Jack Torrance - contributing reporter
With the first power rankings of the year up, let's shift gears to the bottom of those rankings. In the current 'era' of rebuilding in Cobbfather, let's take a look at players that may not be up to snub. We compiled a list of players who don't have a single value (contact, power, vL, vR, eye) above a 80 rating. Over the years the average ML starter has at least a 70 across the board, so we'll take that into account. And given the specialty of bench/role players to possibly be defense first (or only) we've elected to only look at players who have a starting gig, and if it's a platoon we've only taken into account the side of the plate they are platoon on. Another words if they platoon vL and their vR is a 12; we've ignored them on this list. We have also only taken into account the vL & vR w/ DH for AL teams and vL & vR w/out DH for NL teams.
We've created our own formula to rank each player which also includes their defensive ranking so this isn't just a look at their hitting ratings; though that was the initial starting process. At some point we hope to get The Best article posted as well, just depends on how long it really takes to get this one researched.
Editor note: It took a while to write this so in the every changing scenery of the ML rosters; adjustments could have already been made to remove these lesser players.
- Catcher
- This one is tricky given how much effect a catcher's pitch calling could have on a rotation; depending on which camp you belong to in that debate. Some say a 10 point difference in PC is worth very little in terms of cERA but others will say it's worth at least 0.20 in cERA adjustments. Others will say a veteran pitching staff doesn't need the PC as they'll call their own pitches.
- Cleuluis Lowry (Hartford) - Just shows that even a championship caliber team can have a lowly starter. Pitch calling of 88 should help out those pitchers even though the need for a high pitch calling is highly debated by other experts in other leagues. I will add this one might not be fair because it appears Hartford might be making catching adjustments at the time of this writing.
- Ratings: 36, 39, 50/44, 11
- First Base
- Dennis Tamura (New York) - He'll win the AL Gold Glove without a doubt but given his Rookie level production at the plate, we have to include him here. He'd be close to winning a Gold Glove at Shortstop as well if it weren't for the slightly underrated glove. Surprisingly he's actually hitting .243 avg/.506 ops with 3 more k then hits and 19 more k then bb. Tamura is actually the worst rated bat in all of Cobbfather at the ML level...and he's a starter!
- Ratings: 39, 5, 20/33, 19
- Second Base
- Vic Arguelles (New York) - This 35 rated power hitter is actually batting in the cleanup spot for New York. He also falls below league average defensively at every category. He sports a career 18 HRs and a .238 avg/.632 ops over 1054 at-bats. We'll see what the worst shortstop looks like, but this might be the worst overall starter in Cobbfather. How is he even above AA?
- Ratings: 63, 35, 54/33, 57
- Third Base
- Dellin Garces (Pittsburg) - The only thing holding Garces back from a potential gold glove is his accuracy rating but give the contact and power; he had to make this list. Last year he ended the season with 3 hr and a .237 avg/.579 ops; striking out 6 more times than he had hits.
- Ratings: 43, 14, 48/53, 46
- Shortstop
- Another tough one to gauge given the importance of a solid shortstop, many owners decide to take the hit at the plate to help prevent runs in the field. Close calls were Lewis Gaetti (Chicago) & Rob Webster (Philadelphia) but both are above average in the field. Though Gaetti's bat basically belongs in A- and Webster in AA. But where's the line at Short? When you start looking at defensive liabilities at short, their bats get closer to the 60/65 range. Babe Benincasa (Columbus) comes to mind as his arm strength and accuracy are more than 5 points below average but his bat is supposed to be nearly twice as good as the other two mentioned. Platoons are generally more often used here. With so many ifs, we'll leave The Worst Shortstop off the list...for now.
- Left Field
- Timo Hara (New York) - Now if this was the worst starter on this franchise nobody would bat an eye, though seeing his ratings shows just how easy it is to find major league average hitters for Left Field. I'd imagine the majority of owners might not like Hara as an option but would find it acceptable for a rebuilding franchise to have a AAA/AAAA player in their lineup.
- Ratings: 64, 62, 61/55, 69
- Center Field
- Some say this is another tough spot as we've seen all ranges of fielders playing CF in Cobbfather, from DH types to Catchers to alternate Shortstops. Do they receive a lot of action in the field? No, but enough to still cause a difference to potential runs given up.
- Manuel Cueto (Chicago) - Is this the worst catcher we've seen in Chicago, by no means but at least those guys had bats. Cueto's career .234 avg/ .576 ops goes a lot way to help the rebuilding team gain an earlier pick in the follow year's draft.
- Ratings: 30, 17, 54/50, 53
- Right Field
- What should be the 4th easiest spot to fill even with a bat first type player.
- Ober Martin (New York) - Similar to Left Field these are awful numbers and likely to be a AAA/AAAA depending on their defensive ratings. Decent as backup option if they offer that speed or glove. But Martin offers neither of those.
- Ratings: 63, 69, 56/67, 39
- Designated Hitters
- Steven Sutcliffe (New York) - Defensively he's close to average 2B with a slight hit to his arm strength so he might not turn double plays on the speedy guys, but that bat is atrocious. There are SO many other bats that could be used as a DH but New York is gunning for that 5th straight #1 overall pick in next year's draft. No wonder the team has a sub .200 expected win percentage.
- Ratings: 33, 39, 41/41, 62
- Starting Pitchers
- We started our search for the worst SP by starting with all players who have less 70 ratings in Control, vL, & vR; that narrowed it down to just 14 players. Pittsburgh's James Langels & Gene Torres take the cake for worst starters, Chicago has all 5 members of his rotation on the list. That's 5 of the 14 players - or 36% of the list. Andre Justice, Antonio Morton, Chipper Durham, Mike Woodson, and Paul Hill. If Slash's words "...certainly planning to push the envelope on some things..." weren't heard loud and clear before, they sure are now.
- Relief Pitchers
- We decided to omit the Type B relievers because they are generally used less and thus less important to the quality of the team - though they do still matter.
- To no surprise, two of the four pitchers who fall in the sub 70 ratings belong to the Chicago Gunslingers. Denard Jones and Sam Ross - both SuA. Though in Ross' defense his Control is actually a 70. But Jones is the worst SuA/LRA in the league. I will say while Chicago's pitchers have awful ratings, their pitch quality is typically higher which is why they haven't been as bad as you'd assume. So...things could be worse.
Synopsys - New York has the worst position players and Chicago has the worst pitchers. With Pittsburgh right there with both of them. Those teams will easily be 1 - 2 - 3 in next season's draft if things don't change.
Every player on this list warrants a demotion back to the minors, you could probably find an out of shape blog writer to hit or pitch better than these guys. But then again, that means replacing 90% of the New York ML roster and Chicago's full rotation. The only position player who I don't consider to be on a bottom 3 team is the Catcher, who plays for a top NL team. New York/Chicago, your open letter might be coming soon.
Based upon views of others outside of the world, the integrity of Cobbfather is definitely in question ever since New York took rebuilding to the full tanking extreme. Feels like I haven't seen teams this bad since jwinkler's S7 147 Loss.
