The 6 most hated Los Angeles Dodgers players of all time

Not every player that has worn a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform has been good. In fact, there have been plenty that have been downright terrible in Dodger blue. For the most part, we forget that those players existed and move on with our lives once their time with the team ends. Every team has these sorts of guys and their names get lost in the sands of time.

However, there's a special class of player that eats at the very fiber of a team’s fans just by mentioning their names. Bill Buckner is in a league of his own here as a Red Sox example (and an unfortunate one at that). That kind of list for most teams is usually pretty short, but how does a player get that level of hatred?

Sometimes it's (like Buckner) coming up tragically and memorably short on a huge stage with a lot on the line. Sometimes it's signing a contract for a lot of money with big expectations and then cratering in spectacular fashion. And sometimes … well, sometimes it's just a good ol’ fashioned stinkfest.

To be clear, this list isn’t just of any players Dodgers fans hate the most. To make that list, we would have to get into opposing players that haunt our dreams, etc. While that list would be fun and we may still try to do that down the line, this is strictly guys that played for the Dodgers and earned enmity for their time here.

Josh Reddick

This is a weird one because Reddick isn’t a case where he signed a big contract or was even around for very long at all. During the 2016 season, the Dodgers acquired Rich Hill and Reddick from the Athletics for Grant Holmes, Jharel Cotton, and Frankie Montas. Again, a decent prospect package (particularly Montas) but nothing earth shattering, and those guys aren't missed in any meaningful way.

However, Reddick was pretty bad in his half-season or so with LA as a .643 OPS isn’t exactly what the Dodgers were hoping for from a guy who had been at least 100 points better than that during most of his career up until then. The nail in the coffin, though, is that Reddick left LA after the season and signed with the dreaded Astros. After winning a ring with Houston in the midst of the subsequent cheating scandal, Reddick was decidedly less than apologetic and even trolled Dodgers fans on Twitter with said ring.

Yep, that gets you on the list.

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Jason Schmidt

The first problem that Jason Schmidt had wasn’t entirely his fault. One thing that Dodgers fans hate him for was because he played (and very well at that) for the Giants. If nothing else, the bar that Schmidt was going to have to clear to win fans over after LA signed him to a three year, $47 million deal before the 2007 season was going to be high given what he had done for a division rival.

In fairness, the expectations should have been high as Schmidt was a three-time All-Star and posted a 3.35 ERA with 1,000 strikeouts total in his previous five seasons. Sadly, Schmidt’s shoulder had other ideas and he would only make 10 starts for the Dodgers across two seasons. This one doesn’t seem entirely fair because it isn’t his fault that his shoulder gave out, but here we are.

Delino DeShields

If Schmidt’s inclusion is somewhat unfair, DeShields being on the list is really unjust. DeShields was a Rookie of the Year runner-up for the Expos way back in 1990, and while he didn’t hit for any power to speak of, he stole a bunch of bases, hit for average, and got on base at a high clip. The Dodgers saw that and went “hey, that's a really useful player, let's go get him." Again, a perfectly reasonable thought. So they sent a young pitching prospect to Montreal to trade for him.

The problem, of course, is that that pitching prospect was Pedro Martinez, which, if you read our previous piece on the subject, is the worst trade (at least by outcome) in franchise history. Martinez became one of the absolute best pitchers of his generation while DeShields posted a .653 OPS over three seasons with the Dodgers before moving after the 1996 season. At least he stole 114 bases in a Dodgers uniform, right? RIGHT?! *weeps*

Mike Piazza

Piazza is going to be polarizing because there are going to be camps of Dodgers fans who are still mad he wasn’t willing to sign whatever offer the Dodgers put in front of him, and there are others who are still mad the Dodgers couldn’t find a way to keep him in the fold. I will let you decide which camp to be in.

At the end of the day, Piazza was very vocal that he was not happy with how contract negotiations with the team were going, and the five time All-Star all but forced his way out of town. The Dodgers got a hefty haul back for Piazza from the Marlins back in 1998, but those players didn’t have anywhere near the same impact that Piazza would've as he would go on to have a Hall of Fame career. Again, a bit polarizing of a choice here, but a lot of folks will never forgive a guy for leaving even when the team may be the actual villain in a given situation.

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Trevor Bauer

To avoid angry emails from legal/public relations representatives, we will just state obvious and on the record stuff here in bullet form:

• Trevor Bauer signed a three year, $102 million contract with the Dodgers and made a total of 17 starts for the team. There are many folks that do not like that.

• Trevor Bauer had allegations of sexual assault levied against him. The result of MLB’s investigation into said allegations was a 324-game suspension that was later reduced to 194 games by an independent arbitrator. A lot of Dodger fans also did not like that.

• The Dodgers released Bauer in January 2023 after he was reinstated from his suspension, which means the team will be paying him the final $22.5 million of his contract while he's playing over in Japan. Again, there are many people that are not thrilled that that happened.

Those are some (but not all) of the reasons why a lot of Dodgers fans (and fans in general) are not a fan of Trevor Bauer.

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