PIÑATAFEST 2004 @ BIRDS IN THE BELFRY

The 2004 Kerry's Piñata Award Recipient
There were a number of strong candidates for the 2004 Piñata Award, and I gave some consideration to splitting the award between two players, as I did in 2001 (when it was shared by Jose Mercedes and Ryan Kohlmeier).  But it's always my intent to single out the best candidate, and only resort to a dual winner arrangement when I really can't decide between multiple potential honorees.  So when push came to shove, the man of the hour, the individual with the Performance Best Resembling a Piñata in a Starring Role, was none other than Mike DeJean!  Let's have a big round of applause, ladies and gentlemen, for this year's top fiesta implement:

MIKE DeJEAN, 2004

Mike was "honored," but he had fight off several other Piñata Award suitors.

Sidney Ponson allowed better than 11 hits per nine innings (11.06; 265 hits in 215.2 IP) on a staff that allowed 9.2 H/9IP; Ponson's mark was the fifth worst in all of baseball among pitchers qualifying for the ERA title.  He also posted a less than brilliant 5.30 ERA.  But Ponson wasn't, in the end, really bad enough to earn Piñata honors.  He walked 2.88 men per nine innings (the staff walked 4.25) and allowed an unremarkable 23 home runs in 215.2 innings.  In other words, Ponson wasn't very good, but he wasn't very bad either (his ERA could have been 3/4 of a run lower than it was and no one would have blinked), and to win the Piñata Award, you have to be very bad.

Eric DuBose was very bad.  He posted a 6.39 ERA; he walked 5.3 batter per nine innings (a horrible mark on a team that had all kinds of control problems), he allowed 12 home runs in 74.2 innings.  He had the stuff that legitimately puts a pitcher in Piñata contention.  But he appeared in just 14 games, and scarcely allowed a run an inning.  DuBose was awful, but in a way, DeJean was worse.

Kurt Ainsworth was another serious contender for the Piñata Award.  In fact, in terms of raw production (or lack thereof), Ainsworth was arguably the worst pitcher on the staff.  He allowed a sickening 18.78 baserunners per nine innings.  He surrendered six home runs in 30.2 IP.  He struck out only 1/3 as many batters as he allowed to reach base.  His ERA was 9.68.  He even managed to uncork four wild pitches.  He stunk.  But he stunk in only seven appearances.  Had he pitched as much as, say, DuBose, Ainsworth almost certainly would have had the honor of seeing the coveted Piñata Award grace his mantle (assuming that he has a mantle) but, alas, Ainsworth was too awful and too injured to pitch enough to overtake DeJean.

Matt Riley posted a 5.63 ERA, allowed 11 home runs in 64 IP and walked 6.19 men per nine innings but he allowed fewer hits than innings pitched and, let's face it, there were better candidates.

Mike DeJean was roughly as awful as Ainsworth, but he managed to be that bad over 37 appearances with the Orioles and in stints where he wasn't asked to go through a lineup multiple times.  DeJean allowed 18.83 baserunners per nine innings.  That is the eighth worst mark in modern (i.e. 1900- ) major league history for pitchers who met a 35-game/35-innings threshold and by far the worst in 2004.  In fact, regardless of the number of appearances, no pitcher in the big leagues in 2004 with at least the 39.2 IP that DeJean accumulated with the Orioles had a BR/9 mark as high as DeJean's 18.83.  He allowed 11.12 hits per nine innings and 6.35 BB/9IP.  His earned run average was 6.13, a spectacularly bad mark for a short reliever.  And to add insult to injury, after the Orioles gave up on him, he pitched...perfectly acceptably for the New York Mets, allowing 11.81 BR/9IP and walking just 2.11 batters per nine innings, in 17 games covering 21.1 IP.  In other words, he was just horrible for the Orioles, thereby cementing his Piñata status; the Piñata Award is, after all, a Baltimore family affair.

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