Lindbergh: The worst one-team players
From SABR member Ben Lindbergh at Baseball Prospectus on August 9, 2013:
At the end of June, Ruben Amaro said he hoped Chase Utley would be a “Phillie for life,” an outcome he made much more likely by extending Utley earlier this week. Utley is exactly the type of player who tends to have a lengthy career spent entirely with one team: an MVP-level performer in his prime who’ll retire with a strong case for Cooperstown. Consider some of the other recent one-team talents: the Yankee quartet of Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeter; Jeff Bagwell, Chipper Jones, and Todd Helton. David Wright, Joe Mauer, and Yadier Molina (among others) might join that group.
It takes a pretty good player just to make it in the majors for a decade or more. But to stay with one team the whole time—especially in a post-reserve-clause world where players can come and go as they please—usually takes someone special, the kind of rare talent who can keep a general manager’s eyes from wandering.
Naturally, that made me wonder about the worst ones to do it. These are the players with the lowest career WARPs who debuted in the free-agency era and played for at least 10 seasons, all with one team (the full list is available here).
Read the full article here: http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=21489
Originally published: August 9, 2013. Last Updated: August 9, 2013.