The tone here is very obnoxious, but the selections (as the worst of the 250 or so guys with >100 AB, which does not equate to "wretchedly awful" as stated by the article) are relatively ok. I would exclude Patterson, a 27-year-old with outstanding defense and basestealing who hit ok as recently as last year; Mientkiewicz, who, although a team with the Yanks' resources should be able to do a lot better, I'm not convinced is completely done yet as a legitimate regular for some team; and it should at least have been noted that Biggio will be playing a lot less 28 hits from now.

Mainly a list of good glove, no hit wonders. The guys who belong at the top of this list are Biggio, Hillenbrand, Casey and Kendall. And I was gonna wonder how Hillenbrand couldn't be #1 but Kendall should be. I suspect a couple other of these guys don't make up for the offense with their defense but lousy hitters who are lousy gloves are much, much worse.

Any chance the A's will put Piazza back behind the plate now that they have Jack Cust to DH?

But, but, but: it's important that Everett play, to use him as a reference point on how bad Jeter's defense is!!!!

no it is important that everett play because we got a very strongly GB pitching staff and we doing things like playing lead glove lamb at third and biggio at second and you GOT to have at least ONE infielder you can count on to make plays.

there is no other guy on the team or in the minors who could take his place

you should count up the number of plays everett makes every freaking day that would not get made. adam everett is why the Box is supposed to be a hitter neutral park

no it is important that everett play because we got a very strongly GB pitching staff and we doing things like playing lead glove lamb at third and biggio at second and you GOT to have at least ONE infielder you can count on to make plays.

the yankees and red sox got by for a few years just by hitting the crap out of other teams without much defense.

if you can hit the crap out of it, you don't necessarily need any good defenders

until, like, october

Mientkiewicz, who, although a team with the Yanks' resources should be able to do a lot better, I'm not convinced is completely done yet as a legitimate regular for some team...

The last time Mientkiewicz was anything but a complete sinkhole, much less a legitimate regular, was 2003. How many more years does he have to suck to convince you?

no it is important that everett play because we got a very strongly GB pitching staff and we doing things like playing lead glove lamb at third and biggio at second and you GOT to have at least ONE infielder you can count on to make plays.

there is no other guy on the team or in the minors who could take his place

Well, obviously he's not going to continue to hit as badly as he has, but Everett is on pace to finish the season with a -36.1 VORP (in only 550 PAs). It's not physically possible to be a good enough defender to be a non-useless player while hitting like that.

It is hilarious how much Everett does not belong on the list. You have to have some knowledge of the advanced defensive metrics and a knowledge and understanding of how many runs a good, great, poor, horrible, etc. defender actually saves a team, as well as a knowledge and understanding of how any reasonable hitting metric translates into runs, not to mention the relative value of the positions on the defensive spectrum, in order to make a list like this.

While I give this author cedit for not just presenting players who are having a bad season (IOW recognizing the fluctuations that go along with 150 AB's or so), he obviously has no idea as to how an offensive metric translates to runs and how many runs a particular player may be worth on defense. Nor should ANY catcher or SS (especially catcher) probably be on a list like this, as it is REALLY hard for a player at those positions to hit and field bad enough relative to the average player at that position to be "one of the worst players in baseball."

Again, not only is Everett not one of the worst players in baseball, he is actually an above average player (SS), not withstanding his hitting performance thus far in 2007 (I assume that the author is talking about true talent and not what they have performed thus far this year). Everett is a once in a generation defensive player, maybe the best ever at any position. Even if that is an exaggeration, ALL of the advanced metrics (and not-so-advanced ones) have Everett at somewhere north of +20 runs a year in defense. I have him projected going into 2007 as +23. There is no possible way that a player can be a poor enought hitter to make a plus 23 defense turn into one of the worst players in baseball. Even if he were -25 in offense, which is about as bad as you can get (true talent-wise), and which he probably is, that makes him around -2 overall. The AVERAGE SS is -9 overall! That would make him an above average SS!

In order for Everett to be even replacement level, and there are lots of those in MLB, even as evereyday players, he would have to be over -50 in offense! There is no such animal in MLB. Not even close. Even if you are a skeptic of the +20 or so on defense (although I have never heard anyone credible NOT admit that Everett is one of the best if not the best defensive players in baseball), there is still NO POSSIBLE WAY that he can be close to one of the worst everyday players in baseball. Let's give him +15 on defense. In order to be a replacement level SS overall, he would have to be -43 on offense. Again, no such animal in baseball. The last 4 years, Everett has been -19, -11, -30, and -25 on offense. Those are some of the worst offensive numbers in baseball. There is no doubt that he is one of the worst hitters in baseball. That still makes him AT LEAST and above average SS, again, given that he is plus some high number (15, 20, 25) on defense. There is simply no way to spin this to make Everrett anything less than an average player at worst and NO POSSIBLE WAY ON THE PLANET to make him a replacement level player (one of the worst everyday players in baseball), unless you make him an average SS on defense.

If someone wants to hail him as an average SS, that person has zero credibility anyway.

adam everett is why the Box is supposed to be a hitter neutral park

I thought the dimensions of a park determined whether it was hitter neutral or hitter friendly? That, and the aerodynamics.

Enrique Wilson should be on this list, even though he retired last season in the minors. He's just that bad.

Any list of this form where Kendall is not #1 has no credibility whatsoever.

MGL, I'd love to see your projections of Kendall's defense and offense. -15 + -30 = -45?

When Kendall grounded into that double play against Bedard the other night, my first thought was of you, AS.

How many of us almost always watch baseball through the lense of Primer?

When Kendall grounded into that double play against Bedard the other night, my first thought was of you, AS.

In Game Chatter, we all knew it was going to happen. It was ridiculous. I have never been so certain of anything in my life.

MGL, out of curiousity, how good do Alou and Green need to be offensively for the Mets to break even on their defense, in your opinion? I know both are hurting, and that may affect their defense even further...

The last time Mientkiewicz was anything but a complete sinkhole, much less a legitimate regular, was 2003. How many more years does he have to suck to convince you?

Considering he had a .277 EqA last season, I would say "more than .3 years." If you have a .277 EqA and are an outstanding defender at your position... well, you still ain't great if said position is 1B, but, you are also not among the very worst players in baseball or even close to it. Now, it's certainly possible that that wasn't his true talent level last year and/or isn't anymore, but, a third of a season in '07 doesn't convince me of that. He's been very inconsistent throughout his career, so it's hard to tell "how good" he is at any given time. Again, I wouldn't particularly want him on my team as a starter, but I'd be happy to have him as a backup and I don't think he is one of the 10 most useless players in the entire sport.

What happened to Kendall? It's a little hard to accept the thumb injury as a complete explanation for how he got this bad.

It's not physically possible to be a good enough defender to be a non-useless player while hitting like that.

There is no possible way that a player can be a poor enought hitter to make a plus 23 defense turn into one of the worst players in baseball.

The absolute certainty with which both of these statements were made, and the fact that they came back-to-back, was pretty amusing to me.

The absolute certainty with which both of these statements were made, and the fact that they came back-to-back, was pretty amusing to me.

Well, I don't think there's any reason that they can't both be true.

Considering he had a .277 EqA last season, I would say "more than .3 years." If you have a .277 EqA and are an outstanding defender at your position... well, you still ain't great if said position is 1B, but, you are also not among the very worst players in baseball or even close to it.

I don't know what park factors BPro is using, but BB-Ref had him with a 94 OPS+. Now, that underrates Mientkiewicz, since his OPS+ was OBP-heavy and he was a very good defender (though it's not like he was any kind of basestealer or anything), but that's still pretty crappy--only five teams had a starting 1B with a lower OPS+ than that, and three of those guys aren't even in the majors anymore. And that was his best season in three years. Combining Marcel offensive projections with AROM's defensive projections (which have Mientkiewicz as the best defensive 1B in baseball), I had him projected at -19 runs per 150 games, which is basically replacement level, and his 2007 offense is almost exactly on par with those projections. "Ten worst" might be a little harsh, but he's not a guy you want on your team.

The absolute certainty with which both of these statements were made, and the fact that they came back-to-back, was pretty amusing to me.

The first comment refers specifically to Everett's 2007 hitting. The second comment clearly is based on Everett hitting better than he has thus far in 2007.

I could have probably included Kendall in the, "There is no possible way that he can be one of the worst everyday players in baseball" argument. His offense the last 4 years are 12, 9, -8, -12. He has not even had one full year where he was worse than the AVERAGE catcher, offensively! Hey, I am not a big fan of Kendall's either, and he obviously is having a terrible 07 so far. But, the illusion is that any particular catcher who a hits a little below the average catcher is a "terrible player" (when in fact they are just a little below average FOR THEIR POSITION, which is the only thing that counts) just like the illusion that a first baseman who hits a little above the average at his position is a GREAT player. The fact is that catchers can't hit period. That does NOT make a catcher who can't hit, "One of the worst players..." As far as defense, my method of assessing catcher defense, is simply to use long-term SB/CS, PB, and WP totals, adjusted for age, regressed, etc. Using that method, all catchers are +3 to -3. I don't know if it is possible for a catcher (e.g. Kendall) to be -10 on defense, but perhaps. Even if Kendall were -10 on defense (and I doubt that), given that the average catcher is around -11 overall, he would have to be -20 on offense to be replacement level. (And he still runs well for a catcher.) While it is certainly possible that Kendall is a "true" -20 on offense (as opposed to nearly impossible for Everett to be a true -50 on offense), it is unlikely that anyone who has NEVER in their career come close to hitting -20 in a season is all of a sudden a true -20, despite his abysmal hitting so far this year. IOW, if anyone wants to bet me that Kendall will hit worse than, say, -18 per 150 games in lwts for the rest of the year, I will gladly take that bet for any amount of money (my usual offer).

Funny, I have never had Alou as much or a poor OF'er. Tha last 2 years, he was -3 and -5 in UZR. Before that, he was plus. I have him projected at only -2 going into this year (with another -2 in "arm"). Green, OTOH, has been a terrrible OF'er, according to UZR. His projection going into 07, was -10, including his poor arm. Given his mediocre offense for a corner OF'er, he was projected (by me in Slwts) as a -11 player, relative to an average corner OF'er, which is less than a win better than replacement level. I was never a big fan of Shawn Green. I don't know that they are paying him, but he is only worth 3 mil a year or so (as a FA) at that projection rate. He has been overpaid for a long time. Alou, OTOH, is a much better hitter and according to UZR, a much better fielder, even at his advanced age, and was in fact projected at 9 runs (per 150 games) better than the average corner OF'er.