Now, I'm really depressed. I had never even considered that the terrible bench play was attributable to terrible bench pay. I did a check at baseball-reference and found:
Chad Tracy, $700,000
Mark DeRosa $800,000
Xavier Nady $700,000
Roger Bernadina $435,000
Steve Lombardozzi $481,000
All roughly veteran minimum (Bernadina and Lombardozzi aren't FA eligible) and we're getting what we paid for, veteran minimum performance. 
Jerry Hairston makes $2.25 million this year and $3.75 million next year. Mark Kotsay, our torturer in SD, makes $1.25 million. Cody Ross $3 million. Hell, Laynce Nix makes $1.15 million this year and $1.35 million next.
We have to have the cheapest bench in baseball because there's not much room for less that's allowable by the rules.
Thank you for the research and substantiating my "mindfact".
