I excluded pitchers from this discussion because they don’t make as many appearances, and I’m not really referring to who has been injured / out of the lineup.

Players like Anderson, Jimenez, and Robert are plenty valuable when they play. 

My question really is - who has been the least valuable player who has appeared in at least 70 team games? 

 

I like Yaz, but it's definitely him. Team would have been better off keeping Narvaez or McCann (yes I was one of those not thrilled about the Grandal signing).

Too many to list, thb, but Pollock and Yaz take the cake for me on the offensive side.  Just brutal seasons.  

Leury by a mile.

It's not just the fact that he's barely hitting better than 2021 White Sox pitchers (.458 OPS for 2021 pitchers vs. 505 OPS for 2022 Leury). It's the fact that he's somehow forced his way into the everyday lineup and/or clutch hitting situations this year time and time again.

Hard pick so many choices, the entire roster

Leury becasue LaRussa puts him in positions to fail.  He is a nice defensive player but has zero offensive skill. 

 

His home run in the playoffs last year is equal to Kerry Wood's in '03 I think it was.  He is terrible but gets lucky once or twice a season. 

Edited August 29, 20223 yr by Harry Chappas

10 minutes ago, JoeC said:

Leury by a mile.

It's not just the fact that he's barely hitting better than 2021 White Sox pitchers (.458 OPS for 2021 pitchers vs. 505 OPS for 2022 Leury). It's the fact that he's somehow forced his way into the everyday lineup and/or clutch hitting situations this year time and time again.

Leury by a lot. Yaz, when healthy, is at least catching and working a good pitching staff. Leury is so bad on offense it far, far outweighs his minimal defensive value.

 I understand your parameters, but this list needs to have Giolito on it.  

 

With that said, I'd say Yaz. Yoan has at least played defense.  Harrison was only supposed to be a guy, not a difference maker, Leury, well same thing.  Engel is a 4th OF, Sheets and Pollock haven't been good, but not nearly as bad as Yaz.  He's just been awful.  Like the other guys are bad, but Yaz may be the worst player in baseball this year.  Especially for a dude making the money.  

18 minutes ago, JoeC said:

Leury by a mile.

It's not just the fact that he's barely hitting better than 2021 White Sox pitchers (.458 OPS for 2021 pitchers vs. 505 OPS for 2022 Leury). It's the fact that he's somehow forced his way into the everyday lineup and/or clutch hitting situations this year time and time again.

Leury has been bad enough.  Don't put Tony's problems on him.  

And yes, he hasn't done anything good.  But I don't think that anyone expected him to be more than a supersub.  And a guy sucking at supersub isn't as impactful as a guy sucking at C'/DH, or 3B, or SP. 

Sorry couldn’t bring myself to vote for just one. 

12 minutes ago, turnin' two said:

 I understand your parameters, but this list needs to have Giolito on it.  

 

With that said, I'd say Yaz. Yoan has at least played defense.  Harrison was only supposed to be a guy, not a difference maker, Leury, well same thing.  Engel is a 4th OF, Sheets and Pollock haven't been good, but not nearly as bad as Yaz.  He's just been awful.  Like the other guys are bad, but Yaz may be the worst player in baseball this year.  Especially for a dude making the money.  

I considered Lucas, but as bad as he's been in the bad starts, it seems like he's only had 7-8 games that were really out of control terrible. To be clear - he's not been good this season but his FIP is wayyyy below his ERA. Would you believe 8 of his 23 starts have been QS? 

12 minutes ago, turnin' two said:

Leury has been bad enough.  Don't put Tony's problems on him.  

And yes, he hasn't done anything good.  But I don't think that anyone expected him to be more than a supersub.  And a guy sucking at supersub isn't as impactful as a guy sucking at C'/DH, or 3B, or SP. 

Disagree.

Yes, Tony's got a Leury problem... but that has contributed to Leury's being the least valuable player.

Leury's got a -1.0 WAR. That's twice as bad as Yaz (-0.5 WAR) in essentially the same number of PA's.

I'm going off list with "Glass Joe" Kelly

1. Rick Hahn and 1A. Tony La Russa, these players didn't just show up here out of the blue on their own.

Bottom line is Lynn ($18.5M), Grandal ($18.3M), Moncada ($13.8M), Pollock ($11.0M), Graveman ($8.0M), Kelly ($8.0M) and Garcia ($5.5M) have a combined net fWAR of 0.0, and all but Grandal and Moncada were signed/acquired between July 2021 (Lynn) and Opening Day 2022.

Leury.  It’s shocking he continues to get so many ABs. 

19 minutes ago, JoeC said:

Disagree.

Yes, Tony's got a Leury problem... but that has contributed to Leury's being the least valuable player.

Leury's got a -1.0 WAR. That's twice as bad as Yaz (-0.5 WAR) in essentially the same number of PA's.

But what WAR did you expect from Yaz?  What did you expect from Leury?  The team wasn't counting on Leury to be valuable (well at least we as fans weren't).  But this team needed Yaz to be valuable.  

And Yaz is -1.2 in bWAR.  

Yaz makes 13 million more this year than Leury.  There has to be a sliding scale in how they are measured.  

I wouldn't even waste time talking about a guy like Leury Garcia or Adam Engel.  How can you be in a conversation about value when no one values you to start with?  This list has to be between Grandal and Moncada based on them having actual expectations for  this season.

-1.2 WAR season for Yaz has to be it.

31 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

1. Rick Hahn and 1A. Tony La Russa, these players didn't just show up here out of the blue on their own.

Bottom line is Lynn ($18.5M), Grandal ($18.3M), Moncada ($13.8M), Pollock ($11.0M), Graveman ($8.0M), Kelly ($8.0M) and Garcia ($5.5M) have a combined net fWAR of 0.0, and all but Grandal and Moncada were signed/acquired between July 2021 (Lynn) and Opening Day 2022.

I was aware they wasted a lot of money, but $85 million for 0 WAR? Sox never pay top dollar for FA but for the same dollars they could have had Harper, Machado, AND Wheeler.  Giving big bucks to mid-level players and relievers is always stupid.  Pay top dollar for impact players and then fill in with a deep farm system and smart waiver wire transactions.  This number alone justifies getting rid of the entire front office.

16 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

I wouldn't even waste time talking about a guy like Leury Garcia or Adam Engel.  How can you be in a conversation about value when no one values you to start with?  This list has to be between Grandal and Moncada based on them having actual expectations for  this season.

Exactly. It's either Moncada or Grandal and because I could only pick one I went with Grandal. Both guys were expected to produce 3-5 WAR and both have basically been replacement level. That's a lot to overcome. If the stars produced this season -1 WAR from a Leury type wouldn't really have mattered.

An argument could be made for Giolito as well but as a pitcher he's just not going to contribute as much as a position player to good or bad.

2 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Exactly. It's either Moncada or Grandal and because I could only pick one I went with Grandal. Both guys were expected to produce 3-5 WAR and both have basically been replacement level. That's a lot to overcome. If the stars produced this season -1 WAR from a Leury type wouldn't really have mattered.

An argument could be made for Giolito as well but as a pitcher he's just not going to contribute as much as a position player to good or bad.

Giolito and Lynn are more victims of their defense than themselves.

Come on, let's get real here (those voting for Leury). 

Despite dumbass Hahn giving him a 3 year deal, it's for $5.5 million per season. 

Grandal is making $18.5 million 

It's not even debatable here. 

 

2 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Giolito and Lynn are more victims of their defense than themselves.

Giolito's avg exit velocity is up almost a MPH and he's walking another guy per 9. xFIP is sorta broken these days given how much batted ball profiles have changed since it was introduced to I'm inclined to pencil him in closer to a 5 ERA than 4 like it suggests.

He hasn't had a great year, but he's not the least valuable player. That's either Yoan or Grandal. More I think about it the more I might go with Yoan. 

Least "valuable"?  Some reliever.  Relievers aren't valuable.  

Most disappointing?  Yaz & Moncada.  Both will end up 4+ WAR below where we'd hoped they'd be.  

 

4 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Giolito and Lynn are more victims of their defense than themselves.

Is there any chance Giolito streams 200 hours of MLB The Show this offseason without blaming his season on the defense?  It could get uncomfortable with him. 

1 minute ago, GREEDY said:

Least "valuable"?  Some reliever.  Relievers aren't valuable.  

Most disappointing?  Yaz & Moncada.  Both will end up 4+ WAR below where we'd hoped they'd be.  

 

Is there any chance Giolito streams 200 hours of MLB The Show this offseason without blaming his season on the defense?  It could get uncomfortable with him. 

Giolito hasn't said anything about his defense.  I think you are confusing fans who watch the games, and the statistics that agree with them, with Lucas.