Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
For the heck of it, I constructed the worst lineups by league and present them fondly here. It may be unscientific, but I used OPS (straight up, no park-adjusted chaser) based on at least 200 plate appearances and ERA based on ten games started for starting pitchers. The DH is assigned to the worst position player who has at least 200 plate appearances who has a worse player in front him. Here are the results:
Pos | NL | TM | OPS | AL | TM | OPS |
C | Chris Snyder | Ari | .611 | John Buck | KC | .617 |
1B | Doug Mientkiewicz | NYM | .697 | Travis Lee | TB | .644 |
2B | Jamey Carroll | Was | .588 | Omar Infante | Det | .656 |
SS | Cristian Guzman | Was | .530 | Orlando Cabrera | LAA | .648 |
3B | Sean Burroughs | SD | .624 | Aaron Boone | Cle | .607 |
LF | Brian Jordan | Atl | .627 | Tony Womack | NYY | .542 |
CF | Corey Patterson | ChC | .649 | Nook Logan | Det | .657 |
RF | Geoff Jenkins | Mil | .754 | Richard Hidalgo | Tex | .686 |
DH | J.J. Hardy | Mil | .578 | Mark Teahen | KC | .650 |
Pos | NL | TM | ERA | AL | TM | ERA |
SP | Eric Milton | Cin | 7.20 | Jose Lima | KC | 7.58 |
SP | Joe Kennedy | Col | 7.04 | Wilfredo Ledezma | Det | 7.07 |
SP | Ramon Ortiz | Cin | 6.59 | Hideo Nomo | TB | 6.80 |
SP | Al Leiter | Fla | 6.31 | Zack Greinke | KC | 6.09 |
SP | Vicente Padilla | Phi | 6.27 | Mark Hendrickson | TB | 5.91 |
CL | Danny Graves | Cin | 6.83 | Keith Foulke | Bos | 6.23 |
The one player who gets sideswiped is Geoff Jenkins, who is the worst NL right fielder who fits the criteria. However, there were a few worse ones (Austin Kearns, Raul Mondesi) who lost their jobs before they could "qualify". Sorry, Geoff.
Also, Sean Burroughs beat out Mike Lowell by just one OPS point. Sorry, Mike. Some of the supposed All-Stars (Izturis, Rollins) weren't far behind their corresponding No-Star. It makes me proud. As they keep monkeying with the system, I expect the two squads to become more closely aligned.
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