All Bat, No Glove

As I laid in bed last night, unable to sleep, I decided to once again peruse the single season FanGraphs Leaders board. Not for any particular reason, but once there I found how good and bad Matt Kemp is. His offense has been crazy good, as I'm sure you're well aware, but good lord, his defense has been "cover your eyes bad."

Since the All Star Game is approaching, I decided to make the most prolific offensive and most inept defense possible. All data is from qualified players from this year, so give me a little leeway in the interpretations of numbers. I'll be using wRC for offense, and UZR/150 for defense. This will give you a rough idea of how many runs each player has created and cost his team. Catchers I'll only be using DRS, because quantifying defense is hard enough for position players, let alone catchers.

Here is the AL "All Bat, No Glove" starting 8:

1B - Miguel Cabrera
wRC: 71.2, 2nd most created, behind only Adrian Gonzalez
UZR/150: -12.1, the worst by more than 10 runs. Thats a win. His WAR just lost 1.0 due to defense...in half a season. Unreal.
No surprise here. A fackin gorgeous wRC already, his defense is rated so poorly I almost feel bad for making fun of it. Almost. I mean wow. That's almost the penalty of DHing right there in WAR.

2B - Robinson Cano
wRC: 54.8,3rd most created
UZR/150: -5.3, the worst by 5+ runs
I know Orlando Cabrera rates lower defensively, but this isn't a list of no bat, no glove. Can't say I'm too shocked to see the "Gold Glover" here. I hate that award. But that's a post for another day.

SS - Asdrubal Cabrera
wRC: 57.4, the most runs created by a comfortable 6
UZR/150: -4.1, second most runs lost
This comes a pretty big surprise. Everyone knows what a hellova year Asdrubal is having at the dish, but I never viewed him as that bad of a defensive shortstop. I looked up his career numbers and sure enough, he's been bad his whole career there. Don't worry, BBTN still gives him web gems. And yes, any other year, Jeter would be the run away at this spot. Normally he's at least good at one part of baseball, but not this year!

3B - Mark Reynolds
wRC: 51.4, 2nd most created
UZR/150: -32.7, hands down the most lost, by a mind blowing 20.6 runs!
The words you're looking for are spilled on the floor from when your jaw dropped. At least that's what happened to me. That is so unimaginably bad that words elude me. I have to move on. otherwise my head might explode.

RF - Brennan Boesch*
wRC: 51.7, 3rd most created
UZR/150: -6.7, second most lost
*So I'm kind of cheating here. Boesch has spent the majority of his time in RF, but almost as much in LF. I was just shocked to see his name as the 3rd most wRC in the AL, behind the monster Joey Bats and 3 True Out Quentins.

CF - Adam Jones
wRC: 46.5, 4th most created
UZR/150: -18.8, most lost
He gets lost in the AL East sometimes, but this guy can really stick. And since he plays in the AL East, non Yankee or Sawx division, we're done talking about him. At least he got more words here than ESPN has given the O's all season! At least that's what a little blue bird told me...poor Torono. Also, between this guy "fielding" Center, and that disaster at 3B, I can't believe the O's pitchers haven't gone on strike yet. And now the O's might hire me for all this ink I'm giving them!

LF - Josh Willingham*
wRC: 29.3, 8th most
UZR/150: -16.3, 2nd most lost.
*Manipulated the numbers a bit here too. He doesn't quite qualify, but I've seen enough of him attempting to play LF that I'm sticking him here. And yes, that isn't a typo. He hasn't even created 30 runs yet. I swear I hate being an A's fan sometimes.

C - Kurt Suzuki*
wRC: 25.0, 6th most
DRS: -3, 2nd most in the AL
*Fucking catchers, they only play 4 times a week, if that. They're all split timing and platooning. I had to put someone here, just like my A's had to put someone in the All Star game. *sigh*

This AL team would put up 12 runs a game, and give up 10. I think this should be the the starting 8 for the ASG. The best thing about a format like this would be that neither pitcher would be happy about! And isn't that what the ASG is all about? Making sure no one is happy, just all equally angry?

The NL lineup will be posted tomorrow! I think I'm going to optimize the lineups, then figure out which team would score and give up more runs. And yes, this is entertaining to me.