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August 8, 2012

Punk Hits

The Worst of the Best

by Ian Miller

Baseball Prospectus’ True Average report is endlessly fascinating. Matt Kemp’s .376 TAv is absurd, and Mike Trout, the just-turned-21-year-old rookie superstar, is right behind him with a gaudy .370. And how about David Ortiz in fifth place with a .342! Who saw that coming? The top of the list is an amazing mixture of quotidian greatness (Votto) and fantastic surprises (Jaso??).

But I’m equally fascinated by the bottom of the list. Change the pulldown to the right of TAv from DESC to ASC, set the min. PA to “200,” and hit View Data. (Alternately, you can just click here. At the top of that list are the very worst hitters in Major League Baseball. Just like with baseball’s best hitters, the bottom-dwellers run the gamut from “duh” (Yuniesky Betancourt at 25th-worst) to “huh?” (Ryan Raburn, worst in the majors).

I’m not so interested in the Yuni’s and Freddy Galviseses of the world; we know those guys are lousy hitters (although the Royals front office may have just recently received the memo). The list is full of catchers and middle-infielders, as you’d expect. But what about the guys who don’t belong there? The inverse John Jaso-types? C