From Cincinnati.com:
The entire article is a good read, but about last year’s “big two” on the bench (Valdez/Cairo):
Actually, to describe the performances of Valdez and Cairo as ‘‘holes’’ is kind.
Valdez may have had had the worst offensive season in Reds history — and Cairo wasn’t far behind.
For players with a minimum of 150 plate appearances in a season, Valdez’s OPS+ (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, adjusted for ballpark and league played in) of ‘‘24’’ is the third-worst in Reds history. To make matters worse, Valdez had 37 more plate appearances than either of the guys in front of him (Bill Fox, 1901, OPS+ of 20 in 171 plate appearances, and Paul Blair, 1979, OPS+ of 21 in 155 plate appearances).
Bill Bergen’s 1901 season may have been even worse, given that he had 326 plate appearances in his OPS+ of 29. (We bring this up because Cairo also had an OPS+ last year of 29.)
You probably noticed that Bergen-Fox (1901) committed their malfeasance together, as did Valdez-Cairo (2012). At least the latter were obscured (until we came along, anyway) by their team’s 97-65 finish. Bergen and Fox ‘‘led’’ the Reds’ way to a 52-87 finish in 1901. That’s hard to obscure when you’re in last place, 38 games off the pace. And, yes, it could have been even worse. The 1901 Reds should have been 46-93, given that they allowed 260 more runs than they scored.
Valdez-Cairo matched Bergen-Fox as the only Reds teammates to get 150 PA with an OPS+ under 30. As such, the 2012 Reds are the only major league team since 1913 to have two players stoop to such a level of non-distinction.
He also looks at this year’s bench….read the article.