7 Juice-less MLB Players Content with Mediocrity

In this day and age of just about every adequate baseball player in the world being outed as horrible, sinful steroid users, you can’t go to a game without wondering if the player you’re rooting for is enhancing his performance with something a bit more powerful than Viagra. Luckily, there’s a whole slew of ballplayers who leave no doubt as to whether or not they’ve ever taken steroids; odds are they never lifted a weight in their lives either. With that in mind, here are seven steroid-free players who are totally cool with just not being that good.

1. David Eckstein

An 8-year veteran, Eckstein has had over 4400 at-bats, and yet only has 33 home runs to show for it. That’s a bad season for sluggers like Albert Pujols. Even better, in 2005 he won the “Heart & Hustle Award”, which is essentially the major league’s way of saying “Oh, look at how cute you are in your little baseball player costume and everything.”

2. Nick Punto

A career .247 hitter with a whooping, count ‘em, 12 home runs in his eight-year career, Punto somehow continues to get playing time with the Twins as their jack-of-all-trades utility-man. One of those trades is apparently obtaining compromising photos of manager Ron Gardenhire.

3. Jack Wilson

A perfectly boring name for a perfectly boring player, Wilson is “known for his defense”, which is just a short way of saying, “he can’t hit the ball past the pitcher, but seems like a nice enough guy, and we need players that fans can relate to by being just like him, so let’s justify sticking him in the lineup every night by claiming he’s good at defense.”

4. Tony Pena Jr.

He was such a bad hitter during his three-year stint with the Royals – he hit .228, including an off-the-charts bad .098 this year – that he was actually taken out of the lineup. The Royals lineup. One of the worst teams of the decade. Currently, he’s trying to convert himself into a pitcher so that he can at least stick on a major league roster, so cheer him on in the bullpen.

5. Brendan Ryan

Have you seen this guy’s ‘stashe this year? Steroids or not – and the general consensus is not, seeing as he’s only hit three HRs in his career – you got to root for a guy like that.

6. Scott Podsednik

Former All-Star and World Series hero, with only 32 HRs in his eight-year career it’s obvious that the only needle he’s ever used is some kind of hypnotic drug to trick Playboy playmate Lisa Dergan into marrying him.

7. Luis Castillo

A 13-year veteran who played most of his seasons during the height of the Roid Era, Castillo isn’t a small dude by any stretch – he’s listed at 5’11, 145 pounds, but that’s off by at least 45 pounds – but still can’t get the ball over the fence. In his long career opposing outfielders have only run out of room 27 times.