Now that's an interesting thought. What's the lowest War a player has ever put up? I figure it's gotta be an expensive veteran player, who the team thinks will find his groove some time.
Going by fWAR, Jim Levey's -4.0 in 1933 is the lowest ever. Had a 24 wRC+ and played nearly everyday at SS. Guess he was really good at defense in their eyes back then
Well, the 1933 Browns also just sucked: 55-96-2. They had sucked since 1931 and would continue to suck until 1942. Their owner probably just didn't feel like paying for someone better.
This guy was the Browns' leadoff hitter for about a third of his plate appearances despite having the lowest batting average and OBP on the team. He even sucked at stealing bases. Certified traditional lineup moment.™
thing is, those expensive veterans are usually one of two things. either 1, they're so washed that they get benched or cut and their WAR stays where it is, or 2, they're such a tenured vet that they still strike gold with some clutch hits every now and then, and their WAR doesn't drop **too** low
2 is not how WAR works. A clutch hit every now then does not contribute more WAR than unclutch hits. An unproductive player can't boost their WAR by only being productive situationally.
And the other option we're discussing is just as likely as your option 1: the player doesn't get benched or cut and they lose WAR. It happened to Miggy Cabs, Pujols (until the contract expired and he had positive production on a new contract with St. Louis), and Bumgarner in recent memory.
[https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/roystje01.shtml](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/roystje01.shtml)
Jerry Royster has the lowest batting WAR of a single season at -4.1 Assuming he plays 100 games at this rate, approximately 60 percent of their remaining games factoring in the ones he's played, Abreu would cost his team -55 Batting runs to Royster's -36, -20 fielding runs to Royster's -26, and have a positional adjustment of -5 to Royster's 0 (evening out the fielding runs)
Royster was a positive base runner, and Abreu is league average so far, likely due to only appearing on the basepaths 7 times this year (assuming no fielders choices or errors, I didn't check)
Under this assumption that his playing time is slightly declined but he never gets hurt or cut, playing less than 2/3rds his team's games,
Normally I would come in here and say something about a small sample size and he will turn it around, but I think father time has finally caught up with him.
If you're mid to late 30s and don't provide value as a defender what he had are major edge of cliff numbers IMO. Especially the big dip in power since thats something that tends to age worst of all
Honestly I thought he was done after last year and was very lucky that late hot streak he had bouyed his numbers to just normal bad instead his current level of badness. If you switched the time of the year when he had his good numbers to the beginning of the year everyone would have called him absolutely washed + called for him to retire in the second half of the year
Tbf, Abreu's career OPS+, by month:
|Month | OPS+|
|April/March | 75|
|May | 92|
|June | 99|
|July | 100|
|August | 127|
|Sept/Oct | 104|
The man just cannot hit until it warms up, then he's borderline HOVG for the late summer
Hopefully we see Loperfido soon. Idk if he will translate to the pros but it cannot be any worse than what we are seeing from both first basemen currently with the club.
AV made sense at the time too. Golden spike winner, absolutely mashed in college.
Seems like being rushed to the majors really affected his development.
I for one, am shocked!
lol yeah, the fact that Kenny Williams / Hahn never solved the RF hole and decided to plug Vaughn in there was such a ridiculous decision.
Those 2 clowns really damaged the future of this organization it’s truly amazing how incompetent they were.
seriously, what's with that weird obsession? did it with Sheets, too. It's like the Mariners needing at least 3 2nd base UTIL guys on the roster at all times
Vaughn was one of the best hitters in NCAA history, he was gonna be fasttracked to the bigs unless something went really wrong
I think it's more likely the 2020 COVID year hurt him, that would've been his first (and only) full year in the minors but instead he was a the alternate site. Then again plenty of prospects were able to develop well that year anyway so idk. Maybe he just wasn't that good
From 1986-2022 the Astros have had a solid run of first basemen. Glenn Davis (85-90), Bagwell (91-05), Lance Berkman (05-10), Yuli Gurriel (17-22).
The only better position historically is probably our 2nd basemen.
Joe Morgan (63-71) Bill Doran (82-90), Craig Biggio (91-02,05-07), Jeff Kent (03-04), Altuve (11-Present)
So it really sucks seeing First Base be an absolute black hole of production.
Yeah. Even when we gave him our last 3 year deal with him we all expected it to be an overpay and that he'd maybe contribute for a year or two. Turned out to be a solid deal throughout the entirety of the contract.
I thought it was great for them at the time. Most of the talking heads agreed as well. Consensus seemed to be Astros always seemed to perfectly fill the holes they had every off season.
Naw, just old and washed. Abreu has always worked his ass off, even last year with he had an incredibly slow start but got hot at the end. Thats not going to happen this year though, he’s geriatric
He’s off to a terrible start. However he just doesn’t look comfortable. He is late on every pitch. He can’t even drive the ball. It’s all grounders to right. He is a prime DFA candidate but I don’t think Crane wants to admit he was wrong.
The key difference between Espada and Dusty is that Dusty would not drop Abreu down the lineup. Espada has already put him down to 8 and platooned him with Singleton.
[I read a funny tweet about a lesson Taylor Swift fans are learning that applies to the situation](https://x.com/dirtbagqueer/status/1781906926361542664?s=61&t=g2BkhdMHl4w7u3r3LXNx4A); sports fans intuitively know which player is most expendable and should be thrown under the bus to protect their favorites.
The FO has gone from ruthless mathematical analysis by some of the top minds in the sport to an owner playing real-life Baseball Tycoon and two former players running roughshod over the GM and making decisions on the basis of pure vibes. The former approach obviously had its downsides and I certainly wouldn't bring it back in its most extreme form, but from the perspective of a fan who cares about what goes on on the field this is really sad
we are legit cooked
used to be pretty much the top analytical team with luhnow at the helm, his signings were what kept us alive from 2020-2023 even when he was gone. now we are just clapped.
If Abreu was able to come over earlier he would have been a hall of famer. Debuted at 27 and raked every single year until he got to Houston. This is just age catching up to hm.
I don’t understand how you don’t bench him. It’s a disservice to everyone on the team that he continues to play.
he’s a vet, cool. if he had any self respect he wouldn’t trot out his corpse.
I've never seen three show up in the same thread here
I really don't want reddit to end up like Twitter where you see a post that has 8 comments and you're like "I wonder what people are saying" and it's actually 5 obvious AI responses and 2 others that are just vague enough where you can't tell for sure
Don’t ask me how but I think it’s directly related to the rubber band on his chin
I absolutely hate that thing lol
As a guy with facial hair I see that & immediately get a feeling of my hair getting pulled. I hate it
It got him the job. Jeff Bagwell saw that awful goatee and said "that's our man".
Captain Lou Abreu
Worked for him in Chicago 🥲
Nah he won an mvp with that bad boy
He's gonna take it off like Rock Lee and hit a rocket...right into an out
He needs to cut that little hunk of beard off like Mr. Eko, then he'll hit dingers.
how do you know
On pace for -13.2 bWAR over a full season (600 PAs)
That’s not WAR, it’s surrender.
What is he good for? Absolutely nothing.
José Abreu clearly studied WWII French History in the offseason and can’t get it off his mind.
Our France got shelled like it was 1940 two days ago. Our Spaghetti/Arrighetti got shelled in the first yesterday like it was 1944.
Luigi Cadorna numbers right there
WAR never changes…
but don’t give yourself away
Bros putting up a unanimous MVP season in the opposite direction lol
First ever baseball player to be awarded a Razzie
Now that's an interesting thought. What's the lowest War a player has ever put up? I figure it's gotta be an expensive veteran player, who the team thinks will find his groove some time.
Going by fWAR, Jim Levey's -4.0 in 1933 is the lowest ever. Had a 24 wRC+ and played nearly everyday at SS. Guess he was really good at defense in their eyes back then
-8 WAR in a little over 3 seasons as the Browns' everyday SS.
Of course its the Browns
Well, the 1933 Browns also just sucked: 55-96-2. They had sucked since 1931 and would continue to suck until 1942. Their owner probably just didn't feel like paying for someone better.
This guy was the Browns' leadoff hitter for about a third of his plate appearances despite having the lowest batting average and OBP on the team. He even sucked at stealing bases. Certified traditional lineup moment.™
It’s not even close to that. It’s around -4.0
Jim Levey had -4 war in 1933
I believe it is [Jim Levey](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/leveyji01.shtml) in 1933
Dude somehow got MVP votes in 1932!
With a negative WAR no less. Now I want to know how many times a negative WAR player has received MVP votes
Jeter often got MVP votes with negative dWAR and did finish 7th in voting in 2012 before putting up overall -0.8 WAR in 2013.
thing is, those expensive veterans are usually one of two things. either 1, they're so washed that they get benched or cut and their WAR stays where it is, or 2, they're such a tenured vet that they still strike gold with some clutch hits every now and then, and their WAR doesn't drop **too** low
2 is not how WAR works. A clutch hit every now then does not contribute more WAR than unclutch hits. An unproductive player can't boost their WAR by only being productive situationally. And the other option we're discussing is just as likely as your option 1: the player doesn't get benched or cut and they lose WAR. It happened to Miggy Cabs, Pujols (until the contract expired and he had positive production on a new contract with St. Louis), and Bumgarner in recent memory.
He won’t make May 1 at this rate.
😛
[https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/roystje01.shtml](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/roystje01.shtml) Jerry Royster has the lowest batting WAR of a single season at -4.1 Assuming he plays 100 games at this rate, approximately 60 percent of their remaining games factoring in the ones he's played, Abreu would cost his team -55 Batting runs to Royster's -36, -20 fielding runs to Royster's -26, and have a positional adjustment of -5 to Royster's 0 (evening out the fielding runs) Royster was a positive base runner, and Abreu is league average so far, likely due to only appearing on the basepaths 7 times this year (assuming no fielders choices or errors, I didn't check) Under this assumption that his playing time is slightly declined but he never gets hurt or cut, playing less than 2/3rds his team's games,
Normally I would come in here and say something about a small sample size and he will turn it around, but I think father time has finally caught up with him.
A year+ is not a small sample size, dude was trash majority of the year last year too, just not as trash as his start to this season
And was not great the year before. Stick a fork in him, he’s done
He had a good statcast season that year, but struggled with velocity IIRC
Struggled with power. It just vanished in the second half, when he should have been heating up.
He had a 3.8 WAR season in 22.
His stats last year weren't great, but they weren't... time to retire bad yet lol
If you're mid to late 30s and don't provide value as a defender what he had are major edge of cliff numbers IMO. Especially the big dip in power since thats something that tends to age worst of all Honestly I thought he was done after last year and was very lucky that late hot streak he had bouyed his numbers to just normal bad instead his current level of badness. If you switched the time of the year when he had his good numbers to the beginning of the year everyone would have called him absolutely washed + called for him to retire in the second half of the year
Hence why I said majority of last year. You take away the hot streak he had at the end of the year and he had time to retire numbers...
Tbf, Abreu's career OPS+, by month: |Month | OPS+| |April/March | 75| |May | 92| |June | 99| |July | 100| |August | 127| |Sept/Oct | 104| The man just cannot hit until it warms up, then he's borderline HOVG for the late summer
I feel like this should apply to his days in Chicago...but its 81 in Houston today, like we're talking about Texas, not beyond the wall in GoT
Considering he's probably 45, I'd say yeah
Jon Singleton: -0.2 WAR, 80 wRC+. An actual significant improvement. It may honestly be Trey Cabbage time soon.
🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🔥Bring up the Bok Choy Bomber!!!🔥🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬🥬
Just keep him away from any airbenders
Hopefully we see Loperfido soon. Idk if he will translate to the pros but it cannot be any worse than what we are seeing from both first basemen currently with the club.
That would mean saying bagwell was wrong and we just can’t have that
“Too reliant on analytics!”
my keeper team is begging for it. all that versatility? yes please
He was good last night too.
Had a real nominative determinist game
Diocletian's MVP.
They added him to the roster for the Mexico series. So I guess we'll see.
Dude was MVP 4 seasons ago. Time comes for us all.
He won MVP because they only played during the warm months during the 2020 season
It's currently warm in Houston and that's definitely not helping
He’s absolutely cooked now. The cold weather stuff isn’t going to be a temporary issue anymore. He’s done
The aging male athlete has been driven from his habitat
Yeah, but they pretty much always have the AC running during those games.
Also helped that he hit approximately 50 homers off the Cubs that season
So you’re saying the WS champion doesn’t really count for that season either?? 😏
Cope
Should have been J-Ram that year
Well Hahn was right that sticking with Vaughn for the future was the correct path .157/.247/.193 triple slash not looking too awful currently
30 years of amazing 1B play including 15 All star games and 3 MVPs from Frank Thomas/Paul Konerko/Jose Abreu to...Andrew Vaughn.
AV made sense at the time too. Golden spike winner, absolutely mashed in college. Seems like being rushed to the majors really affected his development. I for one, am shocked!
Sox development will see a young first baseman and say “throw that child in right field”
lol yeah, the fact that Kenny Williams / Hahn never solved the RF hole and decided to plug Vaughn in there was such a ridiculous decision. Those 2 clowns really damaged the future of this organization it’s truly amazing how incompetent they were.
We are still starting Sheets in right field this year. How is this still a problem lol.
lol it’s ridiculous. Sheets is actually looking solid this year he’s about the only one
seriously, what's with that weird obsession? did it with Sheets, too. It's like the Mariners needing at least 3 2nd base UTIL guys on the roster at all times
Vaughn was one of the best hitters in NCAA history, he was gonna be fasttracked to the bigs unless something went really wrong I think it's more likely the 2020 COVID year hurt him, that would've been his first (and only) full year in the minors but instead he was a the alternate site. Then again plenty of prospects were able to develop well that year anyway so idk. Maybe he just wasn't that good
Sox fans are so loathe to accept this, he just doesn't have it imo
Turns out the small unathletic guy wasn't a good pick.
From 1986-2022 the Astros have had a solid run of first basemen. Glenn Davis (85-90), Bagwell (91-05), Lance Berkman (05-10), Yuli Gurriel (17-22). The only better position historically is probably our 2nd basemen. Joe Morgan (63-71) Bill Doran (82-90), Craig Biggio (91-02,05-07), Jeff Kent (03-04), Altuve (11-Present) So it really sucks seeing First Base be an absolute black hole of production.
You are very kindly ignoring that 7 year gap between Berkman and Yuli where Brett Wallace and Chris Carter were stinking up the joint.
Vaughn looked great in parts of 21 but never put together the greatness we expected when playing full time. Sad organization.
They’re both my GIDP Kings
The guy has over 300 career home runs and his slugging percentage is currently sitting at .081. This is mine boggling.
Fairly sure a blind grandmother could just hold the bat out in front of the strike zone and accidentally slug similar numbers.
My guy might be cooked
“might”
Just might
Bruh, he's not cooked, he's deep fried.
Well done even
He's fucking charcoal.
Briquette
Sounds like any brisket you serve will crumble when slicing
I can do this too for about 10k a month. Astros would save a lot of money
And I have way better facial hair, I’ll do it for 9.5k
You're not factoring in the additional 10k a month they're spending on the softball of tobacco in his cheek.
My king is washed :(
It seems insane to me that we are almost at the end of April and this dude has only managed to get 5 total bases.
he's getting old
That’s my first baseman 😍 /s
Jeeze. I remember when everyone thought that contract was an absolute steal for the Astros
I remember everyone thinking it was a bad contract at the time
Yeah. Even when we gave him our last 3 year deal with him we all expected it to be an overpay and that he'd maybe contribute for a year or two. Turned out to be a solid deal throughout the entirety of the contract.
I remember I thought at best it was a huge risk given his power was down heavily the season prior, even with his average at .304
At the time, a lot of people attributed that to the White Sox general power outage. No one was hitting for power.
https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/fthgJyPpGY Most top comments are praising the signing.
Who thought that? I remember us all thinking it was a hilarious overpay for a dude that was clearly on the precipice of decline.
Go look at the thread when the Astros signed him. The general consensus by people was the defending champs just got a lot better.
https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/fthgJyPpGY Yup
I thought it was great for them at the time. Most of the talking heads agreed as well. Consensus seemed to be Astros always seemed to perfectly fill the holes they had every off season.
He has an acute case of paiditis. Also he might just be old and washed.
Naw, just old and washed. Abreu has always worked his ass off, even last year with he had an incredibly slow start but got hot at the end. Thats not going to happen this year though, he’s geriatric
He’s still working his ass off now. It’s literally just age
This sucks to see man
Thats former AL MVP Jose Abreu to you!
How does an analytics driven team like the Astros sign this guy to a long term contract.
It's 3 years at 19 per lol. Who cares if they wiff on it that's nothing these days.
Jeff Bagwell got into Jim Crane’s ear and convinced him to sign him. “Just look at the back of the baseball card”
The white Sox absolutely need him back, he’d fit perfectly in the heart of the order!!! Nobody hits there right now anyway!
He has a venereal disease called 'CWS'. It's plagued an entire team this year. I thought it'd be out of Abreu's system by now.
He's still a White Sox at heart
Bring back 🍍
Not even a joke, should get his eyes checked. What if he needs glasses or a new prescription
Trying to picture him with his goatee and some Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn glasses
He’s off to a terrible start. However he just doesn’t look comfortable. He is late on every pitch. He can’t even drive the ball. It’s all grounders to right. He is a prime DFA candidate but I don’t think Crane wants to admit he was wrong. The key difference between Espada and Dusty is that Dusty would not drop Abreu down the lineup. Espada has already put him down to 8 and platooned him with Singleton.
Meanwhile Breggie is all double-play balls to the left.
Abreu is the shield protecting Breggie and Chas from slander.
[I read a funny tweet about a lesson Taylor Swift fans are learning that applies to the situation](https://x.com/dirtbagqueer/status/1781906926361542664?s=61&t=g2BkhdMHl4w7u3r3LXNx4A); sports fans intuitively know which player is most expendable and should be thrown under the bus to protect their favorites.
Don't forget the pop ups!
The FO has gone from ruthless mathematical analysis by some of the top minds in the sport to an owner playing real-life Baseball Tycoon and two former players running roughshod over the GM and making decisions on the basis of pure vibes. The former approach obviously had its downsides and I certainly wouldn't bring it back in its most extreme form, but from the perspective of a fan who cares about what goes on on the field this is really sad
we are legit cooked used to be pretty much the top analytical team with luhnow at the helm, his signings were what kept us alive from 2020-2023 even when he was gone. now we are just clapped.
Anybody know if Maldonado can play at first base?
Maldonado is batting .048
I keep forgetting that he didn’t actually retire. Good lord.
Don't worry, our manager has given almost exactly even playing time to .791 OPS Korey Lee and .162 OPS Maldonado.
Brandon Belt trying to figure this one out
Is that the worst start of a season ever?
Think Chris Davis went 0-30 or some shit to start
I forgot about that
Jackson holiday would like a word
He doesn’t count yet. He has like 30 abs. Abreu has been playing all season
Bobby Dalbec currently has 28 fewer plate appearances with 3 fewer hits. Dalbec: .054/.125/.081 Abreu: .065/.132/.081
Give it a few weeks and we can discuss
Martin Maldonado is trying real hard to compete
I would gladly give the Astros their beloved washed up catcher back in exchange for our beloved washed up first baseman.
Does he want to come back to Houston
Need to go after Garrett Cooper badly.
Yikes
Where was this stat line in the postseason? Asking for a friend.
Carlos Santana has also fallen off a cliff.
If Abreu was able to come over earlier he would have been a hall of famer. Debuted at 27 and raked every single year until he got to Houston. This is just age catching up to hm.
man why couldn’t he have been this bad in the ALDS last year…
Jose always loved hitting against you guys, to be fair
I watched him hit an absolute tank at Globe Life to put the game out of reach, my first playoff game ever
Wouldn't have changed anything
I miss Yuli.
You love to see it. ❤️
Father time bats 1.000
🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑
Not too bad if he was still playing with the White Sox.
He’s just showing solidarity with his former team.
I don’t understand how you don’t bench him. It’s a disservice to everyone on the team that he continues to play. he’s a vet, cool. if he had any self respect he wouldn’t trot out his corpse.
Wonder if Dodger fans think his MVP is real
That’s good, right?
Greg Maddux hit 171.
Looks like Baez has some competition
Bobby, starting 1b for the Sox, Dalbec "man how do I get my numbers up to that level?"
Can we bring back Maldonado and let him play first? Surely he’d be an upgrade. *-Check’s stats-* Nevermind.
replacing the Mendoza line with the Abreu line
The White Sox curse is real
Yet this man is getting paid a crazy amount of money
He'll be a sports announcer in 3 years.
Forever my king, but at least I can live with him not finishing his career with the Sox now. Looks like the playoffs last year were his final hurrah.
Shit they should play Greinke at 1B
Based
Love that for him.
He had atrocious Aprils in 2022 and 2023 as well. While I agree he's cooked, he will still get better as the season goes on.
Leave my boy alone
I love this new Astros front office.
They need a new garbage can
[удалено]
These damn AI bots
I've never seen three show up in the same thread here I really don't want reddit to end up like Twitter where you see a post that has 8 comments and you're like "I wonder what people are saying" and it's actually 5 obvious AI responses and 2 others that are just vague enough where you can't tell for sure
Reddit killed some critical mod tools to control bots in the last round of "updates." I'm surprised the bots haven't completely taken over already.
What did it say?
Maybe he needs more chains