Brad Hawpe and the worst defensive seasons of all time

Brad Hawpe drops a fly ball / Icon SMI

Recently (you know, on the only other real post I’ve written on the new blog so far) a couple of readers mentioned Brad Hawpe’s awful 2008, which was worth -41 Fielding Runs. That is, in fact, the worst defensive season of all time as measured by Baseball-Reference.com’s data set. Click through for a full list, including a number of other fascinating seasons. Continue reading

Young position stars of 2010-11

In case you’ve forgotten, here are the top bWAR seasons over the past 2 years by players who will be 26 or under in 2012.

All seasons of at least 3.9 WAR are listed. No SS or 2B reached that level, so in order to round out a lineup (see the top 8 in the table), I’ve included the top figure at each position. (Dustin Ackley’s 2.5 WAR in 90 games does project to 4.5 per 162G.) Lastly, I included Brett Lawrie’s 2011 on the grounds of  his tremendous rate of 10.5 WAR per 162 games. Continue reading

Good bat, but bad everything else @LoMoMarlins

Logan Morrison attempts to catch a ball while looking less-than-confident / Icon SMI

Most fans only think about a player’s offensive production when judging his value. In 2011, though, there were 3 players to produce at least 10 Batting Runs (a component of WAR: see the Stats Glossary link above) while have an overall WAR of at most 1.0–these players had negative contributions from most of the other aspects of their performance. Continue reading