As AA callup Garrett Richards takes the mound against the Yankees tonight, hoping to eventually become one of the greatest Angels in history, I figured it'd be a fun time to build a short qucik and dirty list of the worst players in Halo lore. They were doing this with the Celtics on a Boston basketball blog this morning, and it seemed like a cool idea to steal.
My 5 submissions, after quickly checking my memories and the stats, are as follows:
1. Brandon Wood: No, I'm not kidding. Ausrin, TX native Brandon Wood has the lowest OBP and OPS of any player with 450+ ABs in all of Angel history. He hit .168 with a .197 OBP over his 173 games in a Halo uni. I'd say we gave him enough of a chance before we just gave up on him. Look, I was a big supporter of the guy, always begging the Angels to give him a fair shot, but when they finally did, he proved me wrong.
2. Jeff Mathis: We should count ourselves lucky to be able to see such historical type players in such a recent span of time. The Florida native was a two sport star in high school, and with every at bat he shows us that he should have picked football as his career path. Mathis' suckitude has been well documented across Halo Nation. Over nearly 400 games, Math hits .197 with a .259 OBP. Not as bad as Wood, but we never started Wood full time and quickly got rid of him. What's our excuse with Mathis?
3. Tom Egan: Might as well go out and grab an obscure one from the early days of the club. It seemed like it would be so good with Egan, being that he was a native of good ol' LA, but it didn't work out that way. Egan sucked. 238 games, 656 PAs, and a .186 batting average with a tiny .251 OBP. The highlight of this El Rancho High grad's career was catching Nolan Ryan's third career no-hitter. He probably went 0 for 4 with 4 Ks in that game. Boy, I wonder what his CERA was? He was a mistake to have around, and yet we kept him for 10 years. Doesn't inspire much hope for the second player on our list getting cut any time soon (he's already on year six).
4. Buck Rogers: Buck wasn't nearly as cool as his name would suggest. Another guy from the beginning of time, Buck played 8 seasons with the Angels, getting a chance in over 3,300 PAs and finished his Angel career with a pathetic .232 average. You're not going to believe this, but Buck was considered a top defensive catcher during his time, and was started despite having nothing going with the bat. Man, this is just turning into giant list of Jeff Mathis clones. Buck ended up having a much more successful managerial career, as you probably know.
5. Shea Hillenbrand: Easily a forgettable Angel, Shea brought us 200 ABs of misery during the 2007 season. He hit .254 and was well known as the rally killer for the Red Hats as he proved over and over again what a horrible acquisition he was. And it's weird, because he was alright overall in his career, but it just never happened in the OC. He also is one of many on the list of people who have played (and sucked) for both the Halos and the Trolley Dodgers. What a douche.
Honorable mentions: Steve Finley, Mo Vaughn, David Eckstein, and anyone you suggest.
What do you think? I know it's early, and he's still young, but I'm pretty sure that Jeff Mathis is going to win the crown when it's all said and done. Sorry, buddy.
Speaking of Jeff Mathis, he's catching our boy Garrett Richards (even though he isn't worthy to carry the kid's cleats) against the Yanks right now, and we're losing 0-3 in the 2nd after a big Curtis Granderson bomb. Keep focused and get this game back, boys.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
1 comments:
Have to go with Steve Finley, factoring in his contract and complete lack of production. Guys like Mo Vaughn at least had streaks where they contributed. Woody is horrible, but no huge sum of money was committed to him.
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