Thanks to “Moneyball” and packs of roving, feral stat nerds, baseball has somehow earned a reputation as the thinking man’s sport. Never mind that no pursuit involving pitched, struck or bunted projectiles should ever be lauded for its intellectual mettle—that characterization just ain’t true.

While baseball may lack talent-squandering halfwits like Plaxico Burress (who took the “shooting yourself in the foot” metaphor to new heights) and John Daly (who now lists Hooters as his place of residence), it nonetheless boasts more than its share of dense, oafish, mindless and otherwise obtuse folk. Here, then, is our annual list of the game’s dumbest people.

Manny Ramirez, Los Angeles Dodgers: It used to be that everybody thought Manny Ramirez was merely a bit off, that his various eccentricities (taking bathroom breaks in Fenway’s Green Monster, auctioning off grills on eBay, etc.) masked a keen baseball mind. Well, now that Manny has been popped for using performance-enhancing goodies—after having tested positive during the program’s grace period, no less—we can probably put that theory to rest. And that says nothing of his free-agent follies, when he and (triple-smart-with-sprinkles) superagent Scott Boras eventually accepted an offer that they’d initially dismissed as insulting. If it acts like a dummyhead and braids its hair like a dummyhead, it’s a dummyhead.

Trey Hillman and Drayton Moore, Kansas City Royals: It’s hard to glean exactly who’s responsible for the Superfund site that is the Kansas City Royals, so we’ll tag both the manager and the GM with the scarlet ‘D’. Hillman earns the distinction owing to his lineups (one 3-for-5 game earned the loathsome Jose Guillen three months of regular playing time) and creative bullpen usage patterns (the team blew three straight late-inning leads to Tampa Bay last month without summoning ace closer Joakim Soria from the bullpen). Moore, on the other hand, gave an interview in which he preached the on-base-percentage gospel… then, a short time thereafter, imported allergic-to-walks slugger Mike Jacobs. It’s not hard to envision Hillman and Moore splashing around joyfully in a kiddie pool filled to the brim with stupid, oblivious to the other more responsible adults conducting business nearby.

Bobby Abreu, Los Angeles Angels: Early in free agency, the going rate for offensively skilled corner outfielders with either defensive shortcomings (Raul Ibanez) or emotional ones (Milton Bradley) was three years at $10 million per. Somehow, after the dust settled, Abreu ended up with a one-year deal for $5 million and a bit more in incentives he’ll never reach (Abreu is as likely to win a Gold Glove award as a hyena is to juggle). The caveat here is that Abreu may not have had much of a say in negotiations as his agent, Peter Greenberg, did. So perhaps Abreu is merely dumb by proxy.

Jim Bowden, nomad: When hired as GM of the Nats, Bowden was the envy of a goodly chunk of the game’s executives. He toiled in a huge, potentially lucrative market that was ripe for the taking after its denizens had endured years of Oriole boobery, and under an ownership group that was eager to make a splash. Instead, Bowden muffed draft-pick signings, handed out two-year contracts to portly spare parts like Ronnie Belliard and Dmitri Young, and got himself embroiled in a bonus-skimming scandal. If he works in baseball again, it’ll be as a peanut vendor.

Luis Castillo, New York Mets: Thanks to his game-losing drop of an easy pop fly and his forgetfulness in covering second base on potential force plays, he’s become the poster boy for the malignant dimwittedness that has infected the entire Metsie organization (GMs accusing beat reporters of lobbying for jobs, player-development chiefs yanking off their shirts and challenging double-A players to poetry slams, etc.). Maybe Castillo isn’t dumb so much as scatterbrained, but his name always seems to appear in the lead paragraph of the “you won’t believe how the Mets blew it this time” game stories.

Steve Phillips, ESPN: ‘Tis a fine testament to his dumbness that our word count limits us to discussing only his most foundation-shaking brain farts—his faux press conferences, etc. Indeed, every word that comes out of Phillips’ mouth is an avalanche of dumb, whether he’s talking about potential trades (he once speculated that then Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez could be dealt to the Yankees, which ranked right alongside the Mars rover’s discovery of a stack of lunar flapjacks on the probability matrix) or evaluating A-list players (earlier this year, he described Carlos Beltran’s game as “inconsistent,” despite a mountain of statistical and even anecdotal evidence to the contrary). Phillips is the reason God, or perhaps God’s gadget guru, invented the mute button.

J.P. Ricciardi, Toronto Blue Jays: In some quarters, Ricciardi has been praised for finding a way to shed the way-above-market-value contract of effort-challenged outfielder Alex Rios, who was claimed off waivers by the White Sox. Well, who signed the guy to the contract in the first place? Who gave away a not-untalented corner outfielder in his prime and received nothing in return? Who gave out equally dunderheaded deals to Vernon Wells (baseball’s second-worst, behind only Barry Zito’s monstrous contract), A.J. Burnett (the inclusion of an opt-out clause made it obscenely player-friendly and triggered his premature departure) and B.J. Ryan (short relievers not named Mariano Rivera ain’t worth more than a small commitment, because they’re injury- and slump-prone and easily replaced)? Ricciardi did. A few tiny victories don’t negate tens of losses, both on the field and off.