Friday, November 9, 2007

Lowest OPS by a C in a Season Since 1920

I want to start to looking at some of the worst seasons by position since 1920. The reason I choose that year is because it's considered the start of the "live ball" era, a time in which home runs and hitting for power became an integral part of baseball and offense took off. Since baseball before 1920 was less focused on hitting for power and more on moving runners over, there's not much point in making a list of poor hitting position players from the early 1900's to compare to players today.

With that in mind, here's the lowest seasons by catchers with 350+ plate appearances in a season since 1920. I chose 350 because it's roughly the 3.1 PA/G necessary to qualify for the current league batting title scaled down to roughly 113 games, a number that accommodates the numerous days off full-time catchers require:

NameYearTeamPAAVGOBPSLGOPS
Jerry Grote1967NYM367.195.226.253.479
Bob Boone1984CAL468.201.242.262.504
Mickey Grasso1952WSH394.216.276.241.517
Barry Foote1975MON410.194.229.295.524
Jim Sundberg1983TEX423.201.272.254.526
Matt Walbeck1994MIN359.204.246.284.530
Paul Casanova1969WSA408.216.254.282.536
Buck Rodgers1965CAL461.209.271.265.536
Mickey O'Neil1924BSN382.246.276.262.538
Alan Ashby1979HOU370.202.262.277.539
Jim Sundberg1975TEX540.199.283.256.539
Einar Diaz2002CLE351.206.258.284.542
Sammy White1957BOS370.215.267.276.543
Jake Gibbs1968NYY460.213.270.277.547
Al Lopez1937BSN378.204.281.269.550
Randy Hundley1972CHC387.218.261.294.555
Ed Herrmann1976CAL/HOU352.199.274.283.557
Mike Ryan1966BOS400.214.271.287.558
Joe Azcue1965CLE371.230.290.269.559
Jake Early1942WSH394.204.281.280.561

That's the twenty lowest OPS seasons for catchers with 350+ PA. There are seventy-four such seasons with an OPS below .600, nine of which have occurred since 2000:
  • Einar Diaz, 2002, .542
  • Mike Matheny, 2001, .580
  • Brad Ausmus, 2006, .593
  • Brad Ausmus, 2003, .594
  • Yadier Molina, 2006, .595
  • Bengie Molina, 2000, .596
  • Chris Snyder, 2005, .598
  • Brandon Inge, 2002, .599

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