The First Annual Tony Suck Awards

Every year, we get countless articles debating who will win the MVPs, CY Youngs, Rookies of the Year, Managers of the Year, and seemingly every other award ever.  The good ones are praised; the bad ones are fisked by snarky baseball writers everywhere.

However, there is one distinction that no one talks about:  who is the least valuable player.  Every year, there are a plethora of players that are average, maybe some below average, and maybe some more that are mediocre.  But, there are few that are so bad that they need to be recognized.  Hence, the Tony Suck Award is born.

Now, who the heck is Tony Suck?

A few months ago, I told you about the birthday of one Tony Suck, who was a rather poor ballplayer in the late 19th century.  Here’s what I wrote then:

(July 11) is the birthday of former major league utility man Tony Suck, who has been called the worst player to ever play baseball.  He was born Anthony Zuck in Chicago in 1858.  He played two years of pro ball, playing the 1883 season for the Buffalo Bisons, and the 1884 season with the Chicago Browns and the Baltimore Monumentals.

Here are some of his career numbers:

• He hit just .151 and had a slugging percentage of .161.  In 205 at bats, he had 31 hits; 29 singles, 2 doubles
• On base percentage: .205, which makes his OPS .366
• He made 53 errors in just 58 games.  Of those, 32 were at catcher (in 32 games), 16 at shortstop (in 15 games), 5 in the outfield (in 13 games).  In those days, however, fielders did not wear gloves.

By all accounts, he was well regarded in Chicago and among the minor league baseball communities for his easygoing personality, which may explain the name.

Sadly, he only lived to be 36, dying of pneumonia in 1895.

Also, I spent all year chronicling who was the worst player in all of baseball, using FanGraphs’s Wins Above Replacement as the metric of evaluation.  Frankly, it was a poor man’s FanGraphs post.  Now, the time has come in which we must truly recognize who is the worst player in the game, the anti-MVP.

Over the years, sportswriters everywhere have struggled with the definition of value, using it as an excuse to talk about things like clutch, scrappiness, heart, the ability of the team they are on, etc. when they’re talking about who the most valuable player is.  Officially, the criteria is as follows:

“There is no clear-cut definition of what Most Valuable means. It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the Most Valuable Player in each league to his team. The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier. The rules of the voting remain the same as they were written on the first ballot in 1931:

1. Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense.
2. Number of games played.
3. General character, disposition, loyalty and effort.
4. Former winners are eligible.
5. Members of the committee may vote for more than one member of a team.

You are also urged to give serious consideration to all your selections, from one to ten. A tenth-place vote can influence the outcome of an election. You must fill in all ten places on your ballot. Keep in mind that all players are eligible for MVP, and that includes pitchers and designated hitters. Only regular-season performances are to be taken into consideration.”

Conversely, the criteria for the Tony Suck Award is simple:

1.They must play baseball.

2.They must produce baseball stats.

3. They must produce really bad baseball stats.

It’s that simple.  No talk about hustle, leadership, heart, clutch hitting (unless they really suck at clutch hitting), scrappiness.  It’s all about numbers — raw numbers.

Okay, here goes nothing.

American League

Yunieski Betancourt, Kansas City Royals/Seattle Mariners

Here’s how bad Yuni Betancourt was this year: he had 21 walks this year, AND THAT WAS A CAREER HIGH. He batted .245, and had an OPS of .625.  By comparison, Barry Bonds had an ON BASE PERCENTAGE of .609 in 2004.  Steroids or not, that’s pretty impressive.

Defensively, he was also terrible.  He made 18 errors at shortstop, which is also a sad career low.  His Ultimate Zone Rating was -21, which is pretty terrible, regardless of what you may think of UZR.  If anyone knows his +-, let me know.

And for some reason, the Kansas City Royals traded for him midseason.

National League:

Willy Taveras, Cincinnati Reds

Before he was injured in the middle of August he was LAST in the National League in both on-base percentage and slugging percentage.  For a guy who relies on speed, he hit 36% of his balls in play in the air.  That’s a bit high.  He also hit .240, which is pretty stinking terrible.

The only thing more embarrassing than Taveras’ performance was the fact that he hit LEADOFF most of the year.  Dusty Baker has a penchant for hitting bad baseball players leadoff, which I researched in one of my late night boredom sessions.  I am a loser.

Anyway, those are my picks for the inaugural Tony Suck Award.  What say you, beautiful and glorious reader?