Monday, November 12, 2007

Lowest OPS by a SS in a Season Since 1920

As for all the positions: the explanation of why I chose to look at seasons since 1920 can be found here. The short story is I wanted to avoid the low-power years of the deadball era while compiling lists of poor-hitting position players.

As with second basemen, shortstops have traditionally hit very poorly. That means we should see some pretty bad numbers on the list again. Qualifiers remain the same: the player must have qualified for the batting title during the season while playing 75% or more of his games at shortstop.

NameYearTeamPAAVGOBPSLGOPS
Hal Lanier1968SFG518.206.222.239.461
Jim Levey1933SLB567.195.237.240.477
Skeeter Webb1945DET449.199.254.238.492
Hal Lanier1967SFG557.213.239.255.494
Tim Johnson1973MIL510.213.259.243.502
Bobby Mattick1940CHC464.218.250.252.502
Leo Durocher1937STL520.203.262.245.507
Ivan DeJesus1981CHC460.194.276.233.509
Alfredo Griffin1990LAD502.210.258.254.512
Billy Hunter1953SLB604.219.253.259.512
Skeeter Webb1944CHW540.211.242.271.513
Tommy Thevenow1931PIT441.213.266.248.514
Hal Lanier1969SFG537.228.263.251.514
Mark Belanger1968BAL531.208.272.248.520
Ozzie Smith1979SDP649.211.260.262.522
Otto Bluege1933CIN323.213.278.247.525
Whitey Wietelmann1943BSN591.215.281.245.526
Skeeter Newsome1936PHA508.225.266.265.531
Zoilo Versalles1967MIN626.200.249.282.531
Alfredo Griffin1981TOR414.209.243.289.532

Only one member of the Boston Braves appears on the list. Hal Lanier appears on this list three times after showing up once on the second basemen list. He just really couldn't hit.

There have been 153 seasons of an OPS under .600 by a shortstop since 1920. Four of them have occurred since 2000: Neifi Perez in 2002 (.563), Angel Berroa in 2006 (.592), Cesar Izturis in 2003 (.597), and Clint Barmes in 2006 (.599). The lowest shortstop OPS in 2007 was the .621 put up by Omar Vizquel.

1 comment:

JJB said...

Maybe relax the criteria to 300 PA ? Then you could get Angel Salazar and his .465 OPS on the list ?

Light-hitting players will be pinch-hit for thus lowering their PA.

See http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/salazan01.shtml