We Love That Guy: inexplicably beloved players

i don't necessarily mean *good* players

i don't even necessarily mean players who are great guys in the community (although i'd love to hear examples)

like pirates fans absolutely *loved* late-career a.j. burnett way beyond his (perfectly fine) results

or paul o'neill, who, while a perfectly good ballplayer, somehow became a hero to all the irish-american yankees fans in westchester county. i mean they retired his number! on the yankees!

not exactly what i had in mind, but john wehner (-1.8 career bWAR) has managed to turn 'being from pittsburgh' into an entire career

feel like david ross (and catchers at large) might fit

Julio Franco

Joe Kelly, close to replacement for the dodgers but made a legend with one innings work during a regular season covid game. Have to admit, this was very fun to watch live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPhqWfFKcxE

Rusty Greer - four very good seasons then he fell off a cliff but he was the second best player on the first Rangers team to make the playoffs. Probably gets bonus points because "Rusty Greer" just sounds like a beloved Texas athlete.

Johnny Mac in Toronto. He was revered here, maybe everywhere he played. Lasted 16 years with a batting line that looked like it had been time-machined in from the 1960s. He was a very good fielder, and there's a story involving his dad's death that was in Posnanski's new book. But that's a lot of goodwill.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mcdonjo03.shtml

pretty much every fat guy who comes to Milwaukee is instantly a fan favorite. right now it's Rowdy Tellez, every time he's up to bat the crowd goes insane

I have literally passed on watching live Brewers games when he’s not in the lineup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRuKOV_etf0

From the general baseball thread:

The Mathis™ is a season of at least 200 PA with an OPS+ of 60 or lower. It is named after Jeff Mathis, who had 8 such seasons, the live ball era record.

Over 16 seasons, John McDonald (above) had a career OPS+ of 59.

👑

luis sojo, yankees dynasty utility man who was inexplicably beloved before he became a hero in the 2000 world series, when he became explicably beloved

I don't mean to dump on John McDonald; by all accounts he was a good guy, and if you manage to last 16 seasons bringing zero offense to a team, obviously you're making up for it (somewhat) with defense and other things ("intangibles"). But when you start looking at his career box, it's amazing, especially his 2013 season. For four different teams: 77 PA, .115/.197/.174, OPS+ of 6. For one of the teams his OPS+ was -21, for another -60. Small sample sizes, of course.

I didn't know OPS+ could be negative...I thought you maxed out at zero.

Hockey is full of these dudes.

Todd Frazier kinda fits here