Mark Teixeira hit his 300th homered on Thursday. He’s a damn solid player, but I find it a little hard to believe that he’s already got 300 homers. There are 130 players that now have 300 homers. I’m not sure where Teixiera ranks on the list, but it’s definitely not near the botom of the list. So, I went on a quest to discover the worst players with 300 career homers. Eventually, I was able to narrow my list down to eight. Note: this list DOES take defense into account. Can’t just look at their offensive ability, right?
8. Dave Kingman
Kingman has the most career homers of anyone on this bottom eight list, with a total of 442. But the 18.0 WAR he posted over his 15 year career was horrible, thanks to some awful defense in the oufield and at first base. A quarter of his career offensive value was lost due to that defense, using bWAR. He posted just three over 3.0 bWAR in his career just once, that beign 1979 where he led the league with 48 homers and a .956 OPS. But the awful defense and relatively short career ended up doing him in.
7. Jermaine Dye
Another player who was terrible on defense, Dye had one great season, one good one, and a bunch that hovered around the league average offensively. Perhaps more maddening about Dye was that he played in the late-90s and 2000s, where salaries were inflated. As a result, he made nearly $75 million dollars in his career. That’s $75 million dollars for 17.6 bWAR. He wanted to play in 2010, but no team would be willing to bite on his contract demands. He would eventually retire.
6. Jeromy Burnitz
Burnitz was a quintessential Moneyball player before the book really took off. He had monumental power, walked a lot, hit for a low average, and played below average defense. He didn’t take nearly as much money over his career as Dye, but infected seven teams with his play over the years, second most on this list. The thing about Burnitz was that despite his 315 career homers, he finished in the league’s top ten just twice in his career. He was a typical hitter in the steroid era, and at the end of the day, there’s nothing to make him stand out from the rest of the pack.
5. Joe Carter
Ah yes, Joe Carter…famous for his walk-off homer in the 1993 World Series and a high RBI total (despite the fact that RBIs are a pretty meaningless, contextual stat). After the strike hit in 1994, Carter fell off a cliff and never posted an above average OPS in his career. He walked in only 6.2% of his plate appearances, and was pretty dire defensively. Nearly a third of his career offensive value was killed off by his defense.
4. Vinny Castilla
As a Braves fan, Vinny Castilla brings me extra pain, since Chipper Jones voluntarily moved to left field in order for Castilla to join the Braves and provide average production at the hot corner. Jones’ career has never been the same. But anyway, Castilla. He’s the only player on this list with a below average OPS (his OPS+ is 95, meaning that over his career, his OPS was 5% worse than the league average). As a member of the Colorado Rockies, from 1993 to 1999, Castilla had an .872 OPS. From 2000 to 2006, his OPS was .719…and that includes one more season in Denver. He never hit more than 25 homers in a season outside of Colorado. Unlike everyone else on this list, Castilla’s value was actually boosted by his defense. If he was a bad defensive player, he’d probably be at the top of the list.
3. Cecil Fielder
In 1990 and 1991, Fielder hit 95 homers, OPSed .912, and was the runner up in the AL MVP voting in both seasons. He hit 224 homers in the other 11 seasons of his career, not including his time in Japan. Due to his size, Fielder was mainly a DH over his career, splitting time about 50/50 with first base once he returned to the States with the Tigers. He was done as an every day player, and was out of the majors after his age 34 season. His son Prince is already a better player than Cecil ever was.
2. Richie Sexson
Richie Sexson had an interesting career, being traded in two rather bulky deals twice (including an absolute heist on the Diamondbacks by the Brewers in December 2003), and signing only one free agent contract. Of course, that one contract was for $53 million dollars. Unfortunately, he went to the hitter’s hellhole that is Safeco field, He peaked in his Mariners debut in 2005, before declining each year and being straight up released in 2008 with money still left on his deal. His career was done at 33. Sexson had two above average seasons, and everything else was just average or worse. His lanky frame made him an awkward first baseman, and he was somehow still trotted out there for his whole career. A move to DH may have helped him prolong at least another year out of his career.
1. Ruben Sierra
He played for nine teams, tallied 2100 career hits and 300 homers, and somehow put up a bWAR for his career of only 13.6 over his 20 seasons. He only had one above average season as hitter after he turned 29, yet somehow stuck around for another 11 seasons. He was a part-time player over most of those 11 seasons, but that was still probably too much. Early in his career, he was on track to be a fantastic player. But when he fell off, he fell off. 86 homers in the last 11 seasons of his career, and that’s a wrap for him.
