St. Louis Cardinals: 30 worst players in team history

Oct 18, 2013; St. Louis, MO, USA; Fans in the bleachers cheer and wave rally towels before game six of the National League Championship Series baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

#13 Bruce Ogrodowski

Bruce Ogrodowski played with the Cardinals from 1936-37, with those being the only years he played in the big leagues. During those two seasons, Bruce had a fWAR of -1.3 putting him fifth worst amongst hitters with over 500 plate appearances. However, having only played under 200 games in his career, #12 is a good spot for him.

Bruce’s slash line is like most others on this list in that it is pretty bad, .231/.263/.318 with a wRC+ of 49. Bruce’s better season came in his second and final season as a big leaguer in 1937, when he totaled a wRC+ of 52, while clubbing three of his four career home runs and striking out 2.3% less than he did in 1936. Bruce’s overall offensive value was -35.3, which is pretty bad for just two seasons.

Had Ogrodowski not had a defensive value of 3.3 runs above average in his career, he could have been even higher on this list and had an even lower fWAR. But, that wasn’t Ogradowski’s only positive rated of all of the vaulted metrics, as he had a 0.2 base running runs above average rating on the base paths, thanks to his 0.3 rating in his “breakout” 1937 season.

Unfortunately for Ogradowski, he never played in the major leagues again, spending the rest of his career in the minors, which is more reasoning for his inclusion on this list.

Next: Bad third basemen