photo credit: Sukanto Debnath
A handful of players are more than ready to turn the page on 2010 after terrible seasons.
So now we enter the last full month of the regular season… and not a moment too soon for several players who have to be our contenders for biggest disappointment of 2010.
First, we have all the top players who will end up missing the majority of the season due to injuries. The Red Sox lead the way here with Jacoby Ellsbury, but Grady Sizemore, Kendry Morales, Joe Nathan, Jake Peavy, and Erik Bedard were all major losses for their teams. Among rookies, Carlos Santana and Stephen Strasburg head the list of injury-related disappointments.
When it comes to poor performance, Blue Jays 2B Aaron Hill is eager for the 2011 calendar to arrive. Among players eligible for the batting title, Hill is dead last in batting average at .213. He does have 21 HRs, but this is a huge downturn for a guy who hit .286 with 36 HRs and 108 RBI last year.
Carlos Pena of Tampa is right there in the battle for the anti-batting crown. Always good for a base on balls, Pena has never been an outstanding hitter for average. But this is ridiculous. He’s hitting .214. That’s just a bit worse than Mark Reynolds of the Astros, last in the NL with a .215 average. Like Pena, Reynolds is not exactly a hit machine and has good power. He still does—32 homers this year—but this season is still a far cry from the 44-102-24 and .260 that he mustered last year. I don’t want to know how much he went for in NL Rotisserie leagues based on those numbers, but he’s far from worth it.
Speaking of major fantasy disappointments, A.J. Burnett would have to rank right up there. For all his millions in free agent money, Burnett is 9-12 with a 5.12 ERA. Joe Blanton of the Phillies has also fallen far short of expectations with a 5.15 ERA in 22 starts. Last year he was 12-8 with a 4.05 ERA.
Tampa’s James Shields crummy year has gone under the radar because David Price and Matt Garza have picked up the slack. Plus, he has managed a 13-11 record despite the 4.73 ERA. Still, it’s a disturbing trend, as Shields had a career-best 3.56 ERA in 2008 followed by a 4.14 ERA last season.
