2008 Braves : Gregor Blanco / Mark Kotsay / Jeff Francoeur ( Josh Anderson 4th OF )
2009 Braves : Garret Anderson / Nate McLouth / Jeff Francoeur ( Matt Diaz having a miracle season , his last good season, stopped this from being the disaster it seems on paper ).

2008 Braves : Gregor Blanco / Mark Kotsay / Jeff Francoeur ( Josh Anderson 4th OF )

And Kotsay was traded midseason, which meant that utility infielder Omar Infante and pinch-hitter Greg Norton also saw a decent amount of time in the outfield.

Edit: To correct myself, Kotsay wasn't traded until late August, and all of Norton's outfield starts came before then. From then on, it was Anderson in CF, with a mixture of Blanco, Infante, and Brandon Jones (I did not at all remember him getting 27 starts that year) in LF.

Bad times.

I was trying to find the Jays worst OF, but since Barfield and Moseby teamed up in 1982 they've always had strong outfields.

George Bell, Devon White, Joe Carter, Shawn Green, Shannon Stewart, Vernon Wells, Alex Rios, Jose Bautista. They've always had at least one guy in the outfield, usually two, who was probably a top 25 OF at the time.

You would think the 1997 Phils OF of Gregg Jeffries, Midre Cummings and 35 yo Darren Daulton would rank down there with the worst but Cummings put up a 110 ERA+ and Daulton a 124, albeit in 234 and 333 PAs. Jeffries clocked in with an 89. That left Tony Barron (96) and Ruben Amaro, Jr. (68) with 200 or more PAs and still left 100+ PAs for Wendell Magee (36), Derrick May (47) and Ricky Otero (74). Even "Free" Billy McMillon (105) got 81 PAs.

What they lacked in quality suck they more than made up for in quality suck.

The 1988 Mariners started the season with an OF rotation of Mickey Brantley (90 OPS+, -0.3 dWAR), Henry Cotto (86, -0.2), Glenn Wilson (75, -0.6), and Mike Kingery (64, -0.2). Brantley had been good in 1987, but the rest were known to suck. Wilson at least had an entertaining arm, I guess.

The Mariners called up Jay Buhner in May, traded Wilson for the mercurial Darnell Coles in July, and called up Griffey in '89. So things turned around pretty quickly.

The '98 Devil Rays had a pretty bad OF rotation for the first half of the season: Mike Kelly, Quentin McCracken, Randy Winn, Dave Martinez, and Paul Sorrento. This is before Winn was any good. Bubba Trammell came up to stay in July and hit well.

The '97 Royals OF Was Bip Roberts (90 OPS+), Tom Goodwin (71), a young Jermaine Dye (69), a young Johnny Damon (88), and Yamil Benitez (88).

Oh, how could I forget that '97 Royals OF? That was our first full season out there. The best part about that OF is that my wife loved the name Bip Roberts.

They're also in exactly the wrong place to sign a guy whose trajectory is likely to be 4-3-2-1 wins.

Why would you expect that rapid of a decline from a 30 y.o.?

Ok, I looked at everyone (last 30 years) who had 3.9 to 4.1 WAR in their age 3 seasons

here's what they averaged by age:
30: 4.0
31: 2.5
32: 2.6
33: 1.9

problems:
sample size- just 19 players- age 32 is thrown off slightly by Brett having a monster year

selection bias: the 19 players on average likely had less than 4.0 "true talent" at age 30.

Ok, I looked at everyone (last 30 years) who had 3.9 to 4.1 WAR in their age 3 seasons

Whoa, my kid is an underachiever

The 2005 Giants outfield looked pretty bad in spring training, when Barry Bonds was forced to sit out nearly the whole season and they were left with Pedro Feliz in LF every day, "prospects" Todd Linden and Jason Ellison, and the assembled corpses of Marquis Grissom and Michael Tucker.

However they also had Moises Alou, who put up another great season at age 38, and they eventually traded for Randy Winn.

RE: the Braves 2008 OF, when your fan base is begging you to start Brandon Jones more often, you suck.

Gregor Blanco was fun in a "science experiment gone horribly right" kind of way.

Mets’ path to sign Bourn still-born cloudy

FTFY

selection bias: the 19 players on average likely had less than 4.0 "true talent" at age 30.

Yeah, you probably want players who averaged >4 WAR in their 3-4 prior seasons, but then SSS gets even worse.

I'm seriously asking this: can you name a worse outfield than what the Mets are going to subject us to? I don't mean now, I mean in your entire life of following baseball.

The 1985 Pirates were pretty bad. Left-to-right on opening day, you had Doug Froebel (.189/.301/.258) filling in for an injured Steve Kemp (.250/.317/.347 in his last season as a regular), the worst season of Marvell Wynne's not-particularly-distinguished career (.205/.247/.258), and a could-not-possibly-give-less-of-a-#### George Hendrick (.230/.278/.313).

That said, the reserves (rookie Joe Orsulak, Mike Brown, Sixto Lezcano, and Bill Almon) ended up being at least half-decent, so it wasn't a complete and total wash once the starters played their way out of the lineup.

was trying to find the Jays worst OF, but since Barfield and Moseby teamed up in 1982 they've always had strong outfields.

1978 Jays - Bob Bailor (82 OPS+), Rick Bosetti (81), Al Woods (79). Otto Velez was very good off the bench though. That was the same outfield in 1979 with pretty much the same results and Velez being good again off the bench.

How bout them 2011 Mariners? Ichiro (86), Carlos Peguero (76), Franklin Gutierrez (54), with reserves Michael Saunders (23) and Trayvon Robinson (67). Mike Carp (125) also played 27 games in LF and Milton Bradley and Casper Wells were decent in very limited action.

You guys did find some bad OFs! I still think this one is worse, but I'll let that go and comment on something that may actually be good news. With Francisco out, Parnell has been given the closer job. I think he turned a corner in the second half of 2012 and will do an excellent job.

Some of those bad OFs at least have famous players.