Biggest MLB Duds of Week 20, Position by Position
Slumps don't care how well-known a player may be or if he's appeared on our weekly All-Dud team before. They strike indiscriminately, usually without warning, and tend to stick around far longer than anyone wants them to.
They're like the guests you have over who can't take the hints you've been dropping all night that "hey, it's time for you to leave."
But unlike those unwelcome house guests, slumps can't be forcefully removed from a player's presence. In fact, there's no cure-all. What works for one player might only make things worse for another or have no impact at all.
Taking both traditional and advanced statistics into consideration, let's look at the players who are digging deep into their bag of tricks salvage the regular season's 21st week after an underwhelming 20th.
Catcher: Buster Posey, San Francisco Giants
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San Francisco can thank Los Angeles for being so, well, mediocre, as it's the Dodgers' inconsistency—and not the Giants' superiority—that has the two teams separated by under two games heading into Monday's action.
Case in point: Neither team has a winning record in August—the Dodgers are 9-11, while the Giants are 10-12.
While San Francisco is without the services of Hunter Pence (among others), the team might be on the right side of .500 for the month—and ahead of the Dodgers in the division—if Buster Posey had done anything at the plate last week.
Instead, he hit a paltry .120 (3-for-25) with a single RBI and a .268 OPS; the latter was baseball's third-lowest last week, regardless of position.
Dishonorable Mention: Russell Martin, Toronto Blue Jays; James McCann, Detroit Tigers
First Base: Adrian Gonzalez, Los Angeles Dodgers
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He may be overshadowed by more flamboyant teammates, elite starting pitchers and a horrid bullpen, but the key to it all in Los Angeles is first baseman Adrian Gonzalez. Consider this: When he records at least one hit in a game, the Dodgers are 49-33. When he doesn't? 17-21.
While the Dodgers dropped the three games last week in which Gonzalez had at least one hit, it stands to reason that their 1-5 record in Week 20 would have been significantly better had he been swinging the bat well.
Instead, he mustered only a .181 batting average (4-for-22), failing to drive in a run or cross home plate.
Dishonorable Mention: James Loney, Tampa Bay Rays; Mark Reynolds, St. Louis Cardinals
Second Base: Kolten Wong, St. Louis Cardinals
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Kolten Wong isn't used to prolonged slumps or being taken out of the lineup, so when St. Louis manager Mike Matheny decided to sit his 24-year-old second baseman for the team's final game of Week 20 so that he could get a rest, both mentally and physically, Wong needed help to process it all.
"Talking to these (veteran) guys, they said that this is going to happen to everyone. Everyone's going to go through one of these slumps," he told Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "I'm the guy that can't let that go. I'm always that guy who doesn't believe that I can be in a slump. But it's obviously going to happen and it's happening to me right now."
He hit .053 (1-for-19) on the week, including a pair of fruitless at-bats on Saturday, when he was thrust into the team's 8-0 loss to San Diego in the fifth inning after Matt Carpenter was thrown out of the contest for arguing a called strike.
Wong's slump hasn't been limited to Week 20. Since the beginning of August, he's hit only .145 (10-for-69) with a .369 OPS, the second-lowest mark in all of baseball for the month, regardless of position.
Dishonorable Mention: Jedd Gyorko, San Diego Padres; DJ LeMahieu, Colorado Rockies
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Third Base: Justin Turner, Los Angeles Dodgers
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I'd normally give a player coming off the disabled list a pass in his first week back, but after going 4-for-10 with a home run and three RBI in his first three games after being sidelined by a MRSA infection in his right leg, Justin Turner didn't look like a player who needed a pass.
Unfortunately for Turner, those numbers came at the end of Week 19, and his hot bat didn't carry over into Week 20. He managed only one hit in five games for Los Angeles, hitting .045 (1-for-22) with two RBI and an OPS after Saturday of .195—tying with St. Louis' Kolten Wong for the lowest in baseball last week.
Since there's nothing like kicking a guy when he's down, that Turner struck out against Houston's Mike Fiers, which gave the 30-year-old starter his first no-hitter of his career, was certainly the low point of a forgettable week.
Dishonorable Mention: Matt Carpenter, St. Louis Cardinals; Adonis Garcia, Atlanta Braves; Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays
Shortstop: J.J. Hardy, Baltimore Orioles
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The good news for J.J. Hardy in Week 20 was that he tripled his monthly RBI total, going from one to three. The bad news is that he's the starting shortstop on our All-Dud squad for the second consecutive week.
Hardy Hit .130 (3-for-23) last week, and owned baseball's lowest August OPS (.352) going into Sunday, regardless of position. He has been one of the game's least productive players since the All-Star break, hitting .215 in 34 games.
While there's something to be said for a player taking the field every day, regardless of how he feels, Hardy admits that he's not 100 percent.
"Everyone's got something," He told the Baltimore Sun's Eduardo A. Encina. "I'm just trying to do what I can to stay out there. I've got a few things, but I'd rather not talk about it until I have to."
It may be time for the Orioles to save Hardy from himself and sit him down for a game or two.
Dishonorable Mention: Erick Aybar, Los Angeles Angels; Didi Gregorius, New York Yankees; Marcus Semien, Oakland A's
Left Field: Michael Bourn, Atlanta Braves
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A return to Atlanta has done nothing to spark Michael Bourn's slumbering bat. He appears as lost at the plate as he ever did while wearing a Cleveland Indians uniform.
The veteran outfielder managed to hit only .136 (3-for-22) last week, striking out eight times while getting caught on two of his three stolen base attempts. Believe it or not, that's actually a slight improvement over his first week back in a Braves uniform.
Since rejoining the Braves on August 8, Bourn is hitting .103 (4-for-39) and, perhaps most damning of all the numbers we could point to, has yet to score a run for Atlanta.
Dishonorable Mention: Delino DeShields Jr., Texas Rangers; David Peralta, Arizona Diamondbacks
Center Field: Carlos Gomez, Houston Astros
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Another week, another start in center field on our All-Dud squad for Houston's Carlos Gomez.
While Mike Fiers, who came to the Astros along with Gomez in a late-July trade, was busy tossing baseball's fifth no-hitter of the season, Gomez was once again a non-factor at the plate. He hit only .167 (4-for-24) in seven games, walking twice and striking out five times.
To Gomez's credit, it's not a lack of effort that's producing such awful results, as manager A.J. Hinch told the Houston Chronicle's Evan Drellich:
"His swings the last couple games have been fine. The results still haven’t come as consistently as he’s liked and we would like. You’re always tweaking things, whether it’s posture or the pace of his swing. He puts about everything into his game … as much as anybody. He swings hard, he runs hard. He plays with his hair on fire in the outfield.
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He's even begun rapping in Spanish while in the clubhouse in an attempt to cope with the stress of not producing for his new team. In 21 games with the Astros, Gomez is hitting .188 (15-for-80) with three extra-base hits (one home run), four RBI and 18 strikeouts.
Dishonorable Mention: Abraham Almonte, Cleveland Indians; Billy Burns, Oakland A's; Lorenzo Cain, Kansas City Royals; Shane Peterson, Milwaukee Brewers
Right Field: Jay Bruce, Cincinnati Reds
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A dishonorable mention last week, Cincinnati's Jay Bruce finally gets the call in right field for our All-Dud squad after a miserable Week 20 that saw him hit just .120 (3-for-25) with an OPS before Sunday's 0-1 performance of .321. His lone bright spot came in the form of 4 RBI over the seven games.
Bruce's struggles aren't limited to last week, however. The 28-year-old slugger has hit only .138 (11-for-80) with 23 strikeouts in August and, since the All-Star break, has managed to hit only .198 (26-for-131).
A free agent after the 2016 season, Bruce is going need a strong finish to the season if he's hoping to land a more lucrative extension offer from the Reds than the two that he turned down before the 2014 season, per Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal.
Dishonorable Mention: Torii Hunter, Minnesota Twins; Gregory Polanco, Pittsburgh Pirates
Designated Hitter: Prince Fielder, Texas Rangers
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If Texas hopes to put some distance between itself and the rest of the teams that are still in the hunt for one of the American League's two wild-card spots, the Rangers are going to need Prince Fielder to produce like, well, Prince Fielder.
While the Rangers won five of their seven games in Week 20 and Fielder's impact on the club goes well beyond numbers—first baseman Mitch Moreland told Jeff Seidel of the Detroit Free Press that Fielder's clubhouse presence has been invaluable—the club needs far more than a .217 batting average (5-for-23) and .457 OPS from its designated hitter on a week-to-week basis.
Dishonorable Mention: Billy Butler, Oakland A's; John Jaso, Tampa Bay Rays
Starting Pitcher: Matt Barnes, Boston Red Sox
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Questions about where Matt Barnes fits in a major league pitching staff have gone unanswered since Boston made him the 19th overall selection in the 2011 draft. While it's unfair to peg a player's future on a small sample size of one week, the 25-year-old did nothing to prove he belongs in the big leagues in Week 20.
Making his first two major league starts, Barnes allowed 11 earned runs and 14 hits over 10.1 innings of work, walking four and striking out nine while throwing two wild pitches and hitting a batter.
“You’re not going to succeed without some struggle first,” Barnes told NESN's Ricky Doyle. “Those are situations you learn from. Even if the result isn’t what you want, I think you almost learn more from that than if you execute every single time.”
Considering the state of Boston's pitching staff, both in 2015 and moving forward, the Red Sox had better hope that Barnes is a fast learner.
Dishonorable Mention: Williams Perez, Atlanta Braves; Henry Owens, Boston Red Sox; Chris Rusin, Colorado Rockies
Closer: Carson Smith, Seattle Mariners
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One of the few bright spots in a lost season for Seattle has been the emergence of 25-year-old Carson Smith as the team's closer of the present and future.
But he has struggled of late, and things came to a head in Week 20 when he blew two of his three save chances. He allowed four earned runs and 6.1 hits over four innings of work, walking four and striking out five.
Like many of the other members of this week's All-Dud squad, Smith has been battling his way through the second half of the season, pitching to a 6.06 ERA and 1.65 WHIP with three blown saves in 10 chances since the All-Star break.
Dishonorable Mention: Brad Boxberger, Tampa Bay Rays; Gonzalez Germen, Colorado Rockies
All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs. All contract information courtesy of Cot's Contracts.
Hit me up on Twitter to talk all things baseball: @RickWeinerBR
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