The Absolute Worst Great Season Ever
Dante Bichette entered the 1999 season as a four-time All-Star and a Silver Slugger winner who’d received MVP votes in four different seasons, finishing as high as second in 1995. Then in 1999, he posted a .298 batting average adding an impressive 34 home runs and 133 RBI for a last-place Rockies team. For some perspective on how eyebrow-raising that level of production is, no player has reached all three of those totals in a single season since Miguel Cabrera in 2013.
On its surface, this looks like a good player having a good year. Dig a little deeper and you see that Bichette was also arguably the worst player in baseball in 1999. When we add in the context of the offensive era, the offensive numbers alone are not as impressive as they initially appear. Far more importantly, Bichette was patently awful in every other area of baseball that can be measured. So awful that he ended the 1999 season with an almost unimaginable -2.3 WAR.
If you’re thinking a disparity that wide between a player’s traditional numbers and his WAR has to be extremely rare, you’d be correct – actually, it’s unique. In baseball history*, no player has ever reached .298 BA, 34 homers, and 133 RBI in the same season and posted a WAR lower than 2.6 – almost five wins better than Bichette’s 1999 total of -2.3. In fact, no player has ever reached any one of the Triple Crown stats in a season that Bichette did in ’99 and ended with -2.3 WAR or worse. Triple Crown numbers aside, a season with a WAR of -2.3 or worse has only been “accomplished” six times since Bichette did it in 1999 under any circumstances – the same number of times a player has hit 57 or more home runs in a season in that span.
(*Walt Dropo of the Red Sox in 1950, put up a .322 BA, 34 HR, 144 RBI season and finished with 2.6 WAR.)
Of course, 1999 was one of the more offensively friendly seasons in baseball history and Bichette played half of his games in Coors Field, one of the most hitter-friendly parks in history. That combination can certainly pad a player’s batting average and home run totals, but the gods of baseball randomness gave Bichette even more than that.
Bichette batted cleanup 146 times in 1999 and Neifi Pérez and Larry Walker batted in front of him most commonly. Pérez will never be remembered for his bat but he was on base 210 times in 1999 and with 27 doubles, 11 triples, and 13 stolen bases; he was in scoring position a lot. Walker reached base in almost half of his plate appearances – 45.8% of the time to be exact – in 1999 and like Pérez, finished above the 80th percentile in Runs from Base Running (Rbaser) league-wide. The result was that Bichette had 491 runners on base during his plate appearances in ’99 – the most of his career and the third-most in baseball in ’99 – and more often than not they were smart baserunners with good speed.
If you’ve heard of or used the trope that some batters “just get it done” by changing their approach with runners in scoring position, I’m not sure how much I buy into that in general. It certainly wasn’t the case with Bichette. During the ’99 season, he made an out without advancing a runner 67.2 percent of the time when the league average was 66.5 percent – that’s not awful but that’s not great situational hitting either. The reality is that he had a massive number of opportunities with primarily good baserunners on base in a park that was easy for a batted ball to find grass.
Speaking of baserunning, Bichette’s teammates may have been very good on the basepaths, but Dante most assuredly was not. In fact, among 157 qualifiers he was dead last in MLB in Rbaser so he was literally the worst in baseball in that regard. He was thrown out on half of his 12 stolen base attempts but his baserunning ineptitude went far beyond that. His 11 outs on the bases were almost double what the league average was in ’99. He coupled that with an extra-base taken percentage of only 34 percent which was well below the MLB average of 43 percent. (His 11 outs on the bases were the seventh most in baseball and the six players with more all had XBT% over 50 percent for further perspective.)
If you think that sounds paradoxical, you’re correct. If a player gets thrown out often, it can be rationalized if it’s balanced out with taking an extra-base often as well. If a player isn’t aggressive and doesn’t take many bases, that’s justifiable if he doesn’t run into outs often. Bichette was awful in both regards – he was the equivalent of a football QB who had the fewest pass attempts per game but still led the league in interceptions.
Remarkably, Bichette’s performance in the outfield may have been worse than his baserunning. He committed 13 errors when no other left fielder made more than ten. No left fielder with as many innings played in 1999 had a worse range factor per nine innings, and his Outfield Arms Above Average (based on preventing runners from advancing an extra base and assists) ranked in the third percentile league-wide. Essentially, if a Rockies pitcher allowed a batted ball to left field, it was unlikely it’d be reached because Bichette had no range. If it was reached, there was a better than average chance it would be dropped. If it was caught, a poor throw would be made after the catch – or a good one to the wrong base. As a result, Bichette’s -3.9 dWAR was the worst in baseball, just as his baserunning was.
What can we learn from all of this as fans in 2022? Not too much, as it’s just interesting trivia more than anything else. It certainly doesn’t pose any problems for Bo Bichette, Dante’s son who sports a well-rounded game.
Still, the elder Bichette’s 1999 may serve as a reminder of two things: First, remember that context matters: Bichette’s 102 OPS+ tells us he was essentially a league-average hitter in 1999 when adjustments are made for the era and the park, despite the gaudy Triple Crown numbers. Secondly, if you’re still one of the holdouts that don’t like looking at more advanced statistics this should help sell them. This is a great case of WAR working. We all know the game is more than just slugging the ball and swinging for the fences. Covering ground in the field and throwing to the right base are very important defensive skills. Knowing when to stay put on the bases and knowing when to take a risk are very important skills in baseball as well. Dante Bichette’s 1999 season is a great example of those little things – the things that most people say they use the “eye test” for – showing up in a player’s statistical value, converted into one number.
Because despite having flashy traditional offensive numbers, Dante Bichette was a poor baseball player in 1999, and you likely wouldn’t have known without a closer look.
(*Author’s note: All statistics above were taken from Baseball-Reference but the story of Dante Bichette in 1999 is essentially the same regardless of which site or metrics one uses.)
