I am not one of the 780 best writers in the world. This is not false modesty. This is not me fishing for compliments. It’s an honest appraisal of my talent compared to the billions and billions of people in this world. If you’re ranking writers from every language and every discipline — from travel to science fiction to memoir to investigative reporting — there’s simply no way. It’s a numbers game.
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Which means that if you included me in a group of the top 780 writers in the world and then ranked them, I’d come in dead last. You could write an article like this one about me. Worst writer? That’s ol’ Grant. Look at him compared to the other writers. What a loser.
This is a collection of some baseball worsts from the 2022 season. But note that if I’m picking on a specific player, umpire, manager or executive, it’s done with the acknowledgement that these are still talented people. They just look bad compared to a very limited selection of their peers.
OK, some owners didn’t really do anything to get their money, and a few of them seem incredibly distasteful. You can pick on them with impunity. The owners are fair game.
With that in mind, here are some of the worsts of the 2022 MLB season.
Worst Position Player: Aaron Judge, Yankees
The only fair way to do this is to look up the worst WAR of any position player in the 2022 season, which takes the guesswork out of … wait a second, I sorted the table wrong.
Worst Position Player: Yoshi Tsutsugo, Pirates
The only fair way to do this is look up the worst WAR of any player in the 2022 season, which takes the guesswork and personal biases out of the exercise. Yoshi Tsutsugo did nothing to me personally, and if he’s the kind of guy who holds a grudge and signs his enemies up for information on timeshares and reverse mortgages, well, please let him know that I was assigned this article. I can give him my editor’s phone number! (Editor’s note: No, he can’t.)
Tsutsugo finished with -1.7 WAR, according to Baseball Reference, which is impressive considering he had just 193 plate appearances for the Pirates. He barely edged out Darin Ruf, who got almost twice as many plate appearances, which is the kind of volume it usually takes to put up a WAR that low. Tsutsugo packed a whole lot of nothing into those 193 PA, though, with just two home runs, four doubles and 50 strikeouts. He wasn’t an awful defender at first base, but WAR builds in an automatic penalty for anyone at the position. They’re expected to hit better than the average player.
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Tsutsugo hit .171/.249/.229. That was not better than the average player.
Worst Starting Pitcher: Dallas Keuchel, White Sox/Diamondbacks/Rangers
Dallas Keuchel had a year to forget. (David Richard / USA Today)
Dallas Keuchel finished with -2.6 WAR, according to Baseball Reference, just a tick worse than Patrick Corbin, who finished with 19 losses. Like Tsutsugo, Keuchel managed to pack a lot of unfortunate baseballing into a limited space, making just 14 starts. It wasn’t the worst WAR in history for a pitcher with fewer than 15 starts, but it was close. Harry Colliflower was worse for the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, and while you didn’t need to know that, boy, did I want to type it.
Keuchel made eight starts with the White Sox and posted a 7.88 ERA, which got him released.
Then he made four starts with the Diamondbacks and posted a 9.64 ERA, which got him released.
Then he made two starts with the Rangers and posted a 12.60 ERA, which got him released.
Somehow, nobody picked him up for their postseason run. Keuchel is a former Cy Young Award winner and World Series winner, so don’t be too hard on him, but he sure had a lousy season.
Worst Relief Outing: Robert Suarez, Padres vs. Diamondbacks, April 7
There were worse outings, according to Win Probability Added. There were worse outings in terms of earned runs, like this seven-run disaster from Tyler Rogers that befouled his ERA for the most of the season.
But it’s impossible not to appreciate the situational stinkiness of Robert Suarez on April 7. It was Opening Day. It was his major-league debut. He came into the ninth inning to protect a 2-0 lead that was built on top of six no-hit innings by Yu Darvish. It was going to be such a memorable Opening Day for Padres fans.
Then Suarez did this:
• Walk
• Walk
• Wild pitch
• Hit-by-pitch
That’s the bases loaded for free and an absolute meltdown from a player who was trying to ingratiate himself to his new team. The next Padres pitcher (Craig Stammen) came in and immediately threw a wild pitch and allowed a walk-off grand slam, so it didn’t exactly get better, but it started with Suarez.
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(Suarez finished the season with a 2.27 ERA and re-signed with the Padres for five years, $46 million. Baseball!)
Worst Team: Washington Nationals
There were four teams with 100 losses or more, which seems to be the new norm in the hyper-stratified world of Major League Baseball, but the Nationals still managed to stand alone. They were 55-107, which was five losses “ahead” of the next-worst team, the Oakland A’s, but the putrefaction goes deeper than that.
The Nationals were somehow 17-59 against the rest of the National League East. They were 5-14 against the Mets, and they had the same record against the Braves, which was a .263 winning percentage … and that was their best showing against a divisional rival. They were even worse against the Marlins (4-15), and they almost single-handedly gave the Phillies their pennant (3-16).
The Nationals’ best month was June, when they were 11-16. Their longest winning streak was just three games. They had four starters with an ERA over 5.00, two starters with an ERA over 6.00 and one with an ERA over 7.00. They traded their best player and franchise cornerstone in the middle of the season.
This is a team that won a World Series just a few years ago. There are franchise meltdowns, and then there are the kinds of franchise meltdowns that remind me of this Bloom County strip. Kids, you shoulda seen it! Looked like a big ol’ glowing gopher!
Worst Managerial Decision: Tony La Russa, White Sox vs. Dodgers, June 9
Tony La Russa was always a bad idea for the White Sox. They have a young team that needs the deft touch of a modern baseball mind, and La Russa was … not that. He turned 79 on the penultimate day of the regular season, but he wasn’t around the team to see it because he’d already retired due to health concerns. His second tour with the White Sox was an ignominious end to a Hall of Fame career, and it made it even harder to remember just how cutting-edge La Russa used to be.
On June 9, La Russa ordered an intentional walk to Trea Turner, who was down in the count, 1-2. It was to get a left-on-left matchup against Max Muncy, which you can understand, even if Muncy has never had problems with lefties in his career, sure. But Turner had two strikes on him. There were two outs. After getting to a 1-2 count, Turner has been a .223/.271/.339 hitter, which is roughly Johnnie LeMaster’s career batting line. After getting in a 1-2 hole, Trea Turner ceases to be Trea Turner. He becomes “smol bean trea turner,” and he should be treated accordingly.
Instead:
Intentionally walk the batter to get to Muncy? Bad idea. pic.twitter.com/L2Z7fh2DKm — SportsNet LA (@SportsNetLA) June 9, 2022
Worst Raw Deal: Poor, Poor Luke Voit
A tough one for Luke Voit. (Orlando Ramirez / USA Today)
On Aug. 1, Luke Voit was the designated hitter and cleanup batter for a Padres team that was 12 games over .500 and in postseason position. More than that, there were a whole lot of whispers they were going to trade for Juan Soto. It was going to be the kind of bold move that put them over the top. World Series, here we come.
Er, not so fast, Luke. He was shipped to the Nationals in the Soto trade, and instead of contributing to a thrilling postseason, in which the Padres knocked out the hated Dodgers, he spent the rest of his season with a team that was voted the worst team in baseball*.
* The Athletic, Dec. 26, 2022
Voit didn’t deserve that! Nobody does. It was a numbers game, and it had to happen because Eric Hosmer exercised his no-trade clause, which prevented him from going to the Nationals. And even if you’re a legitimate empath, you’re not going to let Luke Voit stand in your way of Juan Soto. So … sorry?
Such a raw deal.
Worst Owner: John Fisher, A’s
He wants a ballpark built, and then he wants to sell the team. That’s the play, that’s the angle. Build the ballpark to inflate the franchise value. Threaten to move to Las Vegas, even though it’s far more likely there will be a multi-billion-dollar entertainment complex built for an NBA team (with LeBron James as part-owner).
My own uninformed guess is that Fisher’s dream will happen. There will be a ballpark built in a region that has a well-to-do potential fan base and is desperate for a team to call its own after the Raiders and Warriors left. Some very rich people will see the potential.
Until then, the current owner has an awful case of senioritis. The A’s raised season ticket prices before last season, even though the team was stripped of its best players. A popular monthly all-access plan was ditched for no apparent reason. Their per-game attendance barely beat that of the Oakland Roots, a soccer team that plays in the division that’s one below MLS.
Fisher isn’t even trying. He’s just waiting. There are environmental impact reports to review, revenue-sharing checks to cash, empty Vegas threats to make. Who can be bothered with a baseball team when your schedule looks like that?
Worst Trend: Position Players Pitching (again)
This isn’t a new trend. It’s just getting worse.
Hits allowed by MLB position players:
1982: 0 hits
1992: 1 home run
2002: 1 single, 1 home run
2012: 9 singles, 6 doubles, 2 home runs
2022: 132 singles, 42 doubles, 2 triples, 48 home runs 😯 pic.twitter.com/f0GxvHmWa6 — Codify (@CodifyBaseball) December 11, 2022
I used to be obsessed with position players pitching when they were rare occurrences. They were so beautiful, so goofy. They were a spoonful of garlic-and-persimmon ice cream at a boutique creamery — entirely unnecessary but strangely exciting.
Here’s a gallon of garlic-and-bonito-flake ice cream in its place. Eat it. Eat the whole thing. There will be another gallon ready by the time you’re done. This is what position players pitching has become. Nobody wants it. It’s not fun anymore. My solution is for every team to have a designated pitcher who’s the equivalent of a bullpen catcher — already on the staff and helping out — who can come in and pitch a couple of innings if needed. Get a 30-year-old Quad-A pitcher on salary to be an assistant coach, then let him mop up if needed.
Until then, here’s some goofball throwing 60 mph eephus pitches. Isn’t that cute? Ha ha, where’s Mel Allen when you need him?
Worst Called Ball
There were 708,540 pitches thrown in MLB last season. Of those, there were two that were down the middle according to Baseball Savant but called a ball. One of them you can understand, as it was a breaking ball with obscene break that would have fooled everyone watching if there weren’t an automated strike zone on the telecast.
Nasty pitch. Hard to frame, and it sure wasn’t framed well. The announcers didn’t stop to mention that it was a blown call, probably because they didn’t notice it themselves.
This one, though, was on another level:
It wasn’t that bendy. The framing took it back into the zone. The announcer immediately stopped to notice the blown call.
Again, though, one of my hottest takes is that umpires are generally excellent at what they do. There were a lot of bad strike zone calls this season, but they’re not as frequent as you think. There was only one quite like this one, so let’s all point and laugh, but it’s at least a little surprising there aren’t more of these.
(I tried to find the worst called strike, but there was only one called strike labeled as a “waste” on Baseball Savant, and the video isn’t available. So I went on MLB.tv to find the specific pitch, and there’s a hiccup right when the pitch is thrown, regardless of the browser I’m using. Is it a conspiracy? It’s a little unreasonable to suggest that, but my guess is that not only is it a conspiracy, but also it has something to do with fluoride in the water, Freemasons and the NSA. Meet me at the South Street parking garage, fourth level, at midnight if you’re interested in learning more.)
Worst Defensive Play: Tigers
Poetry. Pure poetry. It’s the poetry of a 14-year-old who just found a Thesaurus of the Damned, but it’s still poetry.
It starts with Robbie Grossman not quite getting to a catchable ball, which happens to even the best defenders. At least he got the ball in quickly to Jonathan Schoop, who … threw a 25-foot, four-hopper that was so bad the back base runners thought they could advance, except … the lead base runner wasn’t going anywhere, which meant all catcher Eric Haase had to do was run toward the runner who was hung up between second and third, except … Haase made what was almost certainly the worst throw of his adult life and flicked it so high, Yao Ming wouldn’t have had a shot at catching it.
Tigers catcher Eric Haase takes it all in after the Twins walk it off. (Nick Wosika / USA Today)
This was almost certainly the silliest walk-off of the year, if not the silliest walk-off of several years. It took a cascading succession of screwups, each more unforgivable than the last.
And we’re all the richer for it. This was the worst that baseball had to offer, which means that some of it was the best that baseball had to offer. It’s a silly sport that’s at its best when it’s even sillier than anybody could have hoped.
GO DEEPER The best and worst performances of 2022: Reliving the highs and lows of the year in sports
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photos: Ron Vesely and Dylan Buell / Getty Images)