Building an All-Star team of utility players

This is a post of the forgotten players, the latrine cleaners. These are the people sent into the ninth inning against a dude throwing 98, and they’re the people who have no idea what they’re going to be doing when they get to the ballpark. If they get to do anything at all, that is. This is a post for the best bench players around baseball. Our goal is to make the best possible team out of players who aren’t full-time starters.

There are some rules, though.

Players who have graduated into a starting role aren’t eligible. Not a temporary starting role, but a full-time gig because they never stopped hitting. Justin Turner is in this category, as is Stephen Vogt. They were utility superstars, but now they’re key cogs in the lineups of their respective teams.

Young players, especially the ones who are still expected to start one day, probably don’t count. The Twins aren’t totally sure what to do with Miguel Sano yet, so they’re giving him pre-game practice in the outfield and at first. But like fun is he a utility player. That’s an extreme case, but you get the point.

One-year wonders are considered, but this is more of a spot for lifers. Clint Robinson is doing fine for the Nationals in an emergency, but this is his first season as a contributor. Benchies tend to vary wildly in their production over a two-, three-, or 10-year stretch, so this team is reserved for the steadier players. There’s one exception, but we’ll get to that.

These are the utility players who eat bowls of dirt because that’s all they know. Also because this is a Maytag-sponsored post. Their uniforms get filthy somehow when they’re playing pepper*, and then they wash them in sleek, high-efficiency Maytag machines, the official washers and dryers of Major League Baseball, you betcha.

*^{no pepper}

We’ll go position-by-position, and as always, if I miss the star utility player on your team, it’s because I don’t like your team:

Really, the answer is Jeff Mathis. If you cut a digit off Mathis and plant it, a new Jeff Mathis grows out of the ground. There have been Jeff Mathii for over a century, all from the same stock, like apple trees.

If you’re looking for a little production from your catcher, with average defense to boot, McKenry is probably the best choice. The 30-year-old has a career adjusted OPS of 99, which is pretty danged good from a catcher. Before you suggest that he’s a Coors Field mirage, note that he had an outstanding part-time season with the Pirates, too. He’s a latter-day David Ross.

He’s a first baseman, second baseman, third baseman, outfielder, floor wax, and dessert topping. Even though he’s hitting for the Braves this year, Baseball-Reference has him as being at 0.0 WAR, almost exclusively because of the positional adjustment. He’s playing first, mostly, and it hurts the nerd stats.

But he makes the team because I want this sucker to be filled with replaceable parts and spit out Model Ts by the hundreds. Johnson can play anywhere, and he’s a career .251/.332/.424 hitter with 140 career home runs. That’s 529th all time, tied with Terry Pendleton and just a few behind Scott Brosius, Bo Jackson, and Ken Griffey, Sr. That isn’t a reason to put him on the team, necessarily, but it’s a good shorthand way to explain that he has more power than the typical Swiss Army knife.

Justin Bour is climbing the charts, and he was next in line. For now, though, I’ll take the flexibility of Johnson, even if just for aesthetic purposes.

He could probably start somewhere, so this is cheating, and he’s getting enough playing time to make an All-Star team. Still, he’s racked up those at-bats by playing every position other than pitcher and catcher, not by pushing someone out of a job. He’s baseball’s most-utility player right now, an heir to the Tony Phillips throne if he keeps it up.

As an aside, please take the time to look at Tony Phillips’s Baseball-Reference page when you get a chance. It’s one of my personal favorites. Also note that the idea of having personal favorite Baseball-Reference pages is a nerdy delight that I’m going to explore in the offseason.

More cheating! Except, this is probably where Kang ends up. He doesn’t field enough for short, doesn’t hit enough for third, but he’ll do everything well enough to get 300-400 at-bats every year. Maybe that’s selling him short, and the 28-year-old will blossom into a player that’s more reminiscent of his time with the Nexen Heroes.

For now, though, he’s probably the best all-purpose player in the National League. It fits that he’s filling in for Josh Harrison, who probably held that title before he was promoted to full-time status.

It took time to delouse him after his stints with the 2012-13 Astros, and he’s a full-time DH right now because of various Steven Pearce- and Delmon Young-related miseries, but his true calling is as a positional floater with a little home run power. His lack of plate discipline and his average-dependent success suggests that he’s in for a little regression soon. The Orioles probably don’t have any illusions that he’s a long-term solution, and they might upgrade the DH spot at the deadline.

If you disqualify Paredes for starting at DH, well, there isn’t a lot for you. You’re getting into Gordon Beckham territory. Just take your Paredes and be on your way. Good backup third basemen around the league are subjects for cryptozoologists to study right now, not baseball analysts.

So many candidates, so little time. You need five of them to mix and match because 600 at-bats for any of them would be a minor mistake. Denorfia and Van Slyke in the lineup against tough lefties would make this a morphing nightmare for pitchers. Until they started bringing in the late-inning relievers. Which is basically cheating, you know.

Blanco is an overqualified fourth outfielder, but he’s also evil. It was Blanco who got Melky Cabrera busted in 2012. It was he who chewed through Angel Pagan’s knee while he slept in 2013, and then dropped vertebrae-eating beetles into his luggage in 2014. He paid Cubs and Dodgers pitchers to break Hunter Pence and Norichika Aoki, respectively. He will always start. Do not cross Gregor Blanco. Just give him a starting spot, and he won’t have to break his teammates.

Dyson is Juan Lagares without the opportunity, except Dyson might even hit enough to stick if he were an average center fielder, much less a defensive superstar. If the Royals have to let Alex Gordon go, they’ll lose a lot of dingers, but the defense and speed wouldn’t be an issue. It might -- might -- even out, and the Royals wouldn’t miss much at all, other than diminished depth. Not bad for a 50th-round pick.

Venable has been tethered to Petco Park for far too long. Please, someone rescue him at the trade deadline. Give him a home. Nourish him. Play with him. Let’s see what he can do away from a hitter’s nightmare, like ...

Denorfia was in the same spot, and then the Padres dealt him to another team that needed him. Hooray! Except that team was the Mariners, which is simply cruel. Bud Black almost certainly pulled the ol’ “WELL, WE HAVE GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS” on him when he was traded. He’s with the Cubs now and hitting .304/.342/.384, which seems about right. Would have loved to see what the 34-year-old could have done with a starting role in his mid-to-late-20s.

Van Slyke should hit against lefties only, really. But in a league filled with outfielders expected to play the right-handed-thumper role, Van Slyke is almost certainly the best at it. He needs to be used judiciously, but in a platoon with some of the folks up there, he would be a tremendous asset. He already is, even if it wasn’t that long ago that he was floating around on the waiver wire.

Apologies to Rajai Davis, Chris Young, Brandon Guyer and several others. You’re all special, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.

How many games would this team win, assuming an average pitching staff and good health? I’ll go with 81. This looks like the .500 team of .500 teams, but they would slide and hustle and grit and utilitize their way into your heart. One of these years, I want a small-market team to try this strategy. Suck up all the gritty utility players, give them starting roles, and see what happens.

I will call this book Grittyball, and Sam Fuld will play himself. Buy a copy for home and work.