Lowest OPS by a P in a Season Since 1920

Pitchers can't hit. Well, as with any sweeping generality, there are some exceptions, but for the most part pitchers walk into the box and wander back to the dugout shortly thereafter. To keep the search similar to the rest of the positions, I only looked at pitchers since 1920. I adjusted the minimum plate appearances drastically, however, to reflect the fact pitchers that bat don't usually play every day. To make the list, a pitcher now must have made 50 or more plate appearances during the season. This obviously is equivalent to a pitcher making twenty-five starts in which he bats twice which superficially seems like a decent cutoff point.

Here are the one-dimensional pitchers:

Name	Year	Team	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Ron Herbel	1964	SFG	54	.000	.041	.000	.041
Doug Davis	2004	MIL	71	.016	.031	.016	.047
Mark Redman	2003	FLA	66	.016	.032	.016	.048
Aaron Harang	2005	CIN	78	.027	.027	.027	.054
Carl Willey	1961	MLN	58	.019	.036	.019	.055
Ron Herbel	1965	SFG	52	.020	.040	.020	.060
Bill Wight	1950	CHW	75	.000	.062	.000	.062
Ben Sheets	2005	MIL	53	.022	.043	.022	.065
Hank Aguirre	1962	DET	80	.027	.039	.027	.066
Les Tietje	1934	CHW	63	.017	.033	.034	.067
Al Leiter	2003	NYM	60	.019	.055	.019	.074
Bob Rush	1949	CHC	69	.032	.047	.032	.079
Jose DeLeon	1991	STL	51	.043	.043	.043	.086
Mario Soto	1980	CIN	54	.043	.043	.043	.086
Jim Brillheart	1927	CHC	52	.023	.065	.023	.088
Bob Buhl	1962	MLN/CHC	85	.000	.090	.000	.090
Dan Spillner	1974	SDP	50	.023	.067	.023	.090
Don Carman	1988	PHI	71	.048	.048	.048	.096
Bob Friend	1965	PIT	78	.042	.056	.042	.098
Rickey Clark	1967	CAL	60	.040	.059	.040	.099

There's some pretty bad hitters on this list. Bob Buhl holds the record for most at bats in a season without a hit (70) in 1962 -- Herbel and Wight had 47 and 61 at bats, respectively, in their .000 average seasons. Buhl was the only one of the list to be hit by a pitch that year; he also was the only one with a sacrifice fly. Don Carman and Bob Friend led all players on the list with three hits each in their season, while Les Tietje had the only extra base hit (a double). As a whole, the twenty guys on the list (well, nineteen, given Herbel's repeat) put together a composite line that looks like this:

• 27.5 years old, 1280 PA, 1138 AB, 27 H, 1 2B, 0 3B, 0 HR, 28 BB, 530 K, 1 HBP, 112 SH, 1 SF, 1 SB, 1 CS, .024/.048/.025, .073 OPS

Ick. Those twenty players are the only ones ever to put up an OPS under .100 in 50+ PA. Two hundred eighty-two more pitchers had an OPS under .200. Forty-two of the sub-.200 seasons have occurred since 2000, with Ben Sheets (.134), Doug Davis (.154), Tom Gorzelanny (.169), and Matt Belisle (.193) joining the club (in some cases, again) this year.