The Laziest Players in Baseball History

Pete Rose had an opinion about lazy players in baseball I don't mind lazy players he explained as long as they're on the other side accused of many Terrible Things Rose was never charged with laziness this was a man who sprinted to first base after each of his 1,566 walks which is roughly the equivalent of sprinting a full Marathon over his career yeah just on walks more than most sports baseball demands grinding effort as it's a true day-to-day SLO to the dog days of summer yeah baseball is a game that worships the grind the hustle The Blood The Sweat and Tears but there's still the other side of the coin because this sport makes huge emotional psychological and physical demands on the players there are those who just can't measure up who don't run harder for space on less than routine grounders who do the minimum or less in the offseason who let their bodies go to waste and these players irritate and annoy because in most cases they have the ability the god-given talent to excel in a sport where most of us have failed despite our desperate Love and Desire to keep playing okay Pete Rose is no role model but perhaps the one and only only thing he always did right in his career was to play the game with Incredible passion sometimes perhaps too much passion these other players not so much or in the cases we'll be examining today barely at all as lovers of the game we all probably wish there was no content for this video but nonetheless here's our take on the laziest players in baseball history we do want to acknowledge that like in our worst Fielder video a few weeks back this list is slanted towards players who appeared in the last 30 years or so largely due to the fact that the media has become far more capable of figuring out exactly how players are perceived in the clubhouse culture there were definitely lazy players in the 1950s for example but worried about who those players were would have never left the Dugout or Clubhouse today it's just so much harder to prevent the leaking of these things anyway on to our vid but before we get into that I want to tell you a little bit about today's sponsor Underdog fantasy and how you can get involved with your favorite teams and players every single day in any of the major sports including MLB NHL NFL and NBA with underdogs pick them you choose between the over or under on a multitude of daily available stats ranging from strikeouts hits touchdowns passing yards even their individualized fantasy points then you simply select two to five picks and if your picks are correct you can win anywhere from 3 to 20 times your initial entry amount or if those Stakes are a little too high for you you can always go with their insurance system which allows you to get one pick incorrect in exchange for a lower multiplier overall I think it's a great way to have some fun with your favorite sports and maybe make a little money while you're doing it getting started simple go to underd og.com and sign up with promo code MTC as of right now they're matching initial deposits up to $500 again that's Underdog fantasy.com with promo code MTC to see them match your initial deposit up to $500 now back to our video batting leadoff and hardly playing Left Field is delman Young it's easy to see why young heads this list despite being the number one pick of the 2003 draft and the number one Prospect in baseball in 2005 his 10-year career ended with a war of just 3.2 and an Ops plus of just 98 literally below League average the talent was undeniable in 37 postseason games for example he hit nine bombs and drove in 22 which would translate into full season stats of 39 and 96 he truly was clutch when it counted but young is on this list principally for his attitude not his lack of physical skill which became an issue early on in his career only 17 when he was drafted by Tampa Bay young predicted he'd be in The Bigs by 2005 when the race didn't call him up in September 05 wasn't shy about expressing his disappointment publicly his temper tantrum spilled in 2006 when young got suspended for 50 games for throwing a bat at an Umpire while still playing for Durham yeah throwing a bat at an ump there's footage of it here he still thought he belonged in the big leagues and showed up his bosses manager Joe Madden and GM Andrew Freedman two of the most Innovative thinkers in the game only a fool would tell those guys how to do their job but delman was ironically young and somewhat Brash he did finally get called up in 2006 and played every game for the raids in 2007 finishing second in Al Rookie of the Year voting but Freedman would end up trading him to the twins shortly after because in part Young's defense was simply well below League average and this didn't primarily seem to be because of a lack of skill he just didn't seem to want to give his all in the Outfield often letting fly balls drop inches in front of him and not hustling to cut off balls in the Gap this style of play went against the pitching and defense first Credo the Rays were building almost in the opposite direction in fact necessitating a change in location it seemed this was of course couple with his combative ways in the clubhouse he had a career best season in 2010 but this would be the peak of his career when instead of still reaching for his Prime at the age of 24 young began to decline injuries to his ankle and shoulders didn't help but this more so seemed to be in large part due to the object loss of his athleticism accelerated by large weight gain he just didn't seem to be locked in mentally by this point he was seemingly drinking excessively which partly explains his arrest in April 2012 for yelling anti-semitic slurs at a group of tourists in Time Square yet that same season he was the ALCS MVP for the Tigers who' gotten him in a deadline deal with the twins in 2011 flashes of his talent still showed up at times just without the regularity they once did he would go on to post pedestrian Big League numbers for the next six years though he did somehow manage to make the playoffs every season in that span often emerging from the minor he had hot in September but by the age of 30 when he should have been at his Peak he was out of MLB entirely why like we mentioned above his weight had a huge effect on his diminishing talents it got so out of hand that the Phillies once put a claw in his contract that would pay him $600,000 to weigh in at 230 lb six different times during the season during the 2013 season he had weighed 240 so the weight loss Clause should have been a slam dunk he just had to drop 10 lbs with millions of millions of dollars at his disposal and state of-the-art exercise technology but he never ended up getting a penny if you sign a contract worth $91 million would you do the required ab and core strengthening exercises required to maintain your ability to pitch most people would at least feel a tug of obligation to put in the effort to fulfill their end of the deal but Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano was not like most people like delman young there was no denying the talent Zano was signed out of Venezuela as a 16-year-old and by the time he was 20 he'd reached the big leagues a mountain of a man Zano checked in at 6'4 275 he was intimidating both on the bump and at the plate someone who could throw a no hitter and crush a 400 foot Homer in the same contest a Walmart version of Sho Otani if you will the Cubs certainly thought so in the early 2000s the long-suffering fans of rig field finally had something to cheer for namely Mark Prior Carrie Wood and Carlos Zambrano who in 2003 took the team to NLCS and then one fateful foul ball and ensuing error turned the team's fortunes on its head in coming Seasons pry and wood would get hurt leaving Big Z as the Ace of the staff nicknamed The Bull he certainly was a hard worker then at least between the lines giving the team over 200 Innings pitched every year between 2004 and 2007 he was still young just 26 years old in 2007 when the Cubs invested almost $100 million into him they saw Zan bro establishing himself as a True Ace a dominator and a clubhouse leader instead they got tantrums and fights with teammates in 2007 he slugged catcher Michael Barrett in The Dugout and again in the locker room in 2009 he got suspended for six games for bumping an Umpire and smashing a soda dispenser in 2010 he got to an altercation with Derrik Lee for plays Lee didn't make in the field intense sure but not when it came to his own conditioning in 2009 WIS Bro went on the DL for backs spasms he admitted he'd been quote lazy about his rehab my problem is I've been lazy Zim brano said there are things in life that you don't like to do but you have to do I don't like to do abs but I will have to start doing my ab exercises every day and be serious about it a truism in sports seems to be that your best player has to be your hardest worker if you truly want your team to Jael Z Brown was making $18 million in 2009 and he didn't want to do abs based on the ensuing years's performance we never really did end up fulfilling that promise to take it more seriously I guess guess it's no wonder that big Z was done by the age of 31 posting ra pluses of 81 and 91 during his last two seasons but oddly enough in another Twist of his own making it wasn't even due to underperformance that he was out of the league entirely he had offers he just didn't want to play anymore he had said as much after his 100th career win during that 2009 season after being asked if he thought he had a chance at 300 career wins 300 me nah I'll be out of here in 5 years after being pressed on exactly what he meant he responded with no believe me after this contract I'm done I'm serious because I don't want to play anymore yeah not exactly what you want to hear from your number one starter for True Baseball fans there was little better than tuning in sports center in the late 2000s and watching Hanley Ramirez hit a bomb than hearing say hello to my little friend this Scarface reference helped lend Majesty to the constant show that ramirz was at the plate he was the reason the Marlins traded Josh Becket to the Red Sox he was going to be A- Rod minus the steroids a short stop who could hit for high average and for power except there was one little problem problem Short Stops have to be able to field the baseball and field it well and Ramirez simply couldn't do that or he could have done that but for whatever reason the idea of Fielding just didn't appeal to him he was 6'3 195 lbs of pure fast twitch muscle when he broke in another in a long line of Dominican shortstops who had the athleticism to do everything but despite his immense prowess at the plate he was known for doing things in the field that really stood out in the opposite way for example during the 2010 season there was the notorious kicked ball game against the Dbacks when Ramirez chased after a pop-up and somehow kicked it in a left field instead of sprinting after it he jogged like he was saving his energy for after the game yeah he got yanked for that one in 2011 manager Jack McKeon benched him for his lack of hustle on the field and on the bases teammates called him out for showing up for games the very last minute when he should have been arriving early for extra Fielding practice and it showed throughout his career he managed to tally the fourth worst defensive run save total of all time at 74 despite having more physical gifts than nearly everyone one behind him including the likes of Adam Dunn Miguel Cabrera and Dan ugla okay so maybe he wasn't a short stop maybe move to third was in order especially in 2012 when the Mars acquired Jose Rees or in left field after Red Sox signed him for 88 million in 2015 or even at first base for that matter even arguably the easiest defensive positions prove no match for Ramirez's inabilities in the field in November 2015 the Red Sox spent a yacht load of $180 million on two players who came with huge risks the aformentioned hand Ramirez and Pablo sandal both ended up being disappointing in regards to their work ethic but in decidedly different ways sandal was the Beloved Kung Fu Panda when he played for the San Francisco Giants winning three World Series rings in a 5year span between 2010 and 2014 in 2012 sanval was named MVP of the series for hitting a cool 500 part of the reason why his career numbers in the fall classic are so special a 426 average with three bombs and eight RBI the three Bombs all came in game one of the 2012 World Series making King sandal one of just four players to accomplish that feat but if you back up to 2010 when the giants made their first run at a title sandal got just three ABS in the World Series because he was considered overweight and underproductive as he had ranked as a below average MLB hitter in that Year's regular season with just a 99 Ops plus despite him trying to get in better shape before the year began he was benched for w rebbe and in the next offseason sandal decided he had to do something he weighed 278 lbs well above the 255 he began his career at sandal went to Triple Threat performance in Arizona and lost 30 lbs prior to the 2011 season the results of what the Giants organization were calling operation Panda and the results on the field seem to show that sandal played best when he was a bit Slimmer he hit 315 with 23 homers and a 909 Ops a big bounceback from his subpar 2010 if he hadn't missed 41 games with a broken hand sandal could have possibly made a run at MVP after losing weight before 2011 sandal would finish that season with an Ops plus of 155 a mark he never reach again it became a springtime refrain with the Giants sandal is looking to drop a few pounds in the off season after winning a third ring in 2014 sandal left the Giants as a free agent for the Boston Red Sox signing for 95 million over 5 years the Red Sox were hoping that sandal would crush it in the postseason and in the process become a panda bear marketing Phenom in Beantown neither of these things came to pass instead between the parts of three seasons Sandoval's Red Sox Ops plus averaged 71 29 Points below League average it also didn't help he was consistently putting up below average Fielding metrics during this time year in and year out on top of all this he was missing time due to injury basically every season including sitting out the entirety of the 2016 campaign reporting to Camp earlier in that season sandal claimed that the Red Sox didn't demand he'd lose weight and further that he didn't bother trying to lose weight or work on his Fielding or anything really at one point registering one of the most embarrassing moments in recent memory when he literally broke his belt swinging at a pitch when he spoke on his early days in Boston after the 2017 season he said and I quote my career has fallen into an abyss after the Red Sox deal because I was so complacent with things that I had already accomplished I didn't work hard in order to achieve more it was during that 17th season he was cut entirely by the Red Sox ironically it was the Giants who picked him up after this and after successfully losing some weight he again had two decent years in 2018 and 2019 when his Ops plus was over 100 post Giants came a short stint with the Braves with which he barely played an Atlanta's 2020 postseason run by 2021 it was over with the Pand of retiring at just 34 years old those of course are not close to the total amount of players we could have selected for this vid but more so the ones that stood out the most to us however we do believe there are a few others worthy of a somewhat dishonorable mention Adam Dunn could crush a baseball but he couldn't really catch one or chase after one or take an extra base he was Kyle schwarber before it was cool to be the king of three true outcomes in fact dun almost won the three true outcomes Triple Crown in 2012 leading the league in walks strikeout outs but just missing out on homers with 41 he had a negative D War each year of his career stinking up the place in both left field and first base worse he liked to brag he never had to work out because he was 6'6 and 285 when Yankee exec stated flatly that they wouldn't consider acquiring him for the specific reason that he was viewed as lazy in 2006 if you'd have asked fans of the Washington Nationals about Alonso Sorano they would have gushed about this 4040 specimen of speed and power but if you ask the same question of cubs fans in 2011 they might have said said that the fs needed to take the first flight out of O'Hare why he was still capable of hitting 30 homers and driving in 100 runs but it was his indifference in the field that was constantly driving everyone at Wrigley up a wall he rarely ran hard to First even on less than routine plays and after catchable fly balls resulting in many of these almost certain outs dropping for hits an elite athlete of his caliber shouldn't have had a negative 6.2 DW War for his career but when it came down to it he just didn't seem like he was trying very hard okay Yankees fans time for a stroll down memory lane July 24th 2018 the trop Yankees and the rays are battling and the n9th the Game Stands 7 to six Rays the bases were loaded and Gary Sanchez was at the plate he had a grounder in the shift and the Rays tried to get the out of second with Daniel Robertson throwing to Willie Adamas who ran to the bag but Aaron Hicks beat him there game tied right nope Sanchez was jogging down the line because he assumed the game would end adamus fired to first to get Sanchez who earlier in the game had already allowed Runner to score from second on a pass ball because well Sanchez again wasn't hustling and that pretty much sums up Sanchez's play at the time great talent no hustle your consumate lazy player he has however grown up somewhat since in his time with the twins and the Padres which is why we're content to leave him as an afterthought rather than a central figure of this video arguably the greatest player of all time lazy yes and no he could be on this list for what he did to himself during the season he turned 30 1925 his talent was prodigious and he still owns the record for the most Innings pitch in a World Series game even during this time however it was well known that the man had appetites appetites that he managed to keep in check until the 1925 season prior to spring training that year Ruth's weight had ballooned to 256 lbs well above his listed 215 he went to Hot Springs Arkansas to get in shape and all he did while there was eat drink and chase women in the Ozark's version of Las Vegas he kept on partying in the team spring training site of St Petersburg where his marriage came to an end he missed the first seven weeks of the Season due to the belly ache HT around the world he was suspended in August for showing up late to a game he had the worst year of his career with just 25 homers because of one central reason he had gotten incredibly lazy but he turned it around by hiring trainer Arty McGovern and over the next seven seasons hit over 40 homers per campaign and in six out of seven of those Seasons his Ops plus was over 200 but he would slipped back in Old Habits after this period with his career tapering off drastically in his final few campaigns was the Babe lazy overall for his entire career I'd lean towards no but his behavior during these times makes including him in this section a slam dunk the lazy tag Trail Robinson Canó around like a tin can tied to his cleats it's not hard to see why too often he didn't run hard to first or made mental lapses in the field especially early in his career Joe jardi actually pulled Canó from a game for a defensive lapse where he had just stood and watched a play unfold in front of him forcing the right fielder to sprint in to grab the batted ball which was falling fast in a shallow right other times he pretended like running hard to first base would lead to sudden Cardiac Arrest it was baffling because he was as smooth a player as everman's second base and his swing was a sight to behold and on top of all this he took peeds which will almost certainly ruin his chance at the hall of fame as well as pretty much cementing his case as a somewhat lazy player was this always the case probably not was this lack of hustle exaggerated by a vicious New York media almost certainly but at the end of the day this list would not be complete without the mention of Robbie Canó Manny Machado was one of the most gifted players to ever step on a baseball field and it's a disgrace that he's even on this list but he has no one to blame but himself many times during his career he's refused to run hard to First even when he could have been safe maybe that's why during the 2018 playoffs he himself said he wasn't a Johnny hustle type player and then tried to defend it by quote clarifying that he meant he didn't fake hustle and that hustle isn't his cup of tea even opposing managers have called him out for not playing hard the record speaks for itself he's lagged too many times even in the World Series like Sanchez however who is his teammate ironically over the past season he has picked up his pace of play since signing in San Diego taking on many of the qualities of a leader that's what saved him from a more comprehensive spot on this list but only just barely being a great athlete from a young age brings with it a kind of arrogance coaches won't bench you because they need you to play when you sign for big bucks you've acquired generational wealth and maybe the fire that's always burned bright inside you starts to burn a little less intensely it's the rare Superstar who hungers for greatness each and every day no one accuses Aaron judge of being lazy or sh Otani or Mike Trout so why is it possible to make this video at all because baseball exposes the inner life of a player your soul is literally projected onto a diamond for all to see especially in a social media age where every single play is scrutinized by hundreds of thousands if not millions of people there is generally considered to be a conventionally right way to play for mere mortals but certain Stars think the rules don't apply to them that they don't have to work on ABS or lift weights or eat properly or run outr balls or give their all to cut off fly balls in the gaps for some some of them this might be true however more often than not a lazy player leaves behind a tainted Legacy that almost always swims in the Realms of the what if what if they had taken their craft more seriously their training the fact is to many fans of the game there simply shouldn't be lazy players in MLB but at the end of the day the fact that there is just makes the game that much more complex and human now thank you for watching Remember to like And subscribe if you enjoy content like this and check out this playlist for other essay videos of this nature have a great day everyone

Channel: Made The Cut

Views: 269,836

Keywords: MLB, baseball, 2022, mlb baseball, baseball videos, braves, sf giants, mlbscores, stlouis cardinals, houstonastros, espn mlb, shohei ohtani, mlb schedule, babe ruth, ohtani, cubs schedule, red sox schedule, phillies schedule, yankees schedule, mlb rumors, dodgers, dodgers schedule

Id: M8KH5VuyuDQ

Length: 19min 56sec (1196 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 29 2023