Baseball's All-Underachieving Squad

At the mid-point of the '08 season, when many players are being lauded for their first-half accomplishments, I think it would be a disservice to the deserving fumblers around the league not to recognize their remarkable level of ineptitude.

And thus, in the spirit of the 55th midsummer classic, here is my 55th all-underachieving squad. (In reference to a fellow blogger wiser than myself, who has informed me that I would be better off keeping my blogs relatively short, I will limit this post to the All-Red-Sox-Underachieving Squad. Check back next week as I continue around the league and pay homage to the other, equally deserving spazzes.)

Julio Lugo

Who else but Lugo, our erstwhile All-Clunker All-Star, to leadoff? Lugo’s salary this year ($6.5M) and next ($7.25) combined with his .264 batting average, 1HR and (Holy Toledo) 16 errors (be sure to keep a running-tally on that one) make him a cant-miss candidate for an All-Fumble-Team nod.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t the Sox paying Alex Gonzalez a fraction of what Lugo is now swindling from John Henry's pockets? Wouldn’t Orlando Cabrera seem like a good fit about now? Nomar? (He played short the other day for the Dodgers.) What about John Valentin? Can we dig up his bones and cart him out there just to see what a shortstop with a set of hands looks like?

Coco Crisp

Holy Moley. What the hell is this guy doing? Coco looks like he’s trying to swat butterflies with a handkerchief. In the 9th inning against the Yankees the other night (when the Sox brought up their murderers-row of Coco, Varitek, and Lugo to face Yankees closer Mariano Rivera), Coco looked unbearably clueless, flailing (and missing) at three pitches outside the strikezone. Crisp's .261 BA, 5 HR, and less-than-healthy .310 OBP are all less-than-stellar. But its his arm (the arm that makes Johnny Damon’s look like a howitzer by comparison) that puts Coco in a class by himself. If there were a stat for runners-that-would-have-been-thrown-out-had-not-the-centerfielder-possessed-the-arm-of-a-pre-pubescent-girl, Coco would be the run-away league-leader. Seriously, we are talking about a probable 20-30 run differential.

Anyway, in the interest of space, I’ll limit this to position players. Varitek is spared due to his general thuggish-ness and due to his expertise at handling the Sox pitching staff. Papí is spared because of his significant time on the DL. Manny is spared because, believe it or not, he has 54 RBIs and I don’t want to get the crap beaten out of me. If you think others are deserving of inclusion, please present your arguments below.