You Know They’re Bad. They’re Nationwide.

As we hurtle into what promises to be a dramatic postseason, let’s pause a few moments to remember the rake-steppers, face-planters, and prat-fallers who helped make others’ excellence possible. Far from being stars, these players are the space debris that clogged several MLB rosters this year. So without further ado, here is your All Kuiper Belt team for 2015 (and I don’t mean Duane Kuiper). The team features, if that’s the word, the worst qualifying hitter at each position, and the five worst qualifying starting pitchers, by fWAR.

Catcher: Jason Castro, .222/.286./.386, 1.2 WAR

By far the best player on this ignominious team, Castro is here in part because only nine catchers qualified for the batting title. FanGraphs had this to say in Castro’s pre-season player profile:

Castro turns 27 in June, and there’s not much to suggest regression in his future.

Well, not exactly. This year Castro was durable by catcher standards, but he regressed severely, and you could in fact have seen it coming. A stratospheric .351 BABIP propelled Castro’s breakout year in 2013. This season it sank to .293, not far from his carer mark of .307.  Neither as good as he was in 2013, nor as bad as he was this year, Castro should be a solid, above-average backstop, but always be wary of balls in play bearing gifts.

First Base: Ryan Howard, .222/.310/.380, -0.3 WAR

One of the best Baseball Prospectus player notes ever was for Ryan Howard this year. It consisted of just four words: “We told you so.” Howard’s career has become a coal seam fire, and he still has 2 years left on his deal before what will certainly be a $10 million buyout in 2017. Howard will be a pallbearer at the funeral for Ruben Amaro Jr.’s GM career.

Second Base: Aaron Hill, .244/.287/.367, -0.7 WAR

Hill wasn’t the worst Snake this year; that dishonor goes to Mark Trumbo, who managed to cram -1.3 WAR into just 355 plate appearances. There wasn’t a moist eye in the house when Kevin Towers lost his job, but The Gunslinger won the draw that sent Kelly Johnson to the Blue Jays for Hill in late 2011. Since then, Hill has amassed 6.6 WAR, while Johnson has only put up 1.7.

Third Base: Matt Dominguez, .215/.256/.330, -1.7 WAR

The second Astro on this list, Dominguez is here on the merits. Regressing plate discipline and an oddly consistent but abysmal BABIP have conspired to deprive Dominguez of any run production value. Known in his prospect days for his glove, Dominguez’ UZR is -8.7; only Lonnie Chisenhall had a worse rating at third. Dominguez is only 26, but then again, so was Kevin Orie in his last full major league season.

Shortstop: Derek Jeter, .256/.304/.313, -0.3 WAR

I don’t know about you. I always thought the Bob Sheppard thing was kind of creepy.

Left Field: Domonic Brown, .235./.285/.349, -1.7 WAR

One of the more fascinating what-ifs in baseball is what if Domonic Brown had come up with a different organization.  During most of his time in the Phillies organization, manager and front office were much more vocal about what he couldn’t do than what he could. Left to his own devices at last this year, Brown’s power disappeared. His HR/FB rate of 8.1% is 18th out of 19 qualifying left fielders, meaning that his power surge last year is looking more like a fluke than a step forward.

Center Field: B.J. Upton, .208/.287/.333, 0.4 WAR

This near replacement-level guy made $13.45 million this year, which is the kind of fact that gets GMs fired. He’s actually improved over last year, but every rate stat continues to be worse than his career averages. His K rate of 29.9% is the second worst of his career, and the worst of any qualifying center fielder.

Right Fielder: Jay Bruce, .217/.281/.374, -1.3 WAR

Bruce had surgery for a torn meniscus in his knee in early May and was never the same. Except that’s not true. He came back in June and raked to the tune of an .892 OPS, but then completely fell apart. I have to wonder if fatigue in the knee had something to do with it. For his career Bruce has almost exactly the same number of doubles (181) as homers (182). From July to season’s end, he hit 11 HRs, but just 4 doubles, which suggests he was having trouble getting extra bases without putting the ball in somebody’s beer. Bruce is generally a solid defender, but had a UZR of -8.4 this year, by far the worst of his career, which also suggests he was not fully mobile for much of the season. Bruce is the most likely player on this list to be an All-Star next year.

Designated Hitter: Billy Butler, .271./.323/.379, -0.3 WAR

Four of the seven Royals hitters who qualified for the batting title are home grown. Only one of them, Alex Gordon, had a positive wRC+ (indeed, Gordon is the only such qualifying hitter on the team, period). Butler, Hosmer, and Moustakas were going to be part of the the core of the next Royals playoff team. Instead, the Royals have made the playoffs this year largely despite these guys. Butler’s ISO continued to erode this year, and his walks, which spiked last year, plunged into the root cellar in 2014. These are hard times for DHs, slow and massive beasts whom evolution is passing by, and Butler’s mediocre wRC+ of 97 is just two points off the national average. But if the Royals are going to build a team to get past the Coin Flip Game, they will need to upgrade at this position. Butler is the only player on this list on a playoff team.

Pitchers (ERA/FIP, WAR):

Eric Stults, 4.30/4.63, -0.6 WAR

Sproingggggg! Regression to the mean was mean to Stults this year, as his FIP rocketed from 3.53 to 4.63, or 40 points over his career number.  The gopher ball killed him, no mean feet in cavernous Petco. The Pads won’t offer him arbitration, so he’ll look to take his Veteran Self elsewhere. He won’t be this bad again, but at 34 he may not get the chance to prove it.

Roberto Hernandez, 4.10/4.85, -0.5 WAR

Forced in 2012 to change his name by the International Fausto Carmona Association, whose members no longer wanted to be associated with him.

Chris Young, 3.65/5.02, 0.2 WAR

It’s tough to say goodbye. Young hasn’t been an effective starter since 2007, but he grimly soldiers on, desperately searching for signs of pitching life on this barren world. It’s easy to root for guys like Young, but the M’s had a pennant train to catch this year, and their decision to give Young almost 30 starts probably cost them a seat.

Shelby Miller, 3.74/4.54, 0.2 WAR

If you’ve been playing along at home, most of the guys on this list probably haven’t shocked you, but did you see Shelby Miller coming? Let’s start with that yawning chasm between his ERA and FIP. Miller’s career ERA is 60 points less than his career FIP, so the gap is only somewhat worse than that this year, but still disconcerting. His strikeouts disappeared, not because of any velocity drop, but because of the wholesale failure of his off-speed pitches. He’s still just 23 and he still throws hard. If the Cards can’t fix him, maybe they can trade him to a pitching coach who can. Paging Dr. Cooper …

Kyle Kendrick, 4.61/4.57, 0.4 WAR

The phourth Phillie on this list, Kendrick’s rather offputting FIP is actually 8 points better than his career average. A tolerable innings eating presence on a high-scoring team, Kendrick is now a liability on a team chock full of them. This was his walk year, a strange expression to use in conjunction with Kendrick, since that’s the one thing he doesn’t give up.