JPA second worst season in history?

[KevinGregg]

I have seen it thrown around that he had the 2nd worst season ever last year. What stat or stats are used to determine this?

 

thanks guys

[Dick_Pole]

There's so many to choose from...OBP, the entire Runs Created family of stats, twitter rants, guys blown during the year, the hater blame average, temper tantrums, the Gregg Zaun Index...list goes on.

[admin]

I have seen it thrown around that he had the 2nd worst season ever last year. What stat or stats are used to determine this?

 

thanks guys

 

Pick any random stat outside of home runs and you'll find your answer.

[KevinGregg]

what is the best website to find this information? I can only find lists of the top players I cant find anything that shows the worst players all time

[KevinGregg]

FanGraphs. Leaderboards. Set years to 1900-2013. Include which stats you like. Sort column you want.

 

thanks a lot for that!

 

 

Well first of all I guess it's important to note that JPA's 2013 season did not have enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title (he was really close though). So I arbitrarily selected 300 and then 400 PA and sorted by OBP and it was historically bad for sure but obviously you have to take his power into account since we all know that's all he brings and so I sorted by wOBA and he is 155th worst out of all players with over 400 PA. Clearly this is horrible but not as bad as I had been led to believe by the general attitude here. His -0.6 WAR is 19th worst among catchers with 400+ PA, but not even close to the worst including all positions (because of the positional adjustment for catcher, right?). Interestingly, he was apparently worth 3 runs for his defense despite all the hate for his defence but his -25.2 offence runs are only 408th worst all time

 

Maybe I am making up the whole 2nd worst season ever thing (does anyone else remember this being mentioned here??), but there are a s*** load of players who have had worse offensive seasons than JPA's 2013.

 

TLDR his obp sucked about as bad as everyone says but that is totally cherry picking a stat which doesn't tell the whole story and including his power makes him not nearly as bad as the impression I had gotten.

[fireballW]

thanks a lot for that!

 

 

Well first of all I guess it's important to note that JPA's 2013 season did not have enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title (he was really close though). So I arbitrarily selected 300 and then 400 PA and sorted by OBP and it was historically bad for sure but obviously you have to take his power into account since we all know that's all he brings and so I sorted by wOBA and he is 155th worst out of all players with over 400 PA. Clearly this is horrible but not as bad as I had been led to believe by the general attitude here. His -0.6 WAR is 19th worst among catchers with 400+ PA, but not even close to the worst including all positions (because of the positional adjustment for catcher, right?). Interestingly, he was apparently worth 3 runs for his defense despite all the hate for his defence but his -25.2 offence runs are only 408th worst all time

 

Maybe I am making up the whole 2nd worst season ever thing (does anyone else remember this being mentioned here??), but there are a s*** load of players who have had worse offensive seasons than JPA's 2013.

 

TLDR his obp sucked about as bad as everyone says but that is totally cherry picking a stat which doesn't tell the whole story and including his power makes him not nearly as bad as the impression I had gotten.

 

I don't think anyone has seriously claimed it was the "2nd worst season of all time." Unless they were doing it just because it is fun to bash JPA. Either way, the guy belittles people left and right and had a horrendous season, preceded by other horrendous seasons. The things people are saying are both justified and hilarious, even if not supported by facts.

[Jays]

OBP is important for scoring runs.

[KevinGregg]

yeah im probably making it up... I found a post in the arencibia line thread that says he has the worst OBP in league history and has the 3rd worst wrc+ of all catchers (not 100% accurate but close enough). probably where I got the idea from and it just got embellished in my mind.

[KevinGregg]

OBP is important for scoring runs.

 

Of course it is. But strike outs are important for getting outs and no one is saying the brandon morrow was better than roy halladay in 2011 despite having significantly better k/9. The point is that there is more to a player than one stat, and ignoring JPA's power leads to a conclusion that isn't exactly true.

 

I should say that I am in no way defending him, and I am glad he's gone, but I just had the wrong idea about his offence last season because of my own ignorance. I thought it was pretty much the worst offensive season ever by any player, when really it wasn't exactly that bad. 8th worst or so ever by a catcher is about as extreme as you can make it sound. still god-awful, but not as bad as I thought.

[KevinGregg]

Yes, he gets those defensive runs for the positional adjustment. He pretty much gets those three runs just from standing there.

 

 

does positional adjustment really make sense? Consider a random guy who was super out of shape and basically the worst you could be at every position, why would he be worth more runs to a team playing the most important defensive position than playing left field?

[fireballW]

Of course it is. But strike outs are important for getting outs and no one is saying the brandon morrow was better than roy halladay in 2011 despite having significantly better k/9. The point is that there is more to a player than one stat, and ignoring JPA's power leads to a conclusion that isn't exactly true.

 

I should say that I am in no way defending him, and I am glad he's gone, but I just had the wrong idea about his offence last season because of my own ignorance. I thought it was pretty much the worst offensive season ever by any player, when really it wasn't exactly that bad. 8th worst or so ever by a catcher is about as extreme as you can make it sound. still god-awful, but not as bad as I thought.

 

JPA is terrible and not on our team. This discussion seems pretty over. No he was not the second worst player of all time if that is what you were actually wondering. He still deserves to be treated like he was though.

[KevinGregg]

JPA is terrible and not on our team. This discussion seems pretty over. No he was not the second worst player of all time if that is what you were actually wondering. He still deserves to be treated like he was though.

 

agreed

[Jays]

ignoring JPA's power leads to a conclusion that isn't exactly true.

 

21 homeruns don't mean much with a 57 wrc+ last year.

[Abomination]

does positional adjustment really make sense? Consider a random guy who was super out of shape and basically the worst you could be at every position, why would he be worth more runs to a team playing the most important defensive position than playing left field?

 

The guy in that scenario would play worse at the premium positions than he would at the non-premium ones (almost certainly), which would more than negate the positional bonus.

[TwistedLogic]

Of course it is. But strike outs are important for getting outs and no one is saying the brandon morrow was better than roy halladay in 2011 despite having significantly better k/9. The point is that there is more to a player than one stat, and ignoring JPA's power leads to a conclusion that isn't exactly true.

 

I should say that I am in no way defending him, and I am glad he's gone, but I just had the wrong idea about his offence last season because of my own ignorance. I thought it was pretty much the worst offensive season ever by any player, when really it wasn't exactly that bad. 8th worst or so ever by a catcher is about as extreme as you can make it sound. still god-awful, but not as bad as I thought.

 

I don't understand what you mean by "still god-awful, but not as bad as I thought". How bad did you think he was?

 

Being the 8th worst catcher in any given season is bad enough because you're in the bottom third at your own position, being beaten by the majority of your own peers.

 

We're talking the 9th worst single season by a catcher in 142 years of Major League history. We're not narrowing it down to the live-ball era, we're not even narrowing it down to the modern era.

 

When you get to the point where you're literally in the bottom 0.01%, it doesn't matter what place you fall, whether it's 30th worst, 9th worst or dead last. It's just completely arbitrary to differentiate or split hairs at that point.

 

If someone said that JP Arencibia had the worst catching season of all time, the revelation that it wasn't the absolute worst but the 9th worst makes absolutely no difference. It's "god awful", and it's bad as it can be.

[JugglingPitches]

Ok I will ask the question...if JPA is the second worst of all time, who was the worst?