My favorite baseball team, and favorite team in all sports, the Oakland Athletics are going to suck this year. For the first time since the the late 90's I'm going into a baseball season with no hope or optimism. So since my favorite team is going to suck, I hope all your favorite teams suck this year too. Time for a little free floating hostility as I run down the other 29 teams in MLB and why they suck.
(Disclaimer: Don't take any of this seriously)
Angels: John Lackey's arm is abou
Well it's been a while since I did one of these. Once I finished the Game 5's I wanted to sit down and watch both Game 6's for 1975 and 1986 in one sitting. With all the other games I'd watch them half hour or an hour at a time but for obvious reasons I wanted to be able to watch those two games without interruption. Problem was I never found a chance to watch either game in it's entirety and ended up forgetting about it for a while but with the 20th anniversary of the Bill Buckner play being to
I attended the Mariners/A's game last night. On paper it seemed like a very favorable match-up with Dan Haren pitching for the A's against Jeff Weaver of the Mariners. Haren didn't have it last night, and he really hasn't had it for the last few weeks, but through six innings he had only given up one run mainly due to the Mariners over agressive hitting. He'd thrown 99 pitches to that point and I thought it'd be a good idea to get the hook instead of pressing their luck especially with scored ti
The worst offensive season by a shortstop of all-time was Jim Levey in 1933 with an OPS+ of 24 (.195/.237/.240). Jim was a teammate of Art Scharein on the St. Louis Browns that year who my three readers will remember that he had the worst offensive ever by a third baseman that year thus teaming up for the undisputed, worst hitting left side of an infield in MLB history. Congratulations guys.
Now on to more modern players and the player at the top of this list takes both #1 and #2 spots in
The worst offensive season by a rightfielder has stood for over 100 years as Jack Dunn in 1902 had an OPS+ of 56 (.211/.256/.249). But for this modern exercise, 1999 was officially The Year of the Shitty Hitting Outfielder as players from that season have topped the list at each outfield spot.
Top 25 (or so) Worst Offensive Rightfielder Seasons since 1957 (per OPS+)
1. Derek Bell, 1999 - Houston Astros 66 OPS+ (.236/.306/.350)
2t. Cory Snyder, 1989 - Cleveland Indians 70
2
Back by popular demand, add another "Worst" list with the worst pitcher seasons since 1961 using ERA+. Checking baseball-reference.com, unlike qualifications for the batting title, it appears the qualification for the ERA title has never changed. In order to qualify a pitcher must pitch at least one inning per team game. Now I could have gone back to 1901 then but again it would been littered with too many early 20th century pitchers that most us have never heard of. The worst ERA+ of all-time w
The worst offensive season but a leftfielder since 1901 was...wait...just nine years ago!? Speed can kill but it can also keep a guy in the line up who really shouldn't be anything more than a designated pinch runner.
Top 25 Worst Offenisve Leftfielder Seasons since 1957 (per OPS+)
1. Brian Hunter, 1999 - Detroit Tigers/Seattle Mariners 48 OPS+ (.232/.280/.301)
2. Vince Coleman, 1994 - Kansas City Royals 59
3. Vince Coleman, 1986 - St. Louis Cardinals 62
4. Bill Sample,
A few weeks back I finally decided to purchase a subscription to the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index since I figured it'd be helpful in putting together a few random lists to keep this blog afloat. Of course if I had known there would be a free preview over All-Star week (which ends today) I might I have waited a little longer but oh well. Now several times in the past I've mentioned that all my sports memories begin in 1986 so figured my first random list using Play Index I'd have it centered
Now finally finishing off these Worst lists with designated hitters. Since the DH has only been around since 1973 these are the worst DH seasons of all-time. Unlike every other position, there is no additional value to be provided by DH beyond what they do with their bat. They aren't even expected to be threats on the basepaths either as most DH's are aging veterans or guys who are so slow they couldn't even handle first base. The top of the list falls into the aging veteran category as he was a
The worst offensive season by a centerfielder since 1901 was Alex Metzler in 1930 with an OPS+ of 56 (.236/.313/.302). The player on the top of this particular list came very close to breaking that record in 1999 (the year of shitting hitting outfielders?) and also made my Worst Hitters since 1986 list. Interesting thing about this list is that most of these punchless performances have happened in the last 20 years.
Top 25 (or so) Worst Offensive Centerfielder Seasons since 1957 (per OPS+)
Baseball-Reference.com Play Index is saving this blog with more useless lists1 Today I list the 25 worst individual offensive seasons according to OPS+ since 1957, who qualified for the batting title in their given year. Why 1957 instead of all the way back to the beginning modern era in 1901? Because I'm lazy and because the current guidelines for qualifying for the batting title were adopted in '57. The current rule is a player must average 3.1 plate appearances per total number of games playe
Out of the way quickly, the worst offensive single season by a third baseman was Art Scharein in 1933 who nearly matched the year with an OPS+ of 34. But we're only concerned with the last 50 years and that mark was set just last season! Why didn't ESPN cover this?
Top 25 (or so) Worst Offensive Third Baseman Seasons since 1957 (per OPS+)
1. Nick Punto, 2007 - Minnesota Twins 52 OPS+ (.210/.291/.271)
2. Scott Brosius, 1997 - Oakland A's 53
3. Brooks Robinson, 1975 - Baltimo
In case you were wondering, and you weren't, the worst hitting season by a second baseman since 1901 was by Del Young in 1923 with an OPS+ of 23 (.194/.235/.231 in 386 plate appearances). The top of this list once again shows that a shitty player may one day become a great manager. Also, anybody know who in the Mets' organization was Doug Flynn blowing in the late 70's and the early 80's to maintain an everyday job? (edit: It was Jesus!)
Top 25 (or so) Worst Offensive Second Baseman Seasons
Continuing with more of the worst. Now there are positions in baseball where clubs are very willing to sacrifice defense for offense, middle infielders being most common. If you have an excellent defensive shortstop or second baseman you can often overlook their offensive shortcomings. First base is not one of those positions. Sure a great defensive first baseman is nice to have but if they can't hit, it's not wise to keep them in the line up everyday if you have a better hitting alternative who
Starting off topic, but are the Red Sox cursed again or something? Seriously stop with this “Boston Massacre” shit ESPN. Oh my god they won’t win the East…just like the last 10 years. They still have a shot at the Wild Card and a shot at ruining the playoffs for me again with another Yankees/Red Sox ALCS.
1975 World Series Game 5 - Reds 6, Red Sox 2 (boxscore and play account)
-As mentioned before the video quality of these games has not held up very well. The first few innings of t
1975 World Series Game 4 - Red Sox 5, Reds 4 (boxcore and play account)
-The Cincinnati crowd audibly groans when starter Fred Norman gets behind 2-0 to the first batter of the game. Man, tough crowd.
-The announcers throughout the series have been talking about the possibility of Rico Petrocelli retiring after the Series. He’d retire after the following season.
-Announcers do a promo for the reunion of Simon & Garfunkle on Saturday Night Live that week.
-The video qualit
1975 World Series – Reds 6, Red Sox 5 10 Innings (boxscore and play account)
-Like Game 2 this game is incomplete on the disk. With one out in the bottom of the 7th a screen comes up acknowledging that a portion of the game is missing from the archives. Now when the action returns I have no idea what part of the game until a couple minutes later when the announcers mention that it’s the top of the 9th. It would have been nice for them to add a graphic telling you what part of the game they
I've finished watching Game 2 of all three series so here are some of my notes.
1975 World Series Game 2 - Reds 3, Red Sox 2 (boxscore and play account)
-This game is incomplete on the disk. Apparantly the top of the 2nd is missing from the film archives. Thankfully it was just a 1-2-3 inning for the Reds.
-OBP gets it's first notice I think in all three of the series here although it's referred to as "on base average" as they have a graphic when Joe Morgan is up mentioning tha
I've finished watching Game 1 from each DVD so as I mentioned before I'm taking little notes while watching each game. Of course as i read some of my notes I'm not even sure what I intended on bringing up. Of course I won't go over every detail of the game as there is no point.
Interesting to note that for all three of these World Series that the winner of Game 1 was the team that ended up losing the series. Backs up Al's entry on playoff odds on how Game 1 is the least important game.
***OMG SPOILERS***
As I've mentioned I have purchased the 1975, 1979, and 1986 World Series box sets released by MLB this year. I decided to start by watching the bonus disks on the 1986 set before viewing the World Series games. The DVD sleeves are very cool as they have little facts on the cover of them and then on the back they have the boxscore to the game on that disk, then on the inside they have a completely play-by-play account of the game. There's two bonus disks on the 1986 set, o
1979 World Series Game 6 - Pirates 4, Orioles 0 (boxscore and play account)
-This game was played on a Tuesday just two days after the Colts played a game and the football yard marks a very visible. Once again it's a very good thing that multi-purpose stadiums are almost gone.
-Howard Cosell spends time early in the game whining about some unamed Baltimore columnist whining about ABC's habbit of showing the players wives on a regular basis, which it did get completely out of hand in a
Finally getting around to start watching the World Series sets I bought last year and starting with the bonus disk on the 1977 set which features Game 5 of the ALCS where the Yankees for the second straight year beat the Royals in the 9th inning of the deciding game.
1977 American League Championship Series Game 5 - Yankees 5, Royals 3 (boxscore and play account)
-The series was televised nationally by NBC but on this disk they have the Yankees local broadcast of the game and there
Finally after nine months I've completed the three World Series DVD boxsets that were released last year, concluding with maybe the two most forgotten games in World Series history.
1975 World Series Game 7 - Reds 4, Red Sox 3 (boxscore and play account)
-They have some cancer kid throw out the first pitch, or at least they say "represents kids with cancer" so I don't know if the kid actually had cancer or if it was just someone's kid from the Red Sox front office and they needed an
Now that the college football season is over I finally had a Saturday morning to sit down and watch Game 6 of the 1975 World Series in one sitting and now eventually will be able to finish off all three World Series box sets. For the remaining games I'll do an entry for Game 6 & 7 of the '79 Series and then an entry for both Game 7's of the '75 & '86 Series.
On a side note while I was doing my post-Christmas shopping with some gift cards I received I found another box set of classi
To not turn this into solely a blog about the Oakland A's (although I'll probably just go back to them for my next entry) I figured I'd pull out something random. So here is a look back at the 1989 NBA Draft using Win Shares.
I picked the '89 Draft because for quite the lack of talent that came out of it as there is not a future Hall of Famer in the class, it featured it's 2nd pick overall Danny Ferry pitching a fit after being selected by the Clippers and sitting out the '89-'90 season, a
