The question going around is a fun one: who's the most disliked teammate in modern baseball? For once there's a real, sourced answer instead of a guess or a grudge from the message boards. It's Josh Naylor, confirmed by the man who caught him for four years.
On June 28, 2026, Naylor, now a Mariners first baseman, got hit by a pitch against the Guardians and went off on Cleveland catcher Austin Hedges, a former teammate of his in both San Diego and Cleveland. Naylor called Hedges a "f--king loser" and argued the pitch was a breaking ball, that it wasn't his fault he got plunked. Hedges had a better line ready, and the released audio confirmed every word of it: "No one likes you. Literally no one likes you. Your own fucking teammates don't like you."
That's the whole case, made by a guy who shared a clubhouse with him in two cities. A line like that comes from someone who's been waiting years to say it.
It sticks instead of evaporating like every other on-field chirp because the sentiment didn't stay with Hedges. Cleveland analyst Matt Dery said on air that "What Hedges said about him, I think most of the team there probably feels the same way," and added, "Josh is not very popular around the league either." That's a second voice, with his ear to the clubhouse, backing up what Hedges said.
Then the whole mess dredged up former Marlins minor-league teammate Stone Garrett, who described Naylor's pranking years ago in terms nobody uses about a good hang: "Josh Naylor liked to play stupid games. He is the most psychotic person I've ever met in my life." There's an old 2016 incident attached to that, a prank that ended with surgery for a former teammate. Three men, a decade apart, reached the same verdict.
And this is a guy who once trolled an opponent so hard it became playoff folklore. In Game 4 of the 2022 ALDS, Naylor rocked the baby around the bases and pointed at Gerrit Cole, calling him his "little f***ing son." Cole, who's never been his teammate, gave the perfect cold response: "Yeah, it's whatever. It's cute." Gleyber Torres called the act "disrespectful for the team." The rivals can't stand him either, but plenty of great players annoy the other dugout. What separates Naylor is that the harshest review comes from inside his own.
The name that keeps getting floated against him is Trevor Bauer. The teammate reporting on Bauer is real and old: that 2017 profile where the clubhouse was described as "24 plus Trevor," where a player said, "I think Trevor cares about Trevor a lot." But Bauer stopped being a "disliked teammate" story a long time ago. He was placed on administrative leave in 2020 while MLB investigated sexual assault allegations, has not been criminally charged, and hasn't played affiliated MLB since 2021. As of this year he's headed to the Mexico City Diablos Rojos. You can't be the most disliked teammate in a clubhouse you're not in. Bauer's a cautionary tale now, nothing more.
Framber Valdez got pulled into this conversation too, after he drilled his own catcher César Salazar in the chest with a 93-mph sinker on September 2, 2025, an ugly scene moments after surrendering a grand slam. His agent called the intent theory "preposterous," the Astros talked it down inside a day, and one furious inning doesn't make a man the guy nobody wants in the room.
Naylor is the reputation. Hedges said it out loud on the field, an analyst with clubhouse access echoed it, and an old teammate backed it up with a decade-old scar.
The $92.5 million the Mariners are paying him buys a very good bat. It hasn't bought him a single person willing to stand up and say Hedges got it wrong.
