10 MLB Players with the Worst Offseason Work Ethics

Every fan knows the feeling. We've all said it either out loud, under our breath or in our minds. 

"Are you kidding me? He's hurt again?!" 

It happens every season. It's inevitable. Surely there are guys that have bad luck; there are also guys that play all out and in turn get hurt more often. Then there are those guys, and nearly every team has at least one, who seem to always be injured.

Oh, and then there's Cal Ripken. Ripken of course is one of those guys who have done their part to make sure the bright lights of scrutiny shine bright on some of baseball's guys who are a bit more likely to miss a game, be a late scratch, hit the 15-day disabled list, return and then hit it again with maddening frequency. Ripken was baseball's greatest ironman, playing in a record 2,632 consecutive games.

That record is likely to never be broken. These guys are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They get hurt a lot and in general people tend to think that some of this starts with poor offseason training habits.  

We know they're out there. Who are some of the worst? 

Alex Rodriguez

He doesn't look "out of shape." In fact, Alex Rodriguez still has the physical appearance and swagger of one of baseball's top athletes.

For all we know, he may still have more great seasons in his future. For now though, he's become one of those "will he be healthy" question marks.

Rodriguez, who was for years one of baseball's most durable players, has faded fast from American League MVP in 2007 to postseason MIA in 2011. Consider that entering 2008 Rodriguez had gone eight consecutive years with over 600 plate appearances. Since then, he has yet to crack that number.

Rodriguez had serious hip surgery in March of 2009 as well as a torn meniscus this past summer. Those aren't the issues though. The issues are the other times: missed games in 2008 pre-surgery; missed games post- and pre-surgery in 2011.

The Alex Rodriguez that shows up for spring training in 2012 will be playing for the first time in his career under the specter of not just postseason disappointment but also of having to bounce back from what have truly been "down years" for one of the game's most talented slugger. In 2011, Rodriguez had his lowest OPS since 1995.

When you make $30 million a year, fairly or unfairly, you will be on a shorter leash and Yankee fans appear to be losing patience.  

Daisuke Matsuzaka

It's not the Tommy John surgery he currently is in recovery from. No, if that was the only real reason for Dice-K missing time in Boston then most Red Sox fans would be willing to grant him a bit of a reprieve. After all, it's major surgery and it can happen to baseball's hardest-working players. 

By all estimates, Dice-K's work ethic is solid. Or maybe it's not.

He arrived in Boston from Japan with sky-high expectations. He was hot and cold in his first season in Boston and then had a bright 2008 which led to Cy Young-type expectations entering the 2009 season. Through two years, he had started 61 games in a Red Sox uniform. 

Since then though, he's started only 44. Matsuzaka, healthy or not healthy, always seems to be laboring with some sort of ailment. Is it how he trains in the offseason? Is it how he trains between starts during the season? It's really a bit of a mystery.

Perhaps the cultural divide between the manner in which baseball and pitchers specifically are handled in Japan and in the United States is greater than many fans and even top baseball officials can understand.

One thing is certain: Dice-K is expected back in midseason 2012 but if he's not healthy and recovered by then, there's not one Red Sox fan that will be surprised and there probably aren't too many who will be disappointed either. 

Jose Reyes

New York Met fans are divided. 

Jose Reyes, once thought to be the Mets' answer to Yankee great Derek Jeter, is entering free agency in what should be the prime of his career. So why does it feel like he's already past his prime? After all, Reyes in only 28 years old. Yet regardless of what uniform he is wearing on Opening Day 2012, he will be starting his 10th season at the big league level. 

In 2008, Reyes led the National League in both at-bats and plate appearances. Since that season though, he's suffered through a string on injuries and they always seem to take longer to recover from than their original projection. Therein lies the problem with Reyes. Most fans would be willing to accept an occasional muscle or hamstring pull. They happen all the time. 

What doesn't happen all the time is a projected two-week absence becoming a four-week one. Add in some frequent days off as well as the Mets' win-loss record and numerous other injuries and you've got a recipe for fan frustration. 

Now, with the biggest free-agency payoff of his career looming, Met fans are split. Keep him along with his still-top-tier ability at one of baseball's key positions. Or let another team spend somewhere around $100 million on a guy who seems destined to miss blocks of games for the rest of his career with any number of nagging injuries. 

Is Jose Reyes one of baseball's most talented shortstops? Yes. Is he one of the sport's hardest-working players in the offseason? His recent chronic health problems would call that into question.  

Nick Johnson

At one point, Nick Johnson was thought to be a top prospect. That point has long since passed. The now-33-year-old, 10-year veteran will enter the 2012 season without a true major league team to call his own after spending 2011 in the Cleveland Indians minor league system. 

Between 2001 and 2010, Johnson exceeded 133 games played just once. At times this was due to being platooned or not an everyday player, but there were plenty of times he was just not healthy enough to play every day. 

Was it his work ethic or was it just a never-ending string of bad luck? American League or National League, big market or small market, it just didn't seem to matter—Johnson always seemed a little banged up.

Is his career at the end of the line? Can he play at the big league level anymore and if he can, can he be in shape to do so effectively? 

Erik Bedard

At the end of August 2007, Erik Bedard was in the running and possibly the front-runner for the American League Cy Young Award. Then a strained oblique sidelined him and since then, he's been on the disabled list far more often than on the mound. 

Torn labrums aren't really a result of a poor work ethic. Not ever being able to return to the big leagues for more than a few months in a row without sustaining other injuries might be, though.

That's what Erik Bedard's career has been since the end of the 2007 season. The labrum isn't the reason he's on this list. He was already well into claiming a reputation for questionable offseason work habits before he suffered the torn labrum in 2009. In 2008, he was placed on the 15-day disabled list in July with a groin pull and would end up missing the remainder of the season.

When a groin pull takes more than three months to recover from, people will inevitably ask questions about the manner in which the player is recovering—or in Bedard's case, not recovering—from what are normally brief injuries.

In 2011, it did appear that Bedard may in fact have returned to top form. He was dominant in spring training for the Mariners and was in the midst of a solid season, but then he missed most of July with a sprained right knee. Shortly after his return he was dealt to the Boston Red Sox at the trade deadline. Once in Boston, he seemed healthy and pitched with relative effectiveness, but in September Bedard was once again not healthy enough to start with any sort of frequency.

Bedard is a free agent once again this offseason and any team that entertains signing him to a contract will be forced to ask themselves not just "Is Erik Bedard healthy?" but also "If he's not, will he work hard to get healthy?"

Valid questions. 

Carlos Beltran

In January of 2010 Carlos Beltran had surgery on his right knee. The prognosis called for a recovery time of eight to 12 weeks. He didn't appear in a Mets uniform until July 15th. 

Incidents like that make fans wonder. 

Rightfully or wrongfully, Beltran has a rep as a high injury risk as well as maybe a player who might not be totally committed to maintaining elite physical conditioning. 

Signed to a massive seven-year $119 million contract following the 2004 season, Beltran's time with the Mets was for all practical purposes quite good. It's just that the 2009 and 2010 seasons were not good, and those two years have earned Beltran a bit of a reputation. 

The real questions surrounding Beltran have to do with the manner in which his injuries and recoveries were diagnosed. When eight to 12 weeks becomes almost seven full months that becomes an issue. When he gets dealt to San Francisco and lands on the disabled list less than two weeks later with a strained hand, that's an issue. When he misses some random games down the stretch with stomach problems, that becomes an issue too. 

Carlos Beltran is a free agent this offseason. When he's negotiating his new deal with a new team, his injury history as well as his commitment to working out in the offseason will be issues as well. 

Rich Harden

"Fragile."

Either Rich Harden is one of the worst-conditioned, laziest and apathetic pitchers in recent major league history, or he's an extremely fragile guy. There's got to be some sort of rational explanation for a starting pitcher who has exceeded 100 innings pitched just twice since the 2005 season. He has spent time on the disabled list for an endless array of muscle and ligament strains. 

Oblique, UCL, MCL, knee—you name it, Harden has pulled or strained it. Harden just might be the most injury-prone player on this list and while no one has ever come out and said "Rich Harden doesn't work hard to stay healthy and in shape," the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. 

Bobby Jenks

Unlike Alex Rodriguez, who does for all practical purposes appear physically fit, Bobby Jenks does not. Jenks, whose work ethic was openly questioned when he was in Chicago by his former manager Ozzie Guillen, was acquired as a form of closer insurance by the Boston Red Sox last offseason. 

All Jenks—who doesn't exactly look like he spends countless hours in the gym during either the offseason, preseason, midseason or postseason—did was make 19 appearances, all of which were terrible, and then spent the rest of the season injured. At this point it's valid to not only question Jenks' offseason conditioning but his commitment in general to being anything other than a guy wearing a uniform and cashing a paycheck. 

Coco Crisp

Fifty stolen bases and a Gold Glove in center field—that's not an outlandish projection for Coco Crisp were he to be healthy for a full 162-game baseball season. 

The problem of course is that a full year of health seems like a bit of a stretch for Crisp. Is it the manner in which he maintains himself in the offseason or over the course of the season? Crisp does play a reckless style which features tons of basestealing as well as diving for balls all over the outfield. Those actions all make injuries more likely. 

Over the last five seasons, Crisp has averaged about 125 games per year. That means you can pretty much count on Coco missing about a month a year and that's too much—even for a player of his high-demand skill set. 

Most fans aren't privy to much in the way of hard information regarding a player's work habits but with Crisp coming off one of his best seasons in the majors as well as being a free agent, we're going to see exactly what teams think of Crisp and his commitment to staying fit and healthy. 

If teams line up to sign Crisp to lucrative long-term contract, then perhaps they're sold on his commitment, but if Crisp receives a spate of short-term offers laden with incentives for games played, then clearly we're not the only ones who are questioning his offseason habits. 

Todd Helton

He is going to be 38 this coming season, so to be fair, Todd Helton may just be getting old. It happens. Then again, he has had only one season out of the last four in which he played more than 124 games. 

Chronic, nagging back problems happen to many players, so Helton is perhaps the least deserving of the players on this list. Then again, maybe he's also gotten a bit sick of the daily, year-round rigors needed to combat an aging body and the back issues that sometimes go with it. 

That can happen; it's almost human nature. Helton has been playing in Colorado since 1997. For 14 seasons he's been the starting first baseman. He's been to the World Series, been an All-Star and won three Gold Gloves. It hasn't quite been a Hall of Fame-caliber career but it's been a fantastic career nonetheless. 

Perhaps, though, it's beginning to lose its luster a bit for Helton. Even when healthy, he's not the player he once was. His star which burned so brightly a few years back has now been overshadowed by Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez. Helton is probably working as hard as he ever did in the offseason but with age and back problems, he may be facing a circumstance in which he has to work even harder.