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Tony Suck
The Man Who Lived Up to His Name •
Part 1 •
Part 2
Tony Suck's unlikely
and statistically miserable career raises two questions. First, is he the worst
player in major-league history? And second, is his name the origin of the derogatory
term? If the answers to both of these question were yes, baseball would its own
Thomas
Crapper, a folk hero for his times who became a household name.
The second question
is easier to answer than the first. According to the Oxford
Dictionary of Modern Slang, the verb "suck," unaccompanied by "up," "off,"
or "around," in its non-sexual connotations, didn't enter the language until 1971.
Perhaps it's not a coincidence that in the same year Padres
shortstop Enzo Hernandez drove in all of 12 runs in 549 at-bats. That doesn't
help Tony's case, however.
As to the first
question, the answer is a bit more complicated. Using Aaron Haspel's God
of the Machine searchable stat database, I identified all of the players in
baseball history with over 200 plate appearances and a batting average below .180
who were not pitchers (a task that took several hours and racked up hits on the
nether-regions of Baseball-Reference.com).
I wanted guys who needed a connecting flight from an international airport in
order to reach the Mendoza Line. I found 50 who fit the criteria. I then sorted
them by OPS+,
which expresses a player's OPS relative to a park-adjusted league average; a 40
OPS+ means that a player is about 30% below average in both OBP and SLG.
Suck's OPS+ is
25, which ain't pretty, but it's hardly the worst of the lot. John Black leads
the pack in at 6, followed by Brian Doyle (yes, the Yanks' 1978 World Series hero)
at 11 and the appropriately named Bart Cantz at 12. Suck comes in tied for 13th
on this list ("ties" are listed alphabetically; I'm not about to rerun
the calculations for each ballplayer to take things another decimal beyond B-Ref's
calculations). Here's the chart (note that in some cases RBI and strikeout
data was incomplete or missing altogether, so take those strange ratios with a
grain of salt):
Last, First born G AB H D T HR R BI BB K BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ WARP1
Black, John 1890 54 186 28 4 0 0 13 7 10 0 .151 .202 .172 .374 6 -1.4
Doyle, Brian 1955 110 199 32 3 0 1 18 13 10 13 .161 .201 .191 .392 11 0.6
Cantz, Bart 1860 62 217 34 4 1 0 14 18 6 14 .157 .179 .184 .364 12 -1.4
Humphries, John 1861 98 364 52 3 0 0 34 6 19 41 .143 .188 .151 .339 12 -3.9
Smith, Dick 1927 70 186 25 2 2 0 17 11 30 22 .134 .255 .167 .421 15 0.6
Baker, George* 1859 126 474 74 6 0 0 45 5 14 29 .156 .180 .169 .349 16 -1.0
Bergen, Bill 1878 947 3028 516 45 21 2 138 193 88 81 .170 .194 .201 .395 20 19.1
Clack, Bobby 1850 82 312 48 1 1 0 33 19 9 17 .154 .178 .163 .341 20 -3.1
Vukovich, John 1947 277 559 90 14 1 6 37 44 29 109 .161 .205 .222 .425 20 -2.1
Snyder, Redleg* 1854 72 257 41 3 1 0 14 12 2 19 .160 .166 .179 .345 21 -2.0
Barnie, Billy 1853 83 321 55 5 2 0 32 22 5 16 .171 .184 .199 .383 22 -3.8
Halpin, Jim* 1863 63 230 38 5 0 0 27 1 3 14 .165 .176 .187 .363 22 -0.6
Yelle, Archie 1892 87 199 32 4 0 0 12 7 15 19 .161 .223 .181 .404 24 -1.1
Delker, Eddie 1906 98 187 29 9 3 1 19 15 16 45 .155 .229 .251 .481 25 -1.2
McCabe, Bill 1892 106 199 32 3 2 0 28 13 15 28 .161 .227 .196 .423 25 -0.8
Minor, Ryan 1974 142 317 56 11 0 5 30 27 9 31 .177 .228 .259 .487 25 -1.6
Moriarity, Gene 1865 72 269 41 5 3 3 26 23 4 55 .152 .174 .227 .401 25 -3.6
Suck, Tony* 1858 58 205 31 2 0 0 21 0 14 4 .151 .205 .161 .366 25 -0.1
Arundel, Tug 1862 76 260 45 4 1 0 21 16 16 22 .173 .224 .196 .420 26 -2.1
Geary, Huck 1917 55 188 30 4 0 1 20 15 20 9 .160 .240 .197 .437 26 -0.7
Adlesh, Dave 1943 106 256 43 3 1 1 9 11 18 80 .168 .228 .199 .427 27 -1.1
Egan, Ben 1883 122 352 58 9 5 0 21 30 18 34 .165 .212 .219 .431 27 0.0
Bligh, Ned 1864 66 209 34 3 1 1 17 19 16 14 .163 .232 .201 .433 28 -1.1
Brinkman, Chuck 1944 148 267 46 7 0 1 22 12 23 60 .172 .240 .210 .450 28 0.5
Campanis, Jim 1944 113 217 32 6 0 4 13 9 19 49 .147 .219 .230 .449 28 -0.9
Bosch, Don 1942 146 318 52 6 1 4 34 13 22 77 .164 .218 .226 .443 29 -0.1
Briggs, Grant 1865 110 378 62 7 5 0 46 22 21 17 .164 .212 .209 .421 29 -1.0
Carroll, Scrappy* 1860 79 287 49 6 1 0 34 20 19 8 .171 .232 .199 .431 29 -1.7
Cusick, Jack 1928 114 242 42 4 2 2 21 22 23 38 .174 .245 .231 .477 30 -0.2
Holm, Billy 1912 119 282 44 4 1 0 22 15 41 40 .156 .272 .177 .449 30 -0.7
McGee, Pat 18-- 59 225 38 6 1 0 11 20 1 17 .169 .173 .204 .377 30 0.2
Wagner, Joe 1889 75 197 35 5 2 0 17 13 8 35 .178 .210 .223 .433 30 0.5
Nichols, Al 18-- 95 362 62 6 1 0 25 18 2 11 .171 .176 .193 .369 31 0.2
Wise, Casey 1932 126 321 56 6 3 3 37 17 29 36 .174 .243 .240 .483 32 -0.2
Gladman, Buck 1863 101 380 56 10 6 2 35 15 15 32 .147 .186 .221 .407 34 -1.6
Myers, Henry* 1858 76 322 56 3 0 0 46 0 12 2 .174 .204 .183 .387 35 -0.3
Sage, Harry 1864 81 275 41 8 4 2 40 25 29 0 .149 .235 .229 .464 35 3.5
Waitt, Charlie 1853 113 407 67 14 0 0 35 14 15 11 .165 .194 .199 .393 36 -0.6
Lonnett, Joe 1927 143 325 54 8 0 6 22 27 40 74 .166 .262 .246 .505 37 -0.3
Morgan, Bill 18-- 77 276 46 3 2 0 20 0 15 0 .167 .212 .192 .404 37 -2.0
Conroy, Ben 1871 117 404 69 13 1 0 45 21 45 0 .171 .262 .208 .470 39 1.3
Pick, Eddie 1899 66 191 34 5 2 2 25 17 23 30 .178 .266 .257 .523 40 -1.0
Shaffer, Taylor 18-- 69 261 45 3 4 0 28 21 28 0 .172 .258 .215 .472 40 -0.6
Jennings, Bill 1925 64 195 35 10 2 0 20 13 26 42 .179 .276 .251 .527 41 -0.5
Armbruster, Charlie 1880 131 355 53 11 1 0 24 12 52 0 .149 .262 .186 .448 42 0.6
Traffley, Bill 1859 179 663 116 13 12 1 85 36 34 1 .175 .220 .235 .455 44 -1.1
Pitz, Herman 1865 90 284 47 0 0 0 43 9 58 0 .165 .315 .165 .481 45 2.0
Butler, Kid* 1861 71 255 43 15 0 0 36 0 12 0 .169 .206 .227 .433 47 -0.2
Oyler, Ray 1938 542 1265 221 39 6 15 110 86 135 359 .175 .259 .251 .508 48 8.2
Tolman, Tim 1956 132 196 33 10 0 5 21 24 24 31 .168 .266 .296 .558 58 0.4
The bad bats are
only part of the story, and given that many of these players were renowned glove
men (see Bill
Bergen and Ray
Oyler, two players who carved out significant major league careers despite
their microscopic averages), it makes sense to consider defensive contribution.
I looked at each player's fielding via Baseball
Prospectus' player cards. With the caveat that I don't wholly trust their
defensive measures for most purposes, I nevertheless used them here because their
Runs Above Replacement Position methodology could be combined with similar numbers
on the batting side to yield Wins Above Replacement (WARP1 version) totals.
The results demonstrate
that what we have here are the discards from the replacement-level heap, guys
who played themselves out of a job very quickly. Thirty-six of the 50 players
are below zero WARP, but none of them are very far below. Scraping the bottom
of the barrel:
Humphries -3.9
Barnie -3.8
Moriarity -3.6
Clack -3.1
Arundel -2.1
Vukovich -2.1
The highest positive
totals from this list are, not coincidentally, the two players who lasted the
longest in the bigs, the aforementioned Bergen (19.1) and Oyler (8.2). Our man
Suck (-0.1) is right about at the theoretical replacement level, thus putting
him in the upper half of this sorry set. His WARP is also higher than any of the
other Union Association "ballplayers" on this list (the ones with an asterisk
*), making it difficult to claim from any angle that he was the worst ever.
So if Tony Suck
isn't the worst ballplayer ever, who is? My vote is for John
Humphries, who racked up about 80% more at-bats than the other four guys who
surround him on the OPS+ list (and Suck as well). An exact contemporary of Suck
(1883-84) except in harder leagues, this guy's case is pretty unbelievable: ghastly
low batting average (.143) and OPS (.339) to go with the miserable relative measures
and bad defense. His 1883 stats for the New York Giants: .112 AVG/.120 OBP/.121
SLG in 107 ABs; 20 errors in 23 games at catcher. After a blazing 6-for-64 start
in '84, he apparently was relieved of duty and caught on with the Washington
Nationals of the American Association. Humphries must have felt right at home
there, as that team featured several players of his caliber, including Buck
Gladman and Bill
Morgan, and finished 12-51 with a team batting average of .200. Like Suck,
Humphries spent a lot of time at catcher, making 74 errors in 75 games for a fielding
percentage of .876. In 24 outfield games, mostly in rightfield, he made 19 errors
for a horrendous .736 clip. Overall he made 90 errors in his 103 games (0.9 per
game) and 1.7 for every hit — Suck's rate, but over a longer "career".
That said, I'm
quite sure Suck was every bit Humphries' equal in ineptitude. Given the opportunity
to play in a "real" major league, our man Tony would have Sucked, and with a little
luck he could have become a household name, the very definition of the verb "to
suck".
Perhaps it's unfair
to hold these old-time ballplayers to the same standards as we do the more modern
ones; with the dead ball and primitive or no equipment, baseball was a very different
game in the 1880s. Given the astounding numbers of error totals among these lousy
old-timers, it's not difficult to imagine that a certain portion of their own
batted balls were similarly bungled, distorting their meager offensive contributions.
But looking at these stats, it's impossible not to giggle and gawk at the sheer
inability they bespeak. The beauty of baseball statistics — their ability
to tell a story — works for the worst players in history as well as the best.
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