Kind of building on my earlier post about guys who were good at everything, I decided to search for guys who could hit the ball—but kinda stunk at every other aspect of the game. The search criteria was:
- greater than 100 Batting Runs
- less than 0 Baserunning, Avoiding Double Play, and Total Zone Runs
- less than or equal to 0 Infield Double Play, Outfield Arm, or Catching Runs
I kept guys who played premium positions (positional adjustment greater than zero) on the list since this was more about individual skills than overall value. Plus, I found it interesting to see some catchers ranking highly.
Here is the list (numbers from Rally's WAR database):
Name | PlApp | Bat | BSrun | DP | TZ | IFDP | OFarm | catcher | Pos | WAR | TotalNeg |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Frank Thomas | 9953 | 766 | -26 | -27 | -63 | -4 | 0 | 0 | -195 | 75.9 | -120 |
Fred McGriff | 10101 | 420 | -20 | -13 | -28 | -6 | 0 | 0 | -160 | 50.5 | -67 |
Ted Simmons | 9574 | 208 | -13 | -27 | -21 | 0 | -4 | -8 | 70 | 50.4 | -73 |
Ken Singleton | 8469 | 350 | -9 | -25 | -42 | 0 | -20 | 0 | -122 | 40.6 | -96 |
Albert Belle | 6591 | 358 | -3 | -26 | -53 | 0 | -10 | 0 | -84 | 37.4 | -92 |
Harold Baines | 10984 | 283 | -12 | -20 | -6 | 0 | -7 | 0 | -215 | 37.0 | -45 |
Magglio Ordonez | 6958 | 277 | -7 | -24 | -26 | 0 | -11 | 0 | -82 | 34.9 | -68 |
Ken Caminiti | 7044 | 144 | -1 | -7 | -7 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 33.0 | -17 |
Bobby Bonilla | 8153 | 249 | -4 | -10 | -112 | 0 | -9 | 0 | -43 | 32.2 | -135 |
Mickey Tettleton | 5677 | 158 | -18 | -3 | -24 | 0 | -4 | -26 | 3 | 27.8 | -75 |
Travis Hafner | 3361 | 167 | -6 | -2 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -74 | 18.9 | -9 |
Prince Fielder | 2772 | 136 | -16 | -1 | -29 | -3 | 0 | 0 | -43 | 12.0 | -49 |
TotalNeg is the combined total of everything besides Batting Runs and Positional Adjustment. We range from just barely below average (Travis Hafner's total is just -9) to greatly below average (Bobby Bonilla comes in at a whopping -135).
Ted Simmons (70), Ken Caminiti (11), and Mickey Tettleton (3) are the three players who have positive position value. Caminti has the closest TotalNeg (-17) to average of this trio, so he probably least deserves to be on this list. Simmons (-73 TotalNeg) and Tettleton (-75 TotalNeg) certainly deserve it.
Ordonez, Hafner, and Fielder are the active players who make it. If you, like I did, wonder how David Ortiz missed the list, it's because he entered 2010 with a DP of exactly zero. Baseball-Reference still has him at 0 for 2010 so far, so he's still toeing the line.
Personally, I find this kind of simple search interesting. Anything else in particular you'd like to see?