Oh, Babe. It’s hard to believe the Yankees played Ichiro Suzuki in 150 games. His .342 slugging percentage was the second worst ever by a New York rightfielder with so much playing time and the worst in 107 years, since Willie Keeler in 1906.

Ichiro and Wee Willie showing up on the same list is appropriate. Though Willie in 1906 was actually a good hitter considering the dead ball, his OPS+ was 108.

From the article:

San Francisco leftfielders hit fewer home runs (5) than Cubs pitchers (6).

Wow!

“We’re a mutual fund, and we’re a value fund. We’ve got a bunch of equities earning three to nine percent. We don’t have a 20 percent and we don’t have a negative 20 percent.”

Which team is the Long/Short Fund?

It's pretty incredible that the Yankees were playoff contenders last season with how much complete dreck was in their line-up.

It's pretty incredible that the Yankees were playoff contenders last season with how much complete dreck was in their line-up.

It's the unfair advantage they had by paying enormous salaries to Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson, and CC Sabathia.

Braves center field is sad that it got left out.

“We’re a mutual fund, and we’re a value fund. We’ve got a bunch of equities earning three to nine percent. We don’t have a 20 percent and we don’t have a negative 20 percent.”

Which team is the Long/Short Fund?

Looking just at position players, it's the Royals. Their best BBRef WAR is 4.2, their worst is -0.4, for a total spread of 4.6 WAR. The Marlins, White Sox, and Phillies are the other teams with spreads under 5, but they all have a batter with a WAR of -1.2 or lower. If you include pitchers, the answer is either the Cubs or the Nationals. They both had a total spread of 5.7 WAR:

#6 I was going to assume that the guys who played CF was Upton wasn't had played well. Sort of. They hit .251/.352/.387 which an awful lot of teams would happily settle for. And isn't bad when it's the fallback plan when the initial one failed so spectacularly.

I guess the Braves have decent options without doing anything. It's reasonable to hope Upton gives you something close to 3 WAR or that the can ham'n egg an OF spot.

Looking just at position players, it's the Royals. Their best BBRef WAR is 4.2, their worst is -0.4, for a total spread of 4.6 WAR. The Marlins, White Sox, and Phillies are the other teams with spreads under 5, but they all have a batter with a WAR of -1.2 or lower.

How are you selecting players?

The Rockies have a position player spread of 6.9: Tulo at 5.3 and Jordan Pacheco at -1.6. For pitchers it's 6.7 with Chacin at 5.8 and Roy Oswalt at -0.9. (Jeff Francis is right there at -0.8.)

At the risk of reopening the Carlos Ruiz contract arguments, I really don't understand how Verducci reaches his conclusiones here:

AL: Chicago White Sox (60): Do you wonder how in the world Carlos Ruiz, who turns 35 in January, can get a three-year deal from Philadelphia? (By the way, the Phillies shouldn't expect much for their money given his age. Over the past 75 years, only three NL catchers at least 35 years old have played 120 games with an OPS+ of at least 100: Mike Piazza, Benito Santiago and Alan Ashby). Good catchers are hard to find. Tyler Flowers and Josh Phegley each were handed auditions on the South Side but neither one cemented the job.

It almost seems like he had already opined on the matter, the data didn't support him, so hey, a little snark goes a long way.....

I was going to assume that the guys who played CF was Upton wasn't had played well. Sort of. They hit .251/.352/.387 which an awful lot of teams would happily settle for. And isn't bad when it's the fallback plan when the initial one failed so spectacularly.

They got a career half-season out of Jordan Schafer, which helped. They certainly can't plan on that happening again. Jordan Schafer is not good. He's vaguely useful if used only against RHP and as a pinch runner. The only fix they have is sitting back, taking a long swig from the bottle and repeating "man, I sure do hope we get the other BJ Upton the next four years."

#6 I was going to assume that the guys who played CF was Upton wasn't had played well. Sort of.

Hmm... uh, yes. Sort of. What?

How are you selecting players?

The Rockies have a position player spread of 6.9: Tulo at 5.3 and Jordan Pacheco at -1.6. For pitchers it's 6.7 with Chacin at 5.8 and Roy Oswalt at -0.9. (Jeff Francis is right there at -0.8.)

I think you misread "Rockies" when I wrote "Royals". Both unimpressive teams from rectangular states...

San Francisco leftfielders hit fewer home runs (5) than Cubs pitchers (6).

Barry is rested and ready to go.

It's hard to believe that Alcides Escobar started 74 games in the first or second spots in the batting order. His OBP last year was .259. His career OBP is .295. You do not want him anywhere near the top of the lineup, especially for nearly half the season. It seems obvious. But then, these are the Royals. It was not obvious to manager Ned Yost.

LOL, its not really hard to believe considering how this franchise is run.

They got a career half-season out of Jordan Schafer, which helped. They certainly can't plan on that happening again. Jordan Schafer is not good. He's vaguely useful if used only against RHP and as a pinch runner. The only fix they have is sitting back, taking a long swig from the bottle and repeating "man, I sure do hope we get the other BJ Upton the next four years."

Schafer didn't really contribute much in CF. He put up a .223/.305/.351 line in 106 PA there, which is pretty much typical Jordan Schafer. The only Braves CF who hit last year was Jason Heyward.

NL: Pittsburgh Pirates (80): Travis Snider didn’t work out and Jose Tabata is a reminder of how long-term contracts for young players don’t always pay off. Pittsburgh did address the problem for the stretch drive by renting Marlon Byrd for a month.

Verducci is a moron. Snider was terrible, but Tabata had a .282/.342/.429 batting line last year (119 OPS+), and that's perfectly adequate for a cheap corner bat. Also, the Byrd trade was made not to provide a replacement in RF but to provide one in LF, since it happened right after Starling Marte suffered an injury that took him out for nearly all of the remaining regular season.

Good article from Verducci. Problems, solutions.

#11 Well they're paying for Upton so he'll get every chance, but as fallback position go Heyward in CF and find a corner OF isn't a hopeless situation. Yeah Heyward's not a CF and you can't just assume you can dig up a corner OF, but as problems go it's not the worst.

I think you misread "Rockies" when I wrote "Royals". Both unimpressive teams from rectangular states...

Missouri doesn't look that rectangular to me, although if I squint a little I guess I could see a parallelogram.

Missouri doesn't look that rectangular to me, although if I squint a little I guess I could see a parallelogram.

Most of my blood relations are from Kansas City, KS. I forget that the city has a different part.

#6 I was going to assume that the guys who played CF was Upton wasn't had played well. Sort of.

Hmm... uh, yes. Sort of. What?

That gave me pause also. Further, I was wondering about the meaning of this:

...or that the can ham'n egg an OF spot.

I think you misread "Rockies" when I wrote "Royals". Both unimpressive teams from rectangular states...

I didn't misread, I guess I was confused as to why the Royals were there if there are teams (or a team) with bigger gaps.

Re. unimpressive teams from rectangular states, I guess it's good Wyoming doesn't have a team. (I think they lost their only minor league team, the Rockies rookie league team moved to Grand Junction, CO.)

Oakland was one of just 10 teams last year that did not have a player qualify for the batting title with an adjusted OPS of 100 or less.

"Just" 10? 10 seems like a lot. How many regular shortstops or catchers have an OPS+ over 100? If you asked me this question, how many players didn't have a batting title qualifier 100 or lower, I'd have guessed maybe 3 or 4.

I didn't misread, I guess I was confused as to why the Royals were there if there are teams (or a team) with bigger gaps.

Erm, because he was looking for the teams with the smallest gaps...

"Just" 10? 10 seems like a lot. How many regular shortstops or catchers have an OPS+ over 100?

There aren't. The "qualified for the batting title" qualifier eliminates them (and promotes their team.) the red Sox are one of the 10 despite WMB's 88 OPS+ because he didn't qualify. A few more PAs by Mark Ellis (OPS+ 92), would have disqualified the Dodgers. The Blue Jays are one despite a 59 OPS+ (in 497 PA) from their catcher.

It's marginally interesting, but not very significant trivia.

"Just" 10? 10 seems like a lot. How many regular shortstops or catchers have an OPS+ over 100? If you asked me this question, how many players didn't have a batting title qualifier 100 or lower, I'd have guessed maybe 3 or 4.

But many of those guys don't qualify for the batting title. In particular only 10 catchers (per FanGraphs) total qualified in 2013, basically just the guys with enough bat to play 1B or DH when not behind the plate.

Sogard and Reddick both logged more PT at their positions (2B and RF respectively) than anyone else on the A's, but because they didn't qualify for the batting title they somehow don't count against the A's "perfect record."

Edit: Georgia's best to Misirlou.

The problem is that qualifying is too high a bar to demonstrate the intended point. AL teams only average five qualifiers (NL teams less), and there's a selection bias toward players who don't suck, so going 4-for-4 or 5-for-5 on qualifiers isn't that uncommon and doesn't preclude those teams from having multiple positions be sinkholes.

What made the A's special was that they had 16 players with at least 120 PA (no one else was above 36) for a total of 5996, and there was only one dreadful performance in the bunch: 65 OPS+ in 154 PA from Rosales. Reddick's 93 in 441 was also inadequate for a regular right fielder, but literally everyone else met the minimum acceptable standard for their intended role, with most far exceeding it.

I learned from this article that Yuni Betancourt played 55 games at 1B in 2013. That strikes me as . . . well, if ever there were a white flag, that was it.

both examples are a bit odd. as noted tabata is pretty much an exemplar of the non-suck player. and while ichiro sucks with the bat he apparently contributed enough in the field to not suck. true ichiro is a good bet to suck in 2014.

San Francisco leftfielders hit fewer home runs (5) than Cubs pitchers (6).



Barry is rested and ready to go.

So is Carlos Zambrano, though...

Barry is rested and ready to go.

With all the cycling Barry has been doing, he just may be in the best shape of his life!

With all the cycling Barry has been doing, he just may be in the best shape of his life!

Sure, he probably knows how to do the steroids properly now.

AL: New York Yankees (62): Talk about an epic fail. How does the most expensive team in baseball, playing its games in a bandbox of a ballpark, post a DH slash line of .189/.276/.307

Same as all the other teams who don't take the position seriously.

Boesch had a 123 OPS+ for them and they released him.

Centerfield AL: Houston Astros (60): For a team that lost 111 games, it's surprising the Astros hold only one of the nine AL worst position spots

This is a team that let J.B. Shuck walk. Nothing they do surprises me.

I feel like the Astros don't get enough credit for being historically bad. They lost 111 games this year, after losing 106 and 107 in 2011 and 2012. That's an amazingly bad run. Even the early aughts Tigers weren't that bad.

#22 And others The sort of is a result of a bad edit. I had "very well" at one point and "very well" is an overbid for the line I listed. Edited one part and not the other.

Ham'n egg: Hmm have to think about how to explain this. It's an expression I heard years ago from a friend and it made perfect sense in context. How about using cheap players and being successful. Often platoons or semi-platoons.

EDIT: For clarity.

I learned from this article that Yuni Betancourt played 55 games at 1B in 2013. That strikes me as . . . well, if ever there were a white flag, that was it.

And the Brewers flew it from opening day!

Kidding ... and we did talk about it a good bit at the time. The Brewers had a ton of injuries at 1B (Corey Hart missed the whole year) and their couple of "prospects" weren't doing anything. Yuni was probably option #6 and a last-second one at that, released by the Phils on March 24 and signed on March 26. By the time you enter spring training, the "freely available" talent isn't freely available anymore until end of spring cuts ... and that's pretty much the dregs of the dregs, especially at positions.

I mean it was a horrible, horrible idea but I'm sure the Brewers knew that and took it as the best of the horrible options available to them.

By the way, of players with at least 50 games at 1B, only 21 of them had at least 1 WAR. None of them was freely available for 2013 although you could have had Brandon Moss for free back in 2012. At #26 with a whopping .5 WAR you had the freely available Chris Carter and at .2 WAR Lyle Overbay. But both were going to be spring training starters for the team that had them and certainly not freely available at the end of March.

The did try Sean Halton, their 26-year-old AAA guy, out there after mid-season and he put up a 687 OPS and 0 WAR. 30-year-old Blake Lalli got a few games in April and May and put up a 250 OPS (-.5 WAR). They gave 16 starts to Lucroy and his back-up Maldonado (41 OPS+ overall but hit 718 OPS at 1B ... go figure).

At #30 you start to enter below replacement level ... and most of these guys were still not close to freely available. Brett Wallace and Greg Dobbs maybe.

The Brewers did pick up Juan Francisco from the Braves in June and he was good for -.7 WAR despite non-embarrassing hitting (97 OPS+) which, yes, is still better than Yuni but not freely available in March.

That's not to say a bit more planning ahead might have been a good thing, maybe offering an NRI to Overbay or something. But things could have been worse, they could have gotten in on the Mike Morse deal (-.5 WAR for $7 M!!). Shopping on the "not suck" market is a tricky business.

None of them was freely available for 2013 although you could have had Brandon Moss for free back in 2012.

Mike Carp was freely available and put up 1.3 WAR as a part-time player. He's probably being counted as a LF.

At #26 with a whopping .5 WAR you had the freely available Chris Carter and at .2 WAR Lyle Overbay. But both were going to be spring training starters for the team that had them and certainly not freely available at the end of March.

Lyle Overbay was signed by the Yankees on March 26 (same day as Yuni)

Sure, he probably knows how to do the steroids properly now.

Blood doping is the new market inefficiency!

Walt re:37

As usual, your lists are thorough and impeccable... but I think the one thing Carter, Francisco, Wallace and perhaps a few others have over Yuni is a non-absolute certainty that they'd suck. Perhaps a 99% certainty, but if Yunesky Betancourt is your answer then beg for a new question... and if you don't get one, just keep phoning in bomb threats to your own stadium until you do.