facts when discussing these things.

[DrungoHazewood]

In 2009 Radhames Liz allowed 10 earned runs in 1.1 innings.  He faced 16 batters and allowed eight hits, a homer, two doubles, a triple, walked two and hit two batters.  

That's worse than any position player who's ever pitched for the O's.

[Redskins Rick]

4 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

In 2009 Radhames Liz allowed 10 earned runs in 1.1 innings.  He faced 16 batters and allowed eight hits, a homer, two doubles, a triple, walked two and hit two batters.  

That's worse than any position player who's ever pitched for the O's.

2009, oh what a bad year that was.