Gotta love Jayson Stark. He's got a posting about the dubious achievements of the Aughts. What jumped out at me is how many times Livan Hernandez's name appears:
MOST LOSSES: Livan Hernandez (112), but Javier Vazquez is six back if Livan doesn't find work.
MOST HITS ALLOWED: Livan Hernandez (2,230), meaning Livan has given up 500 more hits in the '00s than Derek Jeter has gotten.
MOST RUNS ALLOWED: Livan again (1,053), which means the only player in baseball who has scored more runs in the '00s than Hernandez has allowed is A-Rod (1,112).
Oh yeah, Livan's earned over $50 million during his career, $45.8m of that was "earned" during the 00's. Professional ballclubs saw fit to lavish Livan with millions to pitch well below league average.
No, really.
At least Fat Sidney Ponson only "earned" about $23m over that same time frame. Wow, I guess I would rather have had Fat Sid for half the price of Livan. Who woulda thunk THAT?
[And if you look at both Ponson's and Livan's B-R profiles, you will see that the player they each most closely resemble during their age 26 and 27 years is... EACH OTHER! Priceless!]
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"LOWEST BATTING AVG. (4,000 PLATE APPEARANCES): Brad Ausmus (.243), with Adam Dunn (.247) about the only threat."
Not that Stark isn't one of the few reasons to go to ESPN.com these days, but some context would have been nice there. Because there's no flipping a coin to decide who you'd rather have on your team.
Hmm.
"LOWEST SLUGGING PCT. (4,000 PA): Brad Ausmus (.326)."
So does that mean, like, that Ausmus sucks?
Whining about context aside, if Stark's columns like these were as long as the phone book, I would still read them.
Aren't inning eaters great? Maybe not, if that's not all they are eating.
Indeed, Livan is also eating Burger King cheeseburgers. I'd like to see how he stacks up in IP for the decade, though--some of his leadership in these stats can be attributed to his working so many innings.
(Yes, I am defending Livan Hernandez. I think he's awesome.)
See, this is misleading. If I want bad -- soul-crushing, lifeforce-sapping bad -- I can think of others. To be bad in the counting stats like Livan is means that you have to walk that fine line between serviceable and terrible. Too far in one direction and you're not that bad; too far in the other, and you don't have a job.
Hernandez has sucked just a hair less than he would have had to in order to find himself out of work. On some strange level I almost respect that. I stand nearly in awe.
Good point, Craig. I've been doing that my whole career, without the big payoff like Livan.
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