Baseball: Your own team's favorite/least favorite player

Cafe Society
1

Well, baseball fans, the All-Star Game is coming up (yawn), time to get on the Internet and struggle with who you’re going to vote onto the weird, home-run-heavy team with the ugly uniforms that will play this year in … uh … San Francisco’s lovely PacCanBayBankPhone Park.

Only the enlightened few and British people can rationally discuss any baseball team besides the one they follow, so I thought I’d throw out the following question: Who’s your own team’s favorite and least favorite starter, and why? (No fair picking on the latest reliever who coughed up 5 runs in the 7th or some poor AAA guy filling in.) I’ll start:

Mine’s the Mets, and for me the best is Jose Reyes. My assumption is that other fans find the team’s laughter and general goofiess to be incredibly annoying, but I love the current crop of Mets’ looseness and humor, and for me it emanates from Reyes. He just never seems to lose that facial expression that says, “I can’t believe they pay me so much money to do this.” (He grew up in a one-room shack in the sticks of the Dominican Republic, far from where most of the DR players come from.) He’s incredibly fast, he can hit, he can field with the best of them, he’s learned how to take pitches to appease the Sabremetricians, and he drives opposing pitchers batty – the whole game changes when he’s on base. He concocts very eleborate home run handshakes for other players. I’m happy he’ll be around for a while.

Least favorite? I wasn’t among the goons who’ve been booing him from the getgo, but I’ve decided I really don’t like Carlos Beltran all the much. He seems sulky and robotic in interviews, and he kind of wears that demeanor on the field, too. He’s an amazing center fielder, but as a hitter he’s pretty much cut from the same cloth as Cliff Floyd and Mike Cameron – good, but not great. Yankees fans were booing Alex Rodriguez for having a season last year that would rank with one of Beltran’s best. My guess is that he really doesn’t want to be here (not that I can blame him), and he’ll flee at the first opportunity.

2

Tigers.
Favorite: Curtis Granderson; hell of a nice guy and really underrated. Decent base stealer, good at knocking in RBI. Plus he wears his pants old-school.
Least: Neifi Perez; completely worthless.

3

I’m a pretty big fan of everyone on our club right now. We have a bunch of guys who are not every day players and come in and get huge pinch hits, so everyone sticks out as a good dude in my mind.

I think our city’s favorite would be Grady Sizemore. He’s handsome, he’s young, and he’s usually a hot player. You can buy pink shirts at the team shops that say “Mrs. Sizemore” (very funny to see dudes in these shirts). You’ll usually see a group of women in the stadium somewhere with a sign that says “Grady’s Ladies.” Lots of Grady signs around.

Least favorite right now is probably uhm…Travis Hafner, I think. It’s sad too because he’s our “superstar” and he’s really just in a slump. But it’s pretty much been a season-long slump. I’m not sure if the general consensus around town is that he sucks but he’s just being disappointing this year and I am getting sick of waiting for him to come around.

Like I said, our team is pretty much all-around good. Everyone has good and bad games (see Fausto Carmona’s performance earlier this week) but most every game is exciting due to different people every night.

4

I’m pretty much liking all the Dodgers this season, for the most part. But my favorite by far is James Loney, our 1st baseman. Ever since last year I’ve been yelling at management to bring him back up from AAA and get him in the lineup. They finally listened. Nomar has been a stand-up guy and shifted back to 3rd. So far Loney is batting .478 this year and snagging any ball within a mile. Hell, for the last 10 games he’s been batting .500! Better than that, he’s all of 23, so we have years of production left out of him. I’m loving the Dodgers farm system.

Probably my least favorite player at this time is Jeff Kent. He’s only batting .267, and he seems to be having an off first half of the season. You can tell it’s getting to him, too. Unlike Nomar, he visibly shows when he’s having a bad streak. He’s also letting too many balls get past him at 2nd. I’m sure it’s temporary, but he’s my least favorite of our active roster right now.

If we can keep our older players healthy, we have a good shot this year. On the down side, that is unlikely to happen. On the up side, we have a ton of young players waiting in the wings. On the up, up side, we have a ton of young pitchers, more than enough to go the distance (I hope).

5

You got Cleveland’s favorite correct, but I think Travis is still justifiably popular. Borowski’s only as popular as his most recent save. As my buddy in Chicago says, "Borowski is Polish for ‘blown save.’ "

6

Duh-Rays…

Fave: Mine = Carl Crawford, but I think the general consensus is Scott Kazamir.

Least: All around, gotta be BJ Upton for his problems with not being a dick (generally to his wife)

7

Red Sox here.

I love watching Dustin Pedroia develop in front of my eyes-very fun player to watch even if he makes a rookie mistake here and there (as he did today a couple of times).

I completely and totally loathe Julio Lugo, and even more after the absolutely idiotic caught stealing he had tonite. Pedroia gets a double, Lugo pinch runs, and decides to steal 3rd with 2 outs and Kevin Youkilis up. Not only does he not make it, he doesn’t even slide and kind of falls over the 3rd baseman as he is called out. Thing is we have an absolute phenom at AA playing SS named Jed Lowrie (how could you not like a guy named “Jed”) who is playing his tail off-(stats here)-who is the same age as Pedroia, but I have a feeling the Sox, having sunk a fortune on this bozo Lugo are going to stick with him and his sub-Mendoza line batting average to the bitter end (a blown double-digit divisional lead).

8

I like everyone on the Indians, so I’ll just sort’ve randomly say that my favorite player is Casey Blake who keeps getting moved from position to position and seems to be willing to do anything they ask of him.

Least favorite? Joe Borowski, I guess. Nothing against him personally. I’m pretty much always annoyed with closers.

9

Tigers here: For the general concensus, it’s hard to say. Some would go with Justin Verlander, some with Joel Zumaya, some with Pudge. I’ll say Brandon Inge. He was here when they were VERY bad, he played any position they want him to, he’s handled everything with class, and he can drive a golf ball like an animal (no, seriously, he’s almost legendary. People say he averages 320 off the tee.)

Least liked? There really isn’t one…but if we were forced to pick, and not Todd Jones, then Fernando Rodney is it, assuming that some injury didn’t make him the human equivalent to a batting tee.

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Favorite: Sandy Koufax, because he’s awesome.

Least favorite: Juan Marichal, and I think he should have gone to jail for assaulting Johnny Roseboro.

11

Cubs fan here…I would have to say Derrek Lee is my favorite, for both his play and his professional demeanor. I also really liked Michael Barrett, and was disappointed when they traded him last week.

I haven’t worked up a good dislike for anyone on the team this year.

12

Another Sox fan here.

Mike Lowell is among my favorites on the team. I liked him when he was with Florida. What were they thinking when they included him on the Beckett deal? Who cares, works for Red Sox Nation, IMO.

Wily Mo Pena is my least favorte. Sure he can launch a fastball into orbit. Thing is, he needs to make contact with it first, which is never a given. And he’s a defensive liability. He’ll give up a key run in a key spot more often than he’ll produce one. Stupid Reds ran him out of options, so it’s not like the Sox can send him to Pawtucket to learn a strike zone. I hate the guy.

13

Tigers
Fav- Kenny Rogers-from last year in the playoffs to now almost unhittable. During long injury time off ,he stayed with the team and helped the youngsters.

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Since Juan Marichal pitched only two games for the Dodgers, that’s cheating. And I think the OP meant CURRENT players.

For my Blue Jays, the fan favourite is probably Doc Halladay, who’s a warhorse and a class act in every way. I love him because he’s a guy whose career absolutely should have been over, but he went all the way back from the majors to A ball to re-learn how to pitch and turned his career around.

My least favourite is probably the manager, John Gibbons. He doesn’t make any overtly stupid strategic moves, but he’s essentially a macho asshole type, my least favourite sort of person.

15

Yes kaylasdadd 99, but who’s your least favorite DODGER? Marichal was a Giant, except for 2 games at the end of a Hall of Fame career. Here’s some nominees:

  1. Lasorda
  2. Garvey
  3. Kent
  4. Willie Davis (hey, you mentioned Koufax as your favorite, and Davis’ 3 errors cost Koufax game 1 of the 1966 Series. Maybe you should hold a grudge ;))
16

There’s several guys worth liking on the Braves this year, but the wonder kids like McCann and Francoeur aren’t having the kind of years we’d have hoped for, Kelly Johnson has cooled way, way off, and Andruw Jones is hitting like Andrew Johnson. I guess my faves this year would be the LF platoon of Willie Harris and Matt Diaz – both sort of journeymen who nobody else seemed to want. So far this year, with Diaz getting most of the AB against LHP and Harris against RHP, they’ve combined for a .399 OBP, .474 SLG, and .357 BA, with 5 HR, 30 RBI, and 14 SB (with 4 CS). They both seem to be having a good time.

On the other hand, much as it pains me to say, John Smoltz is beginning to wear out his welcome with me. The recent public tiff with Chipper Jones is exactly the sort of thing that never used to happen with the Braves, and that professionalism is one of the things I’ve always admired about the teams that Schuerholz and Cox have put together. Now that they’ve made up and Chipper has apologized, I’m not so sure that Chipper wasn’t in the wrong in this specific instance more than Smoltz, but Smoltz has increasingly given off the vibe of someone who’s blaming his coworkers for his organization’s problems. It’s hard to point to specifics, but hearing and reading his clubhouse comments during the season and occasional interviews during the off-season, he seems less inclined to keep it to himself if he’s dissatisfied with the efforts of his teammates. He’s certainly earned the right to that dissatisfaction, but the Braves organization has always been one where those types of issues get handled in private, not in the media. That’s a big reason so many players in the league talk about Cox and the Braves as being among the managers and organizations they’d like to play for.

It wouldn’t shock me, if the Braves stay cold throughout July, for them to shop Smoltz, or at least listen to offers. I know he’d love to finish his career in a Braves uniform, and I’m sure Shuerholz and Cox would too, but they’ve never let sentiment get in the way of their baseball judgment, and Shuerholz has never given anyone a no-trade clause. He’s not signed for next year (the Braves exercised their one-year option on his previous two-year contract for this year), and while I don’t think they’d be terribly worried about him signing elsewhere for next year, he might retire if the Braves seem headed the wrong direction, and he might be seen by any of several teams scrambling to make the playoffs as just the guy to get them there and beyond (given his post-season record). He might just get fired up enough about the prospect of making it back to the World Series that he’d welcome the change. He came to Atlanta in a late season veteran-for-prospect trade to help the Tigers win their division – might be fitting to go out the same way: head home to Michigan, help the Tigers collect a ring, and retire happy. If that happened, I’d tip my hat and wish him well but it woudn’t bother me much (other than as a signal that it’s time to start looking ahead to a 2008 that’s currently a grim prospect for Braves fans).

I would, however, be shocked if the Braves traded Chipper Jones – he’s signed for at least one more season with a club option for 2009, the nagging injuries he’s had this year would be a question mark, and the Braves owe him for restructuring his contract to allow headroom for other deals in the past. And while the Braves don’t do no-trade clauses, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a gentlemen’s agreement between Jones and Shuerholz that would make it really difficult to pull off.

17

Sorry, like Billy Whizboy, I didn’t understand the question.

Gotta go with the O’Malley family. They shouldn’ta ever oughta sold the team to Murdoch.

18

For me, our brightest spot is catcher Russel Martin. A bona-fide All Star who plays with extreme confidence without seeming cocky.

My least favorite is the big money disappointment that is Juane Pierre.

19

Yeah, Martin was right up there on my list. And he just got selected as the starting catcher for the NL in the All-Star Game, which is quite an honor for such a young player. As for Pierre…I think he’s overpaid, but he still may earn his money in the second half of the season. He’s fast, and that is going to be a big factor against the Padres come September.

20

I liked him when he was a Cub…he’s a good base runner, and always hustles.