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Friday, December 28, 2007

The Bottom of the Pile

After my post the other day on the "Daily Double" for the Cubs in 1984 I got to thinking about who might be the worst baserunner of the last 40 or so years. I've run baserunning numbers back to 1970 (excluding 1999 of course) and the two players with the lowest overall numbers were Todd Zeile and Wade Boggs. Zeile narrowly edged Boggs at -48.4 to -48.1. What's interesting about Zeile is that he had two seasons of -10 runs or lower in 1992 and 1997 because he attempted to run more frequently than Boggs. However, Boggs was more consistently a drag on his team and managed to record a negative Equivalent Baserunning Runs (EqBRR) in each of his 17 seasons (it would be interesting to see if he actually made it 18 years but again 1999 is missing).

Others who did poorly include Ted Simmons (-47.8), Mike Piazza (-47.5), Lance Parrish (-45.7), and Eddie Murray (-44.7).

The case of Mike Piazza is also worth mentioning since I read Tom Tango's excellent piece "With or Without You" in the 2008 Hardball Times Annual. In that essay Tango looks at the defensive value of catchers and not suprisingly Piazza finds himself second to the bottom in defensive contribution per 5,000 batters at -9.6 runs. Over the equivalent of 10.5 seasons that almost exactly 100 runs worse than average (Dick Dietz was easily last at -13.2 runs). When you combine his baserunning and defense that means that Piazza lost 150 runs for his teams, a fact that highlights just how good an offensive player he is. Not many players (think Derek Jeter) would get enough playing time to cost his team 15 wins in secondary skills.

But I digress. Here are our trailers career lines in terms of baserunning...


Todd Zeile
Year Team Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
1989 SLN 4 0.2 0 0.0 6 0.0 6 -0.4 44 -0.2 60 -0.4
1990 SLN 29 -0.5 7 -2.9 41 -0.2 39 0.0 256 0.6 372 -2.9
1991 SLN 33 -0.4 29 -3.2 44 -1.3 46 -0.5 329 -1.0 481 -6.3
1992 SLN 23 -0.7 17 -4.0 43 -1.1 55 -5.4 287 0.0 425 -11.2
1993 SLN 19 -0.4 10 -1.9 36 0.6 53 -2.0 328 1.3 446 -2.4
1994 SLN 24 -0.2 5 -1.1 29 0.3 30 -1.3 249 -1.2 337 -3.6
1995 CHN 12 -0.3 1 0.2 27 -0.3 20 1.0 122 -0.3 182 0.3
1995 SLN 5 0.0 1 0.1 8 0.4 12 0.4 63 -0.1 89 0.8
1996 BAL 6 -0.9 2 -0.1 9 0.4 9 0.3 50 0.8 76 0.5
1996 PHI 22 -0.2 1 -0.4 35 -0.7 43 -1.6 239 -0.4 340 -3.3
1997 LAN 33 -0.5 17 -4.8 25 0.0 61 -4.5 348 -0.4 484 -10.2
1998 FLO 11 0.2 5 -1.8 16 0.3 23 -0.5 76 -0.1 131 -1.9
1998 LAN 5 -0.4 1 0.1 12 0.4 9 0.2 40 0.2 67 0.4
1998 TEX 9 -0.4 1 0.1 10 0.8 13 0.5 80 0.6 113 1.6
2000 NYN 19 -0.5 8 -1.4 35 0.6 33 -2.1 279 0.7 374 -2.7
2001 NYN 31 -0.7 3 0.2 51 -1.1 55 -1.6 327 0.2 467 -3.0
2002 COL 23 -0.2 2 -0.2 26 -0.7 31 0.3 244 0.1 326 -0.7
2003 MON 2 0.1 1 0.3 5 0.0 12 0.0 51 0.4 71 0.8
2003 NYA 5 0.2 0 0.0 6 0.1 20 -0.3 97 -0.2 128 -0.2
2004 NYN 16 -0.5 0 0.0 14 -0.8 26 -1.0 203 -1.6 259 -3.9
331 -6.2 111 -20.7 478 -2.4 596 -18.6 3712 -0.4 5228 -48.4



Wage Boggs
Year Team Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
1982 BOS 32 0.7 0 0.0 22 -0.5 33 -0.1 250 -0.5 337 -0.3
1983 BOS 52 -2.0 6 -0.8 68 -0.5 57 -0.7 506 -1.0 689 -5.1
1984 BOS 50 -0.2 5 -0.5 49 -1.3 71 -0.8 528 0.3 703 -2.5
1985 BOS 49 -0.7 4 0.0 91 -0.3 101 1.1 579 -0.5 824 -0.4
1986 BOS 64 0.2 5 -2.4 96 0.4 52 -1.9 535 -0.6 752 -4.3
1987 BOS 37 -1.8 4 -1.8 54 1.4 49 0.6 409 -0.4 553 -1.9
1988 BOS 63 1.7 5 -0.8 82 -0.9 91 -1.5 600 -1.5 841 -3.0
1989 BOS 60 -0.4 11 -3.1 60 0.5 84 -0.3 529 -1.2 744 -4.5
1990 BOS 48 -1.1 2 -0.6 57 0.5 82 -2.9 453 -1.2 642 -5.2
1991 BOS 55 -1.2 3 -0.8 44 -0.9 75 -2.7 489 -0.2 666 -5.8
1992 BOS 19 0.0 4 -1.8 51 0.3 50 0.7 328 -0.2 452 -1.0
1993 NYA 40 -1.3 3 -1.0 57 -1.5 72 1.4 424 0.1 596 -2.4
1994 NYA 22 -0.3 3 -0.4 41 -1.8 46 -0.9 279 0.0 391 -3.4
1995 NYA 37 -1.0 2 -0.8 51 0.0 70 2.2 380 -0.7 540 -0.2
1996 NYA 47 0.5 3 -1.0 52 0.9 67 -2.7 406 -0.4 575 -2.6
1997 NYA 26 -0.4 1 -0.4 21 1.3 41 -3.0 221 -0.4 310 -2.9
1998 TBA 7 -0.5 4 -1.3 5 0.0 16 -0.8 111 -0.2 143 -2.7
708 -7.7 65 -17.6 901 -2.2 1057 -12.2 7027 -8.5 9758 -48.1

1 comment:

Chone Smith said...

Dan, how good was Tim Raines as a baseruner?