
Gene J. Puskar/AP
I'm feeling sadistic today. For some reason I've been pondering all of the bad players the Reds have had over the last 8 years and I thought it would be fun (see, sadistic) to take a look at what the roster of futility might look like. Come join me, won't you?
(My selection criteria is minimum 10 games played at the position over the last 8 years)
Catcher
Starter: Paul Bako (338 PAs, OPS+ of 62)
Backups: Corky Miller (273 PAs, OPS+ of 65), Chad Moeller (49 PAs, OPS+ of 4)
On this team we have to have 3 catchers, right?
First Base
Starter: Jeff Conine (242 PAs, OPS+ of 84)
Backup: Jacob Cruz (312 PAs, OPS+ of 81)
I always liked Jacob Cruz, but he wasn't a very good hitter.
Second Base
Starter: Pokey Reese (474 PAs, OPS+ of 58)
Backup: Donnie Sadler (95 PAs, OPS+ of 42)
Pokey was good defensively, but not that good.
Third Base
Starter: Brandon Larson (332 PAs, OPS+ of 49)
Backup: Tim Hummel (219 PAs, OPS+ of 58)
Was there any question about who this starter should be? What a flop?
Shortstop
Starter: Juan Castro (1225 PAs, OPS+ of 61)
Backup: Ray Olmedo (388 PAs, OPS+ of 52)
Is there any more indicative stat of the last 8 years than the fact that Juan Castro got over 1200 plate appearances?
Outfield
Starters: Reggie Taylor (505 PAs, OPS+ of 76), Corey Patterson (392 PAs, OPS+ of 48), Ruben Mateo (318 PAs, OPS+ of 71)
Bench: Quinton McCracken (60 PAs, OPS+ of 47), Jason Ellison (56 PAs, OPS+ of 41), Dewayne Wise (46 PAs, OPS+ of 21)
There are so many names to choose from here. The Reds have had some terrible backup outfielders over the last 8 years.
Starting Pitchers
Eric Milton (66 Starts, ERA+ of 77)
Jimmy Haynes (56 Starts, ERA+ of 84)
Jose Acevedo (54 Starts, ERA+ of 78)
Ryan Dempster (35 Starts, ERA+ of 66)
Ramon Ortiz (30 Starts, ERA+ of 80)
To be honest, I thought it would be much worse. And it could be worse, but I figured these guys did more damage for their number of starts than Phil Dumatrait (6 starts, ERA+ of 31), Jimmy Anderson (7 Starts, ERA+ of 47), Josh Hall (7 Starts, ERA+ of 48), and Shawn Estes (6 Starts, ERA+ of 56). At least the Reds didn't give more than 10 starts to any truly terrible starters - except for Josh Fogg (14 starts, ERA+ of 59).
Bullpen
Gary Majewski (88 games, ERA+ of 62)
Joe Valentine (42 games, ERA+ of 64)
Mike Stanton (69 games, ERA+ of 79)
Brian Reith (73 games, ERA+ of 73)
Mike Matthews (35 games, ERA+ of 68)
Kirk Saarloos (34 games, ERA+ of 65)
And there are many, many more. Damn, the pitching has sucked for a long time.
Who did I miss? There's plenty out there. Who would you have chosen that I didn't? Who doesn't belong on the team?


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