The Best Players On The Worst MLB Teams Of The 1990's

Getty Images.

Last season, the worst team in all of Major League Baseball was the Washington Nationals who went 55-107. The best player by WAR on that team being Juan Soto probably comes as no surprise even though he was on the San Diego Padres for a third of the season. I thought it might be interesting to look back at the worst team for each year of the 1990's and who the best player was on that team. Would it be a player getting dealt like Soto or someone who is more of a mainstay with that organization? The names would up being bigger than I thought and the list includes a Hall of Famer.

Here are the best players on the worst teams of the 1990's according to WAR:

1990 Atlanta Braves

65-97

Ron Gant, CF/LF

The Braves were the best NL team of the 1990's. So while this would be the last year they struggled, some very good players were still on this roster like John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and David Justice but it would be Gant who was the best of all them in this year. He had a monster 30/30 season with 32 homers and 33 stolen bases. He would wind up playing a major role on both of the 1991 and 1992 NL pennant winners but wound up breaking his leg in a dirt bike accident after the 1993 season.

The Braves wound up releasing him and he missed all of 1994. He did come back in 1995 with the Reds and had a great year hitting 29 home runs for a team that went all the way to the NLCS (before losing to the Braves). After that season, Gant was a productive outfielder for a few teams (most notably the Cardinals) but was never quite as great or as fast as he was with the Braves.

1991 Cleveland Indians

57-105

Greg Swindell, SP

Much like the Braves we just covered, the Indians were also on their way to being a good team. They just had to bottom out first and this was that season. Some of the major players of the 90's run that Cleveland had were on this team like Albert Belle, Carlos Baerga and Charles Nagy but they also had the fewest home runs in the AL that season with only 79. That might be why Greg Swindell had a nice ERA of 3.48 but an awful 9-16 record.

Swindell was the 2nd overall pick in the entire 1986 MLB draft by Cleveland and was a good pitcher for them . He wound up getting traded to the Reds after this season. After a strong year with Cincinnati (12-8, 2.70), he was a free agent and the Astros made a big free agent splash signing both Swindell and Doug Drabek to strengthen their rotation. Both pitchers were already past their primes so it didn't really work and when that four year deal was done, Swindell found himself nearly out of baseball until the Twins made the lefty a reliever. He wound pitching out of the bullpen for six seasons and even won a World Series ring with the 2001 Diamondbacks.

1992 Los Angeles Dodgers

63-99

Brett Butler, CF

That's Brett Butler when he was a coach with the Marlins a couple decades after the worst season for the Dodgers since they left Brooklyn. 1992 is probably most remembered by Dodger fans for Eric Davis and Darryl Strawberry both being free agent busts and Eric Karros winning Rookie of the Year. But it was Brett Butler (not the star of Grace Under Fire) who had a great year out of the leadoff spot hitting .309 with an on-base percentage of .413 and 41 steals.

Butler was 35 by 1992 and would play until he was 40 but the amazing part is he was diagnosed with tonsil cancer in 1996 and was told he probably wouldn't play again after treatment. He even wound up playing that very season and came back for a final year in 1997. Butler only played on three playoff teams so he's been somewhat forgotten but he had a very good career finishing with 2,375 hits and is 25th all-time in stolen bases with 558.

1993 New York Mets

59-103

Dwight Gooden, SP

Ronald C. Modra. Getty Images.

You know you have a bad team if you have the worst record in baseball in a year that two expansion teams begin play. The 1993 Mets weren't just bad, they might have been the most disappointing team of the entire decade. This was a team with two Hall of Famers (Eddie Murray and Jeff Kent) playing everyday and two former Cy Young Award winners (Bret Saberhagen and Gooden) in the rotation. They weren't just bad on the field. Outfielder Vince Coleman threw a firecracker at a group of fans injuring three people including a 1 year old girl. If that wasn't bad enough, a couple weeks later Saberhagen sprayed reporters with a Super Soaker filled with bleach.

Throughout it all, Gooden put together a nice season in what would be his final decent season with the Mets. His great strikeout numbers were already gone by that point (he only struck out 149 in 1993) but he wound up going 12-15 with a 3.45 ERA. The highlight of the season for Gooden (and the entire Mets team really) was when he shut out the Colorado Rockies on Opening Day in the very first game in Rockies history.

1994 San Diego Padres

47-70

Tony Gwynn, RF

It's strange enough to see a Hall of Famer on this list but the craziest thing is this was setting up to be Tony Gwynn's best season before the strike hit. When the players joined the picket line on August 12, Gwynn was batting .394. It would be the closest he would come in his career to hitting .400. 1994 would also be the only year in his career that he would lead the league in On Base Percentage. 

Many players (most people probably. I know I'd be pissed.) would spend time feeling cheated but Gwynn was able to look at it with a better frame of mind:

SOURCE - In an interview with NBC Sports, Gwynn was asked if he felt deprived of an opportunity to hit .400.

“Deprived? I don’t feel that way,’’ he said. “We (players) all were in the same boat. But in my mind, I thought I could. I sure wanted the chance. I was squaring the ball up nicely, hitting lefties, righties. I would have given it a run. I’m not sure how I would have handled it in September. But I think I had the type of personality to handle it. We’ll never know, but I have no regrets.’’

1995 Toronto Blue Jays & Minnesota Twins

56-88

Al Leiter, SP & Chuck Knoblauch, 2B

In what would be Kirby Puckett's final season, Knoblauch had a very good year but I did just talk about him in this blog and I think the Blue Jays season is more interesting. After winning the World Series in 1992-93 and with 1994 being a strike year, the Blue Jays came into the 1995 believing they were a contender. They traded for David Cone in the off-season and with many of the players who won those World Series still on the team (Roberto Alomar, Paul Molitor, John Olerud and Joe Carter among them), Toronto was ready to seriously compete in 1995.

It didn't go well. Juan Guzman (4-14, 6.32) and Danny Darwin (1-8, 7.62) were almost impossibly bad. They didn't have a real catcher and almost no roster depth that got exposed when some guys got hurt. Days before the trading deadline, the Blue Jays raised the white flag and traded David Cone to the Yankees for three minor leaguers. Toronto wouldn't be back in the playoffs until 2015.

1996 Detroit Tigers

53-109

Omar Olivares, SP & Bobby Higginson, LF/RF

Duane Burleson. Shutterstock Images.

This was Hall of Famer Alan Trammell's last season and it wound up being on the worst team in all of Major League Baseball for the entire decade. They did have five hitters with over 20 home runs (including Cecil Fielder who was traded to the Yankees at the deadline). Bobby Higginson led the way and had what would become a trend of his 11 year Tigers career: having a nice season for a lousy team. The weakness on this squad is pretty easy to spot. Check out this rotation:

Felipe Lira: 6-14, 5.22 (32 Games Started)

Omar Olivares: 7-11, 4.89 (25 GS)

Brian Williams: 3-10, 6.77 (17 GS)

Greg Gohr: 4-8, 7.17 (16 GS)

Justin Thompson: 1-6, 4.58 (11 GS)

Todd Van Poppel: 2-4, 11.39 (9 GS)

You can't say the Tigers didn't keep trying. Ten other pitchers besides those six made starts for the Tigers that season. They fared no better going 17-36.

1997 Oakland A's

65-97

Mark McGwire, 1B

Otto Greule Jr. Getty Images.

It gets lost because of McGwire hitting 70 home runs in 1998, but he came really close to breaking Maris' record the year before. It would have been a little weird because he was traded by the A's to the Cardinals at the trade deadline. As it is, he hit 58 home runs that season but didn't lead either league.

The return the A's got for McGwire was especially terrible. This should be on the list of the worst trades of the 1990's. Here's how the players that Oakland got did for them:

TJ Mathews, RP (24-15, 4.78, 8 saves in 210 games from 1997-2001)

Blake Stein, SP (5-9, 6.60 from 1998-99)

Eric Ludwick, SP (1-4, 8.25 in 1997)

1998 Florida Marlins

54-108

Mark Kotsay, RF

Jim Rogash. Getty Images.

That's Mark Kotsay on the right with the 2008 Red Sox who made the playoffs. The 1998 Marlins weren't so lucky. Kotsay did play 14 games for the 1997 Marlins who won the World Series but he didn't make the playoff roster. It would be the closest he'd ever get to a World Series. Kotsay had a very nice 17 year career with 1784 hits and did make it to three LCS's but lost each time (2006 A's, 2008 Red Sox, 2011 Brewers).

The 1998 Marlins had these following players all play at least one game for the 108 loss team (that was managed by Jim Leyland): Mike Piazza, Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonilla, Todd Zeile, Edgar Renteria, Derrek Lee, Charles Johnson and Livan Hernandez.

1999 Florida Marlins

64-98

Alex Fernandez, SP

It's one hell of a fire sale if you win the World Series and follow that up with the worst record in baseball two years in a row. Much like these Marlins, Fernandez's career is pretty frustrating considering how good he was. He was very durable since coming to the majors with the White Sox in 1990 until signing as a free agent with the Marlins before the 1997 season. He had another strong season his first year in Miami making 32 starts and throwing over 220 innings.  He had a strong start against the Giants in the LDS but in the LCS against the Braves, he injured his shoulder and wound up missing the World Series and the entire 1998 season. He would only make 32 more starts in his entire career which was over before he turned 31.

I don't have a picture of Alex Fernandez so here is a picture of Alex Morgan to reward you all for making it to the end of this.