{"id":140,"date":"2017-06-14T21:05:01","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T02:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/?p=140"},"modified":"2017-06-14T21:12:47","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T02:12:47","slug":"2027-usba-awards-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/index.php\/2017\/06\/14\/2027-usba-awards-night\/","title":{"rendered":"2027 USBA Awards Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Clay Rush Memorial Tin Gloves<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While the days of Clay Rush being a terrible fielder are behind us, we will never forget the legacy that he bestowed upon the league.\u00a0 To honor his contributions to the league as a terrible fielder the Tin Glove Awards have been named after him and the nearly -100 ZR he racked up playing CF for Kingston Township for all those years.\u00a0 These awards are handed out to the worst fielder at every position.\u00a0 We have a lot of new entrants this year, but no matter if the name is familiar or not, you can be sure that they were truly dreadful at catching the ball for the team that was unlucky enough to employ them.<\/p>\n

C \u2013 Eddie Flynn, CHG \u2013<\/strong> The award for the worst catcher going to Flynn who managed to rack up a -4.5 ZR while sitting behind the plate.\u00a0 No one else was with 2 ZR of him, so it\u2019s safe to say he won the award comfortably.<\/p>\n

1B \u2013 Mario Ramos, GRA \u2013<\/strong> What might be one of the easiest positions to play proved to be the exact opposite of that for Ramos.\u00a0 Ramos managed to rack up a -7.9 ZR during the season leading the way for all 1B in every league.<\/p>\n

2B \u2013 Raul Delgado, PORT \u2013<\/strong> For the second straight year Portland is taking home this award, but shockingly they tried someone new at this position and they were just as dreadful.\u00a0 Delgado topped -11 ZR during the season and continues the recent trend of terrible 2B for the LOU\/PORT franchise.\u00a0 (See Andres Rodriguez and Roland Deschain.)<\/p>\n

3B \u2013 Herman Hayes, PC \u2013<\/strong> This was a very, very close race, but not the kind of close race you would want to be included in.\u00a0 Herman Hayes for PC just grabbed the titled over Ricardo Cardenas for Buckhead.\u00a0 Hayes ended up with a -16.1 ZR while Cardenas could only muster a measly -15.1 ZR.\u00a0 Hayes was so bad at fielding that OSA has taken away his position rating.<\/p>\n

SS \u2013 Hank Wilder, NA \u2013<\/strong> Normally we see some truly dreadful performances by SS as it is such a hard position to field well.\u00a0 Surprisingly, this year is an exception with no one getting over -8 ZR.\u00a0 While you would think this might be enough for us to give SS a round of applause, you would be wrong, as someone must win this award.\u00a0 Wilder captured the award with a -7.3 ZR.<\/p>\n

LF \u2013 Sergio Munoz, PC \u2013<\/strong> Sadly, PC is making another entry onto this list.\u00a0 To say the left side of the field was wide open for hitters is maybe a bit of an understatement as Hayes and Munoz combined to be exceedingly ineffective.\u00a0 Munoz did fair a bit better though only accumulating a -9.24 ZR during the season.<\/p>\n

CF \u2013 Alfredo Suarez, NA \u2013<\/strong> Suarez was so bad at fielding his position that he is in the minor leagues now, but that didn\u2019t stop him from winning the award for last year.\u00a0 He nipped two other outfield captains for the award by garnering a sizzling -12.1 ZR.\u00a0 The award is finally leaving KT, even though Ye Der did his best to try to keep the honorary award in its home city, but -10.3 just won\u2019t cut it this year.<\/p>\n

RF \u2013 Robbie Roach, CHH –<\/strong> The final Tin Glove handed out tonight is going to be heading to the 3L where the once great Robbie Roach lumbered his way around RF accounting for a -10.2 ZR.\u00a0 He lapped the field in one of the harder positions to be truly horrendous at.\u00a0 He deserves a round of applause for his efforts.<\/p>\n

Team Award \u2013 New Amsterdam \u2013<\/strong> While this year\u2019s team award winner doesn\u2019t even come close to last year\u2019s Forth Worth team, they are still the runaway winner this year by impressively managing a -35 ZR in the 3L.\u00a0 With two Tin Glove winners on the list, this isn\u2019t a giant shock, but now everyone on the team will also get to take home an award and won\u2019t have to be envious of their teammates inability to field a ball correctly!<\/p>\n

The Wiffle Bat<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Hitting is half the battle, so it\u2019s safe to assume these guys lost the battle.\u00a0 The Wiffle Bat awards go out to the players who had the lowest wRC+ at their positions.<\/p>\n

C \u2013 \u00a0Joram Nelen, PORT<\/strong> – This is always a hard position to find good hitters at, so the competition for worst hitter is always hot and heavy, but Joram Nelen managed to claim the title with a 52 wRC+.\u00a0 Scotty Anderson, the onetime phenom was a very, very close second at 54 wRC+.<\/p>\n

1B \u2013 SaQwan Hackett, NA \u2013<\/strong> This is supposed to be a position that you can see the true hitting abilities of a player manifest themselves.\u00a0 If this is true, then it\u2019s safe to say that Hackett could not hack it with his 66 wRC+ he put up in the 3L last year.<\/p>\n

2B \u2013 Jose Paz, CD –<\/strong> Normally at 2B we see some terrible performances from hitters, but this year produced a very bunched crop of hitter.\u00a0 Jose Paz ended up taking home the wiffle bat, but with a 79 wRC+ he shouldn\u2019t be that ashamed.\u00a0 He is still the worst hitting 2B in the league though.<\/p>\n

3B Isaac Downey, TOL \u2013<\/strong> The hot corner normally produces some very hot bats and it did this year for sure.\u00a0 However, on the other end of the spectrum you get players like Downey who only managed to put up at 50 wRC+ over the course of a season.<\/p>\n

SS \u2013 Gabriel Diaz, PORT \u2013<\/strong> Portland had some real issues hitting this year and Diaz\u2019s name can be added to the list as an example of those problems.\u00a0 His 56 wRC+ beat out his fellow teammate on this list, but was still bad enough to get the award for SS.<\/p>\n

LF \u2013 Dave Morris, PHI \u2013<\/strong> At a position that demands offensive excellence some players are just not able to rise to the challenge.\u00a0 Morris is a great example of that as he managed to eke out a 55 wRC+ and also had the largest gap between himself and the next player on that list.<\/p>\n

CF \u2013 Jack Burton, TOL \u2013<\/strong> This isn\u2019t going to be the last time you see Burton\u2019s name in this writeup.\u00a0 Manning CF for Toledo must have tired him out, because when he got up to bat he had almost nothing to give.\u00a0 Burton managed only a 21 wRC+ during<\/p>\n

RF \u2013 Miguel Moran, AUS \u2013<\/strong> The Premier League is a tough league to hit in, and it\u2019s even tougher when you play a position that has some good hitters at it and you are 23 years old.\u00a0 Regardless, Moran took the cake for worst hitter with his paltry 66 wRC+.<\/p>\n

DH \u2013 Eric Ward, NA \u2013<\/strong> It\u2019s hard to find DHs that hit terrible, because if you can\u2019t then you get benched pretty quick.\u00a0 Ward managed to stay in the lineup long enough to qualify though and had only an 80 wRC+ to show for it.<\/p>\n

Worst Trainer Award<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The worst trainer award can be looked at in two different ways.\u00a0 Either you can be the worst trainer, because you cause your team to miss the most games or because you cost your team the most money by injuring the most expensive players.\u00a0 Austin\u2019s trainer wins the award for most days missed with 503 days total.\u00a0 While his total salary missed wasn\u2019t as high, much of that can be accredited to the fact that his players were still in arbitration years, not because they were insignificant.\u00a0 Oakland takes home the award for money lost to the deal eclipsing $52 million lost to the DL over 497 days.\u00a0 Congratulations to those two trainers for costing their teams big time.<\/p>\n

Jorge Rosa Least Valuable Player Award<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I told you that you would see Jack Burton\u2019s name again and here it is.\u00a0 Managing a staggering -2.97 WAR during the course of last year the Toledo CF\/DH\/LF took home the award for the least valuable player.\u00a0 What makes this even more impressive is that he did that much damage in only 84 games played this season.\u00a0 His slash line, nearly impossible to believe – .144\/.225\/.187.\u00a0 he truly was a terrible player for Toledo and could almost be singlehandedly blamed for their falter from mid-season darlings to relegation bound team.\u00a0 Wear this badge proud Jack Burton, because no one else comes close to your excellence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Clay Rush Memorial Tin Gloves While the days of Clay Rush being a terrible fielder are behind us, we will never forget the legacy that he bestowed upon the league.\u00a0 To honor his contributions to the league as a terrible fielder the Tin Glove Awards have been named after him and the nearly -100\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149,"href":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions\/149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usba14.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}