The Twentieth Anniversary of a Very Special Season

Spelunking through the FanGraphs archives as one does, today I ran across Dave Cameron’s 2008 post entitled “The Worst Season in Recent History.” At the time, Dave found that in 2002, Neifi Perez was worth 3.5 wins below replacement for the Kansas City Royals.

Since then, changes to the way that WAR is calculated have revised Perez’s WAR for 2002 to -2.9, opening the door for some other contenders to the throne of worst season in recent history. Taking “recent” to mean the last 25 years, three seasons are virtually tied for that crown. Cristian Guzman in 1999, Jose Guillen in 1997, and David McCarty in 1993 each were worth 3.1 wins below replacement. But Guillen’s season holds a special place in my heart, and I’d like explore it a bit more as we come up on its twentieth anniversary.

The Pirates, having performed one of the more drastic teardowns that the major leagues will see, rushed the 20-year-old Guillen to the majors from A-ball and made him their opening-day right fielder. For the season, he had 526 plate appearances in 143 games, slashing .267/.300/.412. This was good for a wRC+ of 82, as his reasonable batting average and isolated power were vitiated by a 3.2% walk rate. His bat was worth 12.2 runs below average; acceptable from a middle infielder or catcher, not at all good from a corner outfielder.

But Guillen was not just any corner outfielder that year. According to the defensive metrics we have for 1997, he was one of the worst fielders there was, worth 29 fielding runs below average even for a right fielder. Combined with the positional adjustment of -5.7 runs for playing right field, this gave him an eye-popping -34.7 Def rating. This is the sixth-worst of the last 25 years, ahead of such luminaries as Adam Dunn and Brad Hawpe, as well as 36-year-old Dante Bichette and the tragedy that was Ken Griffey Jr.’s last full season in Cincinnati.

Dave’s article about Neifi Perez estimated that his negative value reduced Kansas City’s effective payroll from $47 million to $34 million. In 1997 a win above replacement was not worth as much; according to Lewie Pollis’ estimates, a win in 1997 was worth $1.65 million, giving Guillen a value of negative $5.115 million dollars. But…remember where I mentioned that the 1997 Pirates had performed a drastic teardown? Notoriously, in 1997 their entire opening-day roster was making less money than Albert Belle. According to Baseball Chronology’s numbers, over the course of the season the Pirates increased their total payroll to $15.12 million, but Guillen’s negative value ate up a full third of that.

You may also remember that, despite their scanty payroll, the 1997 “Freakshow” Pirates unexpectedly contended for the division crown late into the season. They finished the season 79-83, five games behind the Houston Astros. If they had been able to replace Guillen with the mythical replacement player, they would have finished 82-80, short of the division crown, but delaying the onset of their streak of losing seasons five more years, and saving long-suffering Pirate fans the brunt of many jokes about a streak that became almost old enough to drink.

If they had replaced Guillen with the players who actually wound up filling in in their outfield, they might well have won the division, as Mark Smith and Turner Ward combined for 2.7 Wins Above Replacement in 414 plate appearances. (Or, well, they could have given more plate appearances to some of the rest of the collection of below-replacement villains you can find at that link. And there’s no reason to think Smith and Ward would have continued to produce that well given more appearances. But let me dream.)

Guillen continued to frustrate despite his evident talent, moving to the Devil Rays, Diamondbacks, and Reds before breaking out for a few decent years at age 27. In all, the decision to promote him from A-ball before his 21st birthday was one of the poorer recent decisions.

Jose Guillen finished seventh in the 1997 NL Rookie of the Year voting. Tied for 11th, with one third-place vote, was Neifi Perez.