The Three Most Disappointing Hitters of 2012

Some players, like Carlos Beltran, Josh Hamilton and Derek Jeter have been having phenomenal seasons. Others have not. Let’s take a look at the three most disappointing hitters of 2012:

• Jose Bautista, Toronto Blue Jays- As recently as May 16th, Joey Bats’ batting average was under .200. Now, after some serious improvement, its up to .224 but its still only .224. Bautista is still walking, his OBP is .324 but that’s way off his .447 clip from a year ago. He’s got 13 homers, but that hasn’t helped the last place Blue Jays very much. Bautista is supposed to be carrying this team but Edwin Encarnacion of all people is doing the bulk of that work.  His average is the biggest problem, he’s striking out a lot but he always does that. Hopefully for Toronto, Jose can get his average back up to the high .200’s and hit enough longballs to be the major attraction in the order and allow the other pieces to compliment him. All in all, Bautista, who solidified his status as a superstar with a second straight awesome season last year, has been a major disappointment.
• Justin Upton, Arizona Diamondbacks- Justin Upton, an MVP candidate last season, was benched on Saturday for poor performance. If that doesn’t scream disappointment, I don’t know what does. Last year, Upton hit 31 homers and hit .289, this year, he’s got 5 homers and a .249 AVG. Upton’s oWAR this season is .2, just about even with with Ronnie Cedeno. (Ronnie Cedeno!!!) Arizona is 5 games under .500 and 8.5 games out of first place. They need a lot more from Upton if they hope to catch the Dodgers and repeat their division championship from last season.
• Brennan Boesch, Detroit Tigers- Brennan Boesch hit .349 when batting in the 2 spot in front of Miguel Cabrera last season. This year, with that in mind, the Tigers started the season with the outfielder in the second spot in the order. Well, let’s just say that that didn’t go so well. Thus far, Boesch is hitting .234 with a .269 OBP. His oWAR is -0.6, which, needless to say, is terrible. Boesch has 5 homers but only 19 RBI and it’s June. The Tigers are in, amazingly, 3rd place in the AL Central and are 4 games under .500 for the season. If Detroit wants to live up to its enormous potential, someone in the order other than Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera needs to step up. It needs to be Jhonny Peralta, it needs to be Ryan Raburn and Austin Jackson, and mostly it needs to be Brennan Boesch.

Honorable Mention: Colby Rasmus, Jhonny Peralta, Alex Rodriguez, Eric Hosmer, Albert Pujols, Mark Teixeira, Michael Young, Alexi Ramirez, Aubrey Huff and many more. It has been a rough year for some guys, luckily, many others are having great seasons.

-Max Frankel