Paul Janish's 2011 in perspective

I'm a fan of Cincinnati Reds players to a fault. Heck, I'll even forgive Mike Leake for his shopping habits. Much as I've tried to look past Janish's shortcomings at short (well...much more so at the plate than defensively, where he's fine), I had morbid curiosity get the better of me. I just had to examine how his 2011 season stands up historically.

I went to baseball-reference's season finder and used the following settings:
- at least 250 plate appearances (meaning the player was given the chance to really do damage)
- zero or negative WAR
- zero or negative WPA
- zero or negative base-out runs
- OPS+ of lower than 80

For the Cincinnati Reds from 1950 to 2011 (the only seasons available for some of the statistics), this search produced 54 results. Taking all the categories into account, I judged these five to be the worst of all time:

1) Tommy Helms (2B, 1970) - the worst WAR, WPA and base-out runs on the entire list. He actually won the Gold Glove at second base that year.

2) Bobby Tolan (CF/RF, 1973) - second worst WAR, third worst base-out runs, fifth worst WPA

3) Paul Householder (RF, 1982) - the second worst WPA and second worst base-out runs

4) Darrel Chaney (SS, 1973) - the worst batting average and worst OPS+. He was the backup to Concepcion, who appears three times on this list of 54 - but with nowhere close to the ineptitude of these top five.

5) Juan Castro (SS/UT, 2001) - second worst OPS+, third worst WAR

Thanks to a late-season offensive "burst" by Janish to raise his average to .214 and OPS+ to 43, he broke his way out of the bottom five. His season is still among the worst offensive displays ever by a Red, but not Hall of Shame-caliber.