most underrated players

prompted by a recent perusal of the statistics of active leaders in WAR, in which 19 and 20 stood out:

1. Alex Rodriguez (34) 101.50 R
2. Albert Pujols (30) 81.40 R
3. Chipper Jones (38) 80.00 B
4. Ken Griffey (40) 78.40 L
5. Derek Jeter (36) 70.00 R
6. Jim Thome (39) 69.00 L
7. Jim Edmonds (40) 68.00 L
8. Manny Ramirez (38) 67.30 R
Ivan Rodriguez (38) 67.30 R
10. Scott Rolen (35) 65.70 R
11. Andruw Jones (33) 59.10 R
12. Vladimir Guerrero (35) 58.40 R
13. Bobby Abreu (36) 57.70 L
14. Todd Helton (36) 57.50 L
15. Carlos Beltran (33) 55.40 B
16. Ichiro Suzuki (36) 53.10 L
17. Jason Giambi (39) 52.90 L
18. Johnny Damon (36) 48.10 L
19. Mike Cameron (37) 47.40 R
20. J.D. Drew (34) 46.80 L

also pondering a guy like Paul Konerko, who has been hiding away on the south side of chicago for a decade+ now and whose stats are definitely not on the same level w/other guys of his era, but who probably doesn't deserve to be forgotten come HOF voting time (by "not forgotten" i mean he deserves to stick around on the ballot for away before dropping away.)

favorite all time underrated/illest batting stance: mickey tettleton

Dang, Alex has a big lead on Pujols there.

if you consider that a-rod has had 15 full seasons at the end of '10 to pujols' 10 full seasons, it's a surmountable one imo

Is WAR a cumulative stat?

i think Griffey can come off that list - which would leave Posada at 20.

oops, he sure can

also, leaders in adjusted OPS+, which has a-rod at #4 just behind jim tho-

jim thome

50. Matt Stairs (42)

0_o

Well, if you take WAR as gospel, the two guys who jump out at me are Scott Rolen and Andruw Jones. Jones was a big deal five years ago, but you don't hear much about him anymore; Rolen bounces around from team to team. Yet they're right there with a bunch of Hall of Famers, and ahead of much more publicized players like Helton, Beltran, Damon, etc.

My favourite underrated player ever is Tom Henke. He was as good year-in and year-out as other relievers who got far more attention.

hey speaking of WAR, i read a blog entry today that noted that dante bichette's career WAR was a robust 2.0 because of his horrendous fielding.

there was a blog post on baseball reference a couple of weeks ago about how is WAR was, i believe, -0.2 in the year that he finished second in MVP voting, because of his horrendous fielding

we read the very same entry in that case. i love the comments on that w/people rhapsodizing about his epic offensive numbers that year. people still don't quite get the whole notion of how such offensive contributions can be wiped out in other areas of the same player's game.

billy wagner

almost 12k per 9 innings for his career and has a shot at getting his career WHIP below 1.00 by the end of his season (supposedly his final one)

i realize he's not really underrated by those who know what he's done but i feel like he doesn't get enough credit for his career sometimes.

special credit for:

Wagner was a natural-born right-handed person, but after breaking his right arm twice in accidents, he taught himself to throw baseballs using his left arm by throwing thousands of balls against the wall of a barn, and then fielding the rebounds, and repeating.

he's on both my fantasy teams for a reason!

I was just looking at Wagner's career stats yesterday and thinking, "Wow--he's a serious HOF candidate." One bad year (2000), and good-to-great-to-brilliant the whole rest of the way. The career batting average against him is 0.188. You never know where the HOF line is with relievers, but he's got to be third in line after Rivera and Hoffman, and you probably wouldn't have to work too hard to make a case that he's a better pitcher than Hoffman. (Only real negative is that he's been awful in postseason, which based on 11 innings is hardly a big deal.)

Wagner is 100+ IP short to qualify for this:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/whip_career.shtml

Look at Pedro!

All-time WHIP leader Addie Joss' K/9 was 3.6.

Wagner was a natural-born right-handed person, but after breaking his right arm twice in accidents, he taught himself to throw baseballs using his left arm by throwing thousands of balls against the wall of a barn, and then fielding the rebounds, and repeating.

Holy $***! I had no idea.

Wagner is definitely underrated -- I remember it being a really big deal when he imploded in 2000 and he never seemed to regain his aura after that (I mean, 124 K's in 74 IP in 1999? That's insane) even though he was still a great pitcher. A huge strike against his HOF case is that he never played for a "winner". Are there any closers in the HOF who weren't considered cornerstone players on WS-winning teams? (besides Bruce Sutter, who's mainly in because he got the credit for inventing a pitch)

He not only didn't win, but he closed for a bunch of teams who are perceived as underachievers and chokers -- the B&B Astros, mid-2000's Phillies, late-2000's Mets. And he was a disaster in the postseason when his teams did manage to make the playoffs.

And BTW, I think it's U&K to rely on postseason numbers to make a HOF case for a closer. A closer's job is a lot more important in the postseason (not just the importance of the games, but the fact that closers need to pitch a higher %age of their team's innings compared with the regular season).

most underrated '70s/80s player: Bobby Grich

Ken Singleton's also name gets mentioned for the same time period

I agree that a closer's role is magnified in the postseason (everyone's is, to a degree), but I just have a hard time giving great weight to an 11-inning sample in a guy's HOF resume. I made the same point with regards to Dawson on another thread. And with Wagner, it comes down to about half of those 11.2 innings; in 5.2 of them, he gave up 11 runs. So you're looking at 5.2 innings in a 16-year career.

Let me put it another way: I'm a lot more in favour of using a great post-season career to make a case for somebody (again, based on a decent sample) than I am the reverse.

Well, if you take WAR as gospel, the two guys who jump out at me are Scott Rolen and Andruw Jones. Jones was a big deal five years ago, but you don't hear much about him anymore; Rolen bounces around from team to team. Yet they're right there with a bunch of Hall of Famers, and ahead of much more publicized players like Helton, Beltran, Damon, etc.

both these guys played all-time-great defense at their positions, especially jones, which is why their numbers are so high

Brian Roberts seemed hugely underrated for a long time

That's what happens when you're competing with David Eckstein!

In the age of WAR and VORP and all that stuff, I wonder if the whole idea of an underrated baseball player is becoming antiquated. I can't see players flying under the radar anymore to the degree they might have 30 years ago. I suppose "underpublicized" will always be a fact of life, depending upon where you play, but underrated, I'm not so sure.

I agree that a closer's role is magnified in the postseason (everyone's is, to a degree)

Not really though ... I think the average closer pitches about 5% of his team's innings in the regular season. In the playoffs it's 10-11%. No other type of player gets twice as much PT in the playoffs.

Let me put it another way: I'm a lot more in favour of using a great post-season career to make a case for somebody (again, based on a decent sample) than I am the reverse.

For the most part I agree, but the outcome of a season hinges a lot more on what the closer does. The team is hurt a lot more by a blown save than by a star hitter going 0-4. And your math on Wagner's career is seriously shady ... he was brutal in more than half of his postseason appearances, that's a huge failure rate for a closer. You can't just focus on the other appearances when he didn't suck, any more than you can say that, I don't know, if you eliminate Ryan Howard's strikeouts then he'd be a .420 hitter.

Well, we disagree. I don't think I'm misrepresenting his numbers, though. In 5.2 of his 11.1 postseason innings--exactly half--Wagner gave up 4 hits, 0 walks, 2 earned runs, struck out 8, saved 3, and had an E.R.A. of 3.18. Not spectactular, but pretty solid. In the other 5.2 innings, he was an absolute nightmare: 16 hits, 2 walks, 5 strikeouts, 11 earned runs, no saves, and an E.R.A. of 17.47. It's not an exact parallel, because there's no postseason in the education business, but when I retire in about 12 years, I hope I'm not judged by my five worst days as a teacher--I'd have been out of a job long ago.

In the age of WAR and VORP and all that stuff, I wonder if the whole idea of an underrated baseball player is becoming antiquated. I can't see players flying under the radar anymore to the degree they might have 30 years ago. I suppose "underpublicized" will always be a fact of life, depending upon where you play, but underrated, I'm not so sure.

in terms of quantified, context-neutral baseball value you might be right, but there's plenty of other ways to 'rate' a player imo

xpost it's not just his five worst days, it's *half* of his postseason record. You can't pick and choose the half that happens to support your case, the bad half counted just as much.

And ten appearances aren't a huge sample size, but it's spread over a number of years. He had a bad year every year!

Ciderpress: We're probably coming from the same place here. I'm not especially hung up on WAR/VORP; I'm a stats guy, but more traditional OBP/SA stuff. (Hah--now OBP and SA are "traditional.") And I hope you're right; not being able to argue about over/underrated players would be a big loss to what it means to be a fan. But I think it's much more unlikely that a Bobby Grich would happen today. Anyone who keeps reasonably well informed would know all about him; Neyer and Posnanski and Baseball Prospectus would make sure of that. More casual fans would miss him, so maybe you're right--maybe things haven't changed that much after all. (I've gotta be honest: I'm looking at Grich's lifetime stats, and Bill James and Morbius notwithstanding, I'm not clear on why Bobby Grich was so underrated. He was excellent in '79 and '81. The rest of time, agreeing that he drew a lot of walks for a second baseman, I'm not seeing what makes him so noteworthy--not as a hitter, anyway.)

NoTime: I've conceded that Wagner was brutal for half his postseason innings. No argument whatsoever. I just don't see that that's reason to keep him out of the Hall of Fame--not if you believe he deserves to be there based on his in-season play. (If you don't, then sure, the postseason becomes one more argument against him.) When Winfield was up for induction, I don't think the voters gave much weight to his postseason performance, which basically amounted to one huge hit in the '92 Series and not a whole lot else.

i don't see any reason to keep wagner out of the hall of fame based on 11 innings out of almost 900 pitched. whether his entire peformance record is good enough is a separate question, but that's the one that should be discussed.

Just to be totally honest, and argue against myself, one of the reasons Wagner's IP total is so low for the postseason is that half the time, he couldn't get anybody out. You've got to get some people out to pile up innings. Apparently, they just kept running guys up to the plate who'd hit safely.

First, I'll reiterate that Wagner probably doesn't have much chance of getting voted in because he didn't pitch for "winning" teams (fairly or unfairly). In the three-tiered playoff system, guys play a lot more postseason games than they used to, so postseason performance is going to figure more strongly into HOF voting (which to me seems fair). Also, nobody really has any idea what the HOF standard is for closers because their role is constantly changing. But it's safe to say that everyone from this era will measured against Rivera and Hoffman, and Wagner looks set to be the Tim Raines to their Rickey Henderson.

I also think that there will always be underrated players ... Neyer and Posnanski and BP are a really small piece of the pie. Chase Utley hit five homers in last year's WS and was STILL underrated -- everyone talked about ARod becoming a "true Yankee" and the "Yankee Four" and Pedro and by the last game, Matsui.

Cart way before horse: a Braves WS win this year would cinch Wagner for the HoF, y/n?

The fate of bordlerline cases like Wagner may be affected by how the whole steroids issue resolves itself with regards to the HOF. If, as seems to be the case right now, PED-associated players are locked out, then I think the Wagners and Damons and Smoltzes will inevitably benefit. Enough to push some of them over the line, I don't know.

not necessarily, at all

xp

Not necessarily, no. As a practical matter, though, I think that keeping PEDs out will do two things: one, it will free up space, and I think the voters will instinctively want to fill that space; and two, psychologically, "clean" players may start to be over-valued. You've indicated this yourself, right, in connection to the deification of Griffey?

Oops--you were responding to WmC!

can't wait until the 2012 HoF voting when the writers inevitably lock out the 2nd best hitter of all time and the 2nd best pitcher of all time by WAR

the upcoming ballots are pretty loaded though so unless they start letting in more than 2-3 guys a year i think a lot of the borderline cases are gonna slip away

for '13 you've got biggio, bonds, clemens, piazza, and sosa. two of them will get in right away, right? or maybe only one?

I think there'll be four tiers: 1) the Bonds/Clemens/A-Rod tier, where the writers (grudgingly) decide they were HOF-clear pre-PED and put them in; 2) the McGwire/Palmeiro/Ramirez tier, the guys who are punished; 3) the Bagwell/I-Rod/Thome tier, players who've never been named and who never failed a test but who seem suspicious anyway (this is a tier completely of my own making; I have doubts about all three)--not sure what happens with them; 4) everybody else.

i think Wagner's HOF case will be made in the coming years. if he can move up on the all time saves list (he's - um, 6th right now?) he could make it in as long as he stays productive for a few more years. the only person ahead of him still pitching well is Rivera (as Hoff seems to have lost it this year).

xpost

somebody wrote a column abt this today, will link later

back to the thread topic, i think the prototype 'underrated players' in terms of WAR are the guys who are consistently worth 3-5 WAR each year but aren't flashy enough to build a reputation as great players

david dejesus and nick markakis are the first two that come to mind

Markakis has slid a fair amount this year tho.

i think Wagner's HOF case will be made in the coming years. if he can move up on the all time saves list (he's - um, 6th right now?) he could make it in as long as he stays productive for a few more years.

Doesn't Wagner plan to retire at the end of the year? We could have seen Wagner, Cox, and Chipper making one last run at a WS and retiring together at the end of the year, that's the kind of storyline that sportswriters love, and it could have turned into a huge deal that would cement reputations (it still might happen, sans Chipper). WmC's question is interesting, because it could be like Mussina winning 20 games in his final year, where you've got an underrated guy and people think he needs to achieve a fairly meaningless milestone to make or break his HOF chances.

I think the answer is "no" ... there's not much talk about Wagner's possible retirement and the Padres have stolen the Braves' buzz.

there mustn't be because i never heard about his impending retirement!

Yeah, he said in April that this will absolutely be his last season. I believe I remember the Braves booth guys talking about his reasons -- apparently the nerves stress of being a closer has never gotten easier for him, and he just doesn't want to deal with the pressure of living or dying by the 9th inning any more after this year.

I'm not finding a lot of corroboration for that on the web, but I swear that's what Joe Simpson said one night, and he's not at all a loose-lipped gossipy type.

Tim Salmon had to have one of the best careers and never make an All Star game.

Ron Cey was pretty solid, but the 70s-80s was probably one of the most deep periods for really good third basemen. I know Bill James had him along with Bobby Grich and Brian Downing as being pretty under-rated players for their period either in that decade recap or in their player profile.

I don't know if Billy Wagner is a Hall of Famer, but good lord when that dude was young and in his prime with the Astros, the guys' fast ball was insane. He would be over or near 100 mph every pitch.

The guy that the injuries took away his chance at greatness that was perhaps the most freakishly amazing athlete in baseball I saw play was Eric Davis. The guy was built like a sprinter and his athletic combination of power and speed was over the top. His frame couldn't take the punishment, but I almost still would say the guy was still one of the best all around players I watched and followed on a regular basis.

Lance Parrish and Ted Simmons are both pretty underappreciated catchers. They both were good catchers for a long time.

In an era of big offense, I never thought Salmon was great, but I agree that it's a major surprise he never made even one All-Star team. I looked at his splits on BaseballReference.com, and he even hit 173 of his 299 career homers in the first half (he hit for a higher average in the second half). I'm guessing he had a much better career than a few one-season flashes and cellar-dweller picks that got into All-Star games ahead of him.

I also think that there will always be underrated players ... Neyer and Posnanski and BP are a really small piece of the pie. Chase Utley hit five homers in last year's WS and was STILL underrated -- everyone talked about ARod becoming a "true Yankee" and the "Yankee Four" and Pedro and by the last game, Matsui.

Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but I'm not sure that's the same as being underrated. The media's always going to focus on easy-to-understand soap-opera stuff--in the case of A-Rod and Martinez, variations of the "big comeback" story. But in general, I think there's a greater awareness today of Utley's stature as one of the best all-around players in baseball than there would have been had he played in the '60s or '70s. Neyer and the rest are a small piece, I agree, but I think their stuff filters down through the media in a way that it didn't when James was writing about, say, how underrated Jose Cruz was in the early '80s. I mention Joe Rudi a lot, but I first started watching baseball in the early '70s, he was the media's poster-boy for underrated players. I look at his stats today, and the only explanation I can come up with is that he nudged his batting average over .300 a couple of times. I don't think writers miss the mark by that much today; if a player's legitimately underrated by the public at large, before long, I think the word gets out.

So maybe what I'm saying is that it's much harder to stay underrated today.

i would agree with that.

also pondering a guy like Paul Konerko

Me too. He's pulling a Fred McGriff in reverse. For the first few years of his career, McGriff's 35 homers a year were meaningful enough that he was considered one of the very best hitters in baseball; after he moved over to the NL, his power dipped a bit, everyone else surged past him, and he fell off the radar. Konerko averaged about 30 homers a year for his first decade with the White Sox, and while he did get some MVP votes for three of those years, I don't think he got a whole lot of attention at a time when there were a number of people hitting many more home runs. (I know I didn't take him very seriously myself.) Now he's having his best all-around year ever, the league has pulled back in his direction, and he's sitting on 350 home runs at age 34. It's a longshot, but I don't think you can rule him out for the HOF if he stays healthy for another five or six years and continues to play well.

Konerko's having his best season at age-34, and unless he has another four or five career years from ages 35-39, he's not getting anywhere near the HOF. McGriff was a legit offensive force during his career (he had a great OPS+ nearly every year) and was considered just a step below elite status by the writers (he was never the best player in his league, rarely was even in the top five, but had six top-ten MVP finishes, even if he never finished higher than sixth. That's a borderline HOFer. He's basically a poor man's Jim Thome, and even JIM THOM isn't considered a lock for the HOF (although he should be).

Konerko is nowhere near those numbers -- 16 points below McGriff in OPS+, and just one top ten MVP finish (6th, in 2005).

Just to clarify: if Thome had retired at the end of last year, then he'd be in danger of falling off the radar for the HOF ... he'd probably get in eventually, but not on the first ballot. His era is stacked with guys with similar numbers, especially first basemen, and like McGriff, he was never considered to be one of the league's very best hitters (even though he was, and had more great seasons than just about any of his contemporaries, e.g. McGwire, Raffy, Giambi, Delgado (not saying that all these guys are HOFers, just that they usually got more attention and respect than Thome did).

Actually, Thome was prob underrated and deserves a mention on this thread. But of course if he keeps hitting for a couple more years and cracks 600 homers then it could be a different story.

Like I say, a longshot. I'd put Konerko at about 5% right now. But if he continues on as he is this year for another five years--highly unlikely--I still think he'd have about an even chance at the HOF. Not first ballot by any means, but somewhere down the road. Thome is definitely underrated with regards to his contemporaries. If, that is, he's clean.

you know what i always love is how columns discussing certain candidates' lack of HOF qualifications tend to invariably mention a low number of all-star game appearances and low placements on MVP/cy young ballots, which is always funny to me considering how fundamentally stupid the voters are. like thome's lack of top 5 mvp placements (save one season), missing in '97 because voters decided that randy myers was a worthy MVP candidate (#4 to thome's #6), seeing his own teammate juan gonzalez place a couple spots ahead of him in '01 despite thome's insane season, and in his truly all-time great season of '02 placing behind not only behind tejada, a-rod, and giambi, but also soriano, garret anderson, and torii hunter.

the AS game argument is funny too. it's not like a higher number of AS games helps other guys that much. i feel like dave stieb and steve rogers were starting pitchers in the game facing off against each other like 32 times.

One possible difference in how we view this: I'm not ready to write off 500 HR as a benchmark. For most of the players associated with PEDs, yeah, the 500 HR doesn't seem to mean much when they come up for HOF voting--not yet, anyway. But if you eliminate all of them, there aren't as many players crossing the line as everyone seems to think. Bagwell and McGriff fell short, Chipper's not looking good, and Delgado's still very iffy. PED players who've made it: Bonds, Sosa, A-Rod, McGwire, Palmeiro, Ramirez, and Sheffield. If you put them aside for a second, the only players who've exceeded 500 HRs since Eddie Murray did it are Thomas, Thome, and Griffey, and, other than Pujols, I don't see any other sure things on the horizon. So if Konerko were to exceed 500 HRs, I still think that counts for a lot. There's a growing perception out there that 500 HR has lost its exclusivity. To me, it depends on whether or not you count the PED guys.

I really like Bill James' Keltner Test for the HOF, so ASG and MVP voting do help in singling out the guys who were considered the best players of their day. And besides freakish years like 2002 and 1999 (which I won't try to defend), in most years you can't reasonably argue that Thome was one of the top five players in the league. In 2001, for instance, you had Giambi putting up superior numbers in every category (while playing the same position), two insane seasons by second basemen (Alomar and Boone), a shortstop hitting 52 HR (A-Rod) -- all four of those guys were clearly better than Thome that year. In 1997 he finished sixth (yeah, behind Randy Myers, which was a joke), but he also finished ahead of Nomar, Edgar, Clemens, and Johnson, who all had better years, and he deservedly finished behind Griffey and Thomas. So maybe he was the seventh best player in the AL that year. And so on.

Konerko doesn't even seem in the HOF discussion. more like the Hall of the Very Good, like Rusty Staub or Al Oliver (if PK lasts that long).

Then again Staub and Oliver were both better than Jim fuckin' Rice.

For what it's worth, neither Wagner nor Konerko was even on my own HOF radar a week ago; it's only their getting mentioned on this thread, and then taking a closer look at their career boxes, that made me realize how quietly they've been piling up some numbers, and that the HOF wasn't completely out of the question one day. That's all--Konerko, especially, would still have to do a lot in the next five years. But if there's a point where you can say of a player that it's 100% sure he's not going into the HOF, I don't think either one of them has yet reached that point.

The Hall of the Very Surly: Steve Carlton, Dave Kingman, Albert Belle.
The Hall of the Very Profane: Hal McCrae.
The Hall of the Very Unkempt: John Kruk.

thome is pretty much the kind of dude who clearly deserves to get into the HOF, which is basically what i'm saying. he's not pujols or bonds, but he's had exactly one season that's been anything less than really good, and that was due to an injury. i think he gets undervalued b/c of the batting average and the Ks and probably for defense (i think his rep on that was poor? i don't remember...) but w/r/t the sabermetric stats he's had a pretty insane career. not like some konerko level of piling up solid numbers, but in and out season after season being one of the top hitters in the game (if never actually *the* top.)

adam dunn's probably gonna reach 500 HR unless he falls of a cliff. he'd be the most interesting test case for that benchmark because he's not a PED case but has never been considered a great player by media

dunn with 347 currently and is only 30 years old this season, for reference

Dunn is totally Dave Kingman: The Next Generation. I remember rooting hard for Kingman to get to 500, just before he was colluded out of the game--I really wanted to see how baseball would handle him come HOF time. I don't think he ever would have got in. Similarly, for Dunn, I think the bar starts at 600 HR for him to even have a chance. Massive amounts of strikeouts (not a factor for Mickey Mantle or Reggie; for him, I think it would be), low RBI totals, .251 career average, almost zero MVP support.

All this HOF talk has inspired me to do an update on my page of some projections I made a few years ago.

Guys like Konerko and Johnny Damon aren't really on the HOF radar but by the time they retire they'll have piled up the kind of career stats that will convince some people that they were great players, when in fact they were just really good for a long time. Like Morbs said, those kinds of players don't deserve to be HOF's (although they probably tend to be underrated).

there's a pretty huge difference between kingman and dunn though:

kingman: career .302 OBP
dunn: career .381 OBP

dunn is far, far more valuable, especially now that they've gotten him out of the outfield where he was giving back a lot of his value with shitty defense

He has his hilarious moments at 1B too, but fewer of them I guess. Loved his throw into left field the other day trying to start a double play.

They're pretty comparable in terms of home-run rate, batting average (guessing that Dunn's .251 will move in the direction of Kingman's .236 as time goes on), and strikeouts, but you're right, Dunn's walk advantage is huge.

Here's a far-fetched conspiracy theory I've carried around for years: that not only was Kingman colluded out of the game (even at 38, I have to believe there was somebody who could have used a DH coming off three consecutive 30 HR seasons), but that the desire not to have to deal with the possibility of him reaching 500 HR was part of it. In 1987, that number was still sacrosanct; I recall that there was a feeling at the time among some writers that even Reggie had diminished the number's aura. Kingman was 58 HR and two full seasons away. I realize that it's Dave Kingman we're talking about here, but I've always had this feeling that him reaching 500 HR was just too weird to contemplate, and that that was part of his odd exit.

i've never heard anything about Kingman's exit. why would all the owners get together and decide he's not going to make to to 500 hrs?

As I say, far-fetched. But as I tried to explain above, I don't think the baseball establishment (whatever that means) was looking forward to the prospect of Dave Kingman hitting 500 home runs--not in 1987, when there were probably half as many player with 500 than there will be 5 or 10 years from now. It would have been something of an HOF dilemma at the time; it wouldn't be today. By "odd exit," look at what Kingman had done in his last three years--I can't think of anyone offhand who ever left the game coming off three consecutive 30-HR years. Having said all that, the counter-arguments are obvious: 1) Kingman's contribution to a team beyond the home runs was zilch; 2) he was widely considered to be a jerk; 3) he was 38 years old; 4) the owners were colluding against everybody at the time.

I'm currently in negotiations with Oliver Stone to make a movie about all this (Oliver Stone's Kong), so I'll have more to say at some later date.

lol.

the owners were colluding against everybody at the time

would like to hear more about this.

The owners got dinged for about 100 million towards the end of the '80s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_collusion

I don't remember all the specifics, but I think their treatment of Raines was exhibit A at the time.

things they could have colluded on:

• Kingman
• Twins winning the world series lolwtf
• construction of the baseball-playing-android known as BA-8000-T (later renamed Darryl Strawberry)
• assassination attempt of Ronald Regan
• making Pete Rose the fall guy for Bowie Kuhn's gambling ring
• Jeff Reardon's beard
• Bart Giamatti's "heart attack"

xpost - oh!!!

Kingman was such an abominable outfielder

http://www.checkoutmycards.com/CardImages/Cards/015/184/01F.jpg
http://waxturds.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/zardoz.jpg

For sure. At that point he was an American Leaguer and full-time DH, though.

I don't mean to go on about Dave Kingman, who has nothing to do with this thread. Last thing: I googled "Kingman + collusion" and found this page, where a bunch of people debate "What exactly was 'wrong' with Dave Kingman?" Quite a bit, apparently...

http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?94792-What-exactly-was-quot-wrong-quot-with-Dave-Kingman-anyway&daysprune=365

Also: read that Wikipedia account of collusion, and it was 300 million the owners had to pay out, not 100 million.

Here's something a little more on-topic, a question posted on Bill James's site today:

Bill, in your book "Whatever Happened To The Hall of Fame?" you discuss how you felt Dwight Evans was one of the most underrated players in baseball history. Do you currently still feel this way and what do you feel his chances are of EVER being voted in through the Veterans Committee in which he becomes eligible in 2012?
Asked by: Patrick Languzzi
Answered: August 22, 2010

I still think that Dewey was one of the most underrated players of all time. I would predict that, over time, more evidence will emerge to demonstrate his value, and that there will be wider understanding of this. Whether that will be enough to carry him into Cooperstown...who knows. What is he, now...58? 58 and in great shape; he's got 30 years to work on it, anyway.

It was lost in the shuffle of Fisk's home run, but he made probably the greatest catch I've ever seen in Game 6 of the '75 Series.

yeah people like to point out that if you take defense and OBP into account properly, Jim Rice was only the 3rd best outfielder on the 70s sox after Dewey and Lynn

rice's obp was slightly better than evans' during the 70s, it was the second half of his career when dewey put up better numbers while rice was on the decline

Kingman hit .210/.255/.431 at age 37 in his last season (as a DH). you don't need sabermetrics to conclude that's not a guy you want to sign for the next year.

yeah rice had a huge peak but dewey and lynn had more career value, is the point. baseball writers obviously tend to value guys who had a few mvp-level years and lots of mediocre ones over guys who were good to great every year but never had the monster season.

guys who were good to great every year but never had the monster season

I don't think that describes Lynn--wasn't he the exact opposite? He was brilliant in '75 and '79, otherwise he was either injured or, through most of the '80s, just treading water. I guess you could make a case that his career stats are the equal of Rice's (.298/.352/.502 for Rice, .280/.360/.484 for Lynn, with Lynn playing most of his career somewhere other than Fenway), but Rice intuitively feels much more like a Hall of Famer to me. I know that's not very scientific. I think Evans (.272/.370/.470, plus eight Gold Gloves) was, on balance, a better player than both of them.

yeah i agree w/ all that

It's a bit of a stretch to put Adam Dunn down at Dave Kingman's level. Dunn's not great, but as a hitter his career OPS is closer to Jim Thome than Kong (.904 Dunn, .961 Thome, .780 Kingman). Dunn hasn't played on any good teams which probably underrates him a bit and the guy is so big (6-7 probably close to 300 pounds) he looks really odd and very ungraceful on the field. I think Dunn would be a good fit for an AL club and it never really made sense why the Angels never looked him up, considering they needed power. I'd think the White Sox or the Rangers might be where he ends up if he leaves the Nationals. The old owner of the Rangers tried to trade for him a couple of times when Dunn was in Cincy. I think a question on Dunn is whether he will hit the wall like Richie Sexton did, who is probably one player that is somewhat similar to Dunn (although he didn't draw as many walks). Sexton was pretty consistently decent, losing only one season to injury and he hit age 32 and he was finished. Don't know if this will be the fate of the Big Donkey or not, but it could be.

I will always be a fan of Dunn & JD Drew, if only because they're hated by the right people.

Also, Adam Dunn doesn't like baseball.

And he clogs the bases!

(His career R/162 is six higher than that of Juan Pierre, but don't tell anyone.)

I will always be a fan of Dunn & JD Drew, if only because they're hated by the right people.

Totally agree with this.

Speaking of underrated -- and I know I'm a total Braves homer, but still -- Tim Hudson is kind of amazing to watch this year, for folks who have Extra Innings or the internet or whatnot.

He's pitching tonight for what it's worth. I'm sure I just jinxed him.

it never really made sense why the Angels never looked him up, considering they needed power.

i thought this was because dunn made it clear he had no interest in being a dh

William, you did jinx him :( (I mean :) obviously but that seems cruel)

I was regretting that post as soon as I made it! Still the larger point of Hudson-is-great-this-year stands. Also, he's grown a full beard and he and Tommy Hanson look like they could be twins. For some reason that is very o_O to me.

I try to catch at least an inning whenever Hudson pitches. Ditto Jurrjens and Hanson.

Maybe Hudson is under the radar this year - but he was certainly a name when he was part of the that great starting 3-some in Oakland.

Is it fair to say Michael Young's underrated?

It depends how you're rating him. Are you rating him as a $16mil/year player, which is what he makes this year and the next two years? Then he's overrated.

He has been consistently good for his entire career. He's never had an OPS over .900, but he's always in the .750-.900 range. He's played reasonably well at every infield position. Not rangey, but a good catch and throw guy.

I wasn't thinking about salary (something I'm generally oblivious to--had no idea he made that much); more that he seems underpublicized for a guy as consistent as he's been since 2003. Baseball Reference even has him over 100 points on their (James's) HOF Monitor, putting him into the "likely" category. That's way too charitable, but he may be in the midst of his best season yet, and another five or six solid years, who knows.

actually agree w/ clemenza on this one

I pondered the significance of that "actually" for a few minutes...I'm okay with it!

Andrew McCutchen had to make the All-Star team this year as an injury sub. That's insane.

High Heat Stats has been unrolling their lists of "Under-appreciated Players of the '80s/'90s" the past week or so. The full lists:

'90s

1. Kevin Appier
2. Kenny Lofton
3. Tony Phillips
4. Steve Reed
5. Eric Plunk
6. Shane Mack
7. Mike Jackson
8. John Valentin
9. Dave Clark
10. Jose Rijo

'80s

1. Dwayne Murphy
2. Dave Stieb
3. Bill Doran
4. Danny Darwin
5. Von Hayes
6. Mario Soto
7. Mark Eichhorn
8. Gary Redus
9. Jim Clancy
10. Dwight Evans

There wasn't one specific methodology used, so to a degree the lists are subjective, but they're based on a mix of the usual sabermetric benchmarks. There are already three Jays pitchers on the '80s list, but I might add a fourth: Tom Henke. I always felt he was underpublicized in comparison to the other name closers of the day.

E.g.: in a decade where Mark Davis and Steve Bedrosian won Cy Youngs, Henke didn't receive a single Cy Young vote in his entire career; he got five points in the '85 MVP vote.

i always thought Key was dominated by the shadow of Stieb - but that could have just been up here.

i was eyeballing jason thompson's stats a couple nights ago (that baseball reference rabbithole!) and the dude wasn't a HOFer but he had some outstanding seasons w/detroit and pittsburgh (exhibits a and b re: his underratedness.)

arguments?

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/7/17/3163647/most-underrated-players-in-baseball-mlb

Beltre for sure. Even putting aside the 57 WAR at age 33, he's got a decent shot at 500 HR/3,000 hits.

I have admired Choo since I saw him hit an IPHR at Tacoma (2006?).

Mark Buehrle might be the most underrated pitcher in the game. He's seventh in WAR among active pitchers (which also underrates him somewhat, since he's only five WAR out of second place), won a WS with a team in a large market, has been arguably the best fielding pitcher in the game for a while, never gets hurt, throws 200+ IP every year, never has a bad season ... and he's only 33, so it's not hard to see him finishing with 250+ wins and 70+ WAR. Those would be HOF worthy numbers, but he's never really been great, just really good nearly every year, which probably kills his chances. Although he still might turn into the poster boy for being underrated for being v. good for a long time, like Mike Mussina did.

Is Torii Hunter underrated or overrated? He's going to finish his career with 2000+ hits, 300+ HR, nine gold gloves, and a career WAR between 40-50 (accumulated very steadily--this year should make 12 straight years where he was almost between 3.0-5.0 every year). On the other hand, he makes almost $20 million a year, has made All-Star teams and gotten MVP support, and carries a just-okay lifetime OPS of .800.

i sorta bristle at the notion of choo being most underrated... otherwise, pretty good list

Hunter is one of those who stayed 'underrated' too long

Defensive stats are just a jumble of numbers to me, so I wasn't sure if Hunter was the kind of player who earned his first few gold gloves, then won a few on reputation.

Neyer on Buehrle:

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/7/18/3165852/mark-buehrle-miami-marlins-pitches-changeups

Hunter doesn't seem underrated or overrated. A CF who hits and fields consistently well for a decade is a fairly rare thing, but it doesn't mean he's a superstar or should be making superstar money.

High Heat Stats has been unrolling their lists of "Under-appreciated Players of the '80s/'90s" the past week or so. The full lists:

'90s

1. Kevin Appier
2. Kenny Lofton
3. Tony Phillips
4. Steve Reed
5. Eric Plunk
6. Shane Mack
7. Mike Jackson
8. John Valentin
9. Dave Clark
10. Jose Rijo

'80s

1. Dwayne Murphy
2. Dave Stieb
3. Bill Doran
4. Danny Darwin
5. Von Hayes
6. Mario Soto
7. Mark Eichhorn
8. Gary Redus
9. Jim Clancy
10. Dwight Evans

There wasn't one specific methodology used, so to a degree the lists are subjective, but they're based on a mix of the usual sabermetric benchmarks. There are already three Jays pitchers on the '80s list, but I might add a fourth: Tom Henke. I always felt he was underpublicized in comparison to the other name closers of the day.

― clemenza

tony phillips was such an awesome player, from age 31-40 he accumulated 35+ in WAR. w/the tigers he was amazing, and he had this incredible season w/the white sox in '96 batting atop a lineup that included peak era big hurt, ventura, baines, tartabull. not quite as fun as the early '90s tigers teams he was on but up there.

Tony Phillips was a great utility player for clubs to have, Tony LaRussa spent the last 20+ years of his career trying to find another guy like him. To be fair, LaRussa had a few singular seasons where he would find some guy that could rake at the plate and fill in a couple of positions, but there really there were very few that had the utility skills of Phillips.

"I think a question on Dunn is whether he will hit the wall like Richie Sexton did"

I guess we can say Adam Dunn has kind of hit the wall. His somewhat comeback year last year was kinda Kong-esque. Dunn's really not been the same since he had to have that appendix out and he rushed back in like a week. I'd put Dunn as a pretty big longshot to get to 500 at this point, unless he has some big reversal of fortune health wise, as he was always lumbering but the guy looks real slow right now. AD's got a deal through next year, but unless he can bring some more production, you got to think the White Sox eventually are going to cut bait on him.

i remember u gary redus

Redus holds the record for the highest batting average in a minor league season. In his first season in 1978, Redus hit .462 for Billings in the Pioneer League over the course of their 68 game season (Willie Aikens holds the full-season-league record, .454 for Puebla in the Mexican League in 1986).

I'm sure this has been pointed out by many people, but it's interesting how broadly similar the careers of Mario Soto and Jose Rijo are, above and beyond the Reds connection.

I remember Gary Redus with the Reds. He was always looked as a bit of a dissapointment, but the guy played in the bigs until he was 37. Those early 80s Reds teams were very bad. Redus, Paul Householder and the recently deceased Frank Pastore were all three supposed to be the new talent to take the Reds back to promise, but it didn't happen. Mario Soto on that list was also on those same clubs, a very good starter on a pretty bad club until arm problems got to him.

Jose Rijo was really good, but the guy had bad arm problems. I always thought it was cool that he made it back after 5-6 years out of the big leagues to have at least a different goodbye with the Reds in his late 30s, even though he wasn't the same pitcher. I kind of have the same hope for Mark Prior in some ways in that he at least earns his way back to the bigs and the career at least ends on a different note somewhat.

Bill Doran also has a Reds connection in that he is from Cincy and was traded for in the 90 pennant drive and actually played pretty well helping the club survive a late swoon then got injured right before the playoffs started. He played for the Reds for a couple more years.

Bill Doran and Dickie Thon were a pretty good hitting 2B/SS tandem for the Astros for a couple of years in the early 80s. Thon got sidelined with injuries too, but he was a good hitter for a while.

i was watching on wor (presumably) when mike torrez hit dickie thon

I forgot that was it...yeah Dickie Thon was really good in 82-83. I was like 12 or 13 then and probably at the PEAK of just sheer amount of baseball I watched daily, good chunk of it being Cubs and Braves games on cable or following the Reds, so I remember those Astros clubs quite well.

Guys I grew up with we played Status Pro Baseball (Sports Illustrateds version of Stratomat) and a game we made up called Dice Baseball and I remember one buddy of mine would love to go "C'mon Dickie, C'mon Dickie C'mon Dickie" when using Thon in those games before rolling or pulling the card.

Stuff like this makes me think it is a total bummer that the Astros are in the AL.

Long before WAR, James proselytized in one of the Abstracts for Thon being one of the best players in baseball. And he indeed leads NL position players in '83 (7.4), and finished 6th in '82 (6.1).

yeah i played a stratomatic variant that left me knowing way too much about the '82 cards and pirates -- i was ten

jason thompson hit 30 homers, for one thing

oh man, dickie thon! most of his career was played before i was born, but i remember seeing his name in my BJ historical baseball abstract. i called him dick-a-thon, which i'm sure was thoroughly original among 12 year old bill james readers

shout-out to davey lopes.

his career is really good considering he didn't hit the bigs until he was 27 and wasn't a starter til the following year. also, he was my favorite cub in 1985:

99 games

.284/.383/.444 slash

47 SB, 4 CS(!)

all at the age of 40(!!)

5. Von Hayes

Kind of missed this one in that list. Von Hayes was hyped pretty big coming into baseball kind of like Gregg Jeffries a few years later and while both of them were decent to good, neither one turned into a superstar like many thought they would. I seem to recall that Hayes was hyped big time when he got traded to Philly.

That 70s Dodger infield of Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey was pretty damn good and they played together for a LONG time.

won a world series in 1981 too

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/millira01-bat.shtml?mobile=false

Never realized what a walks machine this dude was. A couple of decent WAR seasons in there.

I'll put this Posnanski column here, just because it goes over some of the same Adam Dunn/Dave Kingman conversation we had on this thread a few years ago, including the possibility of collusion:

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/08/06/even-if-he-reaches-500-homers-adam-dunn-is-not-hall-of-famer/related/

It's kind of a redundant column--things have changed so much since Kingman's time that I don't think there's anybody who seriously thinks Dunn's a HOF candidate. And yes, he will be off the ballot in a year, as Kingman was. But I'll stand by my original point upthread that had Kingman reached 500 HR, in the context of 1992 or 1993, that would have been an awkward situation for the writers. My guess is he would have drawn as much as 20-25% first time around.

I don't see it as awkward for a sensible writer in any context. Kingman's sole asset was HR power, likely moreso than any player in history to that point. Dunn is multidimensional by comparison.

Multi-dimensional as in two--Dunn hits home runs and he also walks, instead of just hits home runs. Obviously hugely important, but as Posnanski notes, he's just barely ahead of Kingman in career WAR anyway. And the bulk of Dunn's HR were hit during the tail end of the offensive boom, so I think you have to discount them a bit.

I can't prove you wrong--I'm trying to project what might have happened in 1993 had something happened in 1988 that didn't happen; that's about as hypothetical as it gets--but I still think you're looking at it from a 2014 perspective. In 1984, just two years removed from his exit, Kingman finished 13th in MVP voting. He was a 35-year-old DH, his team finished 4th and under .500, and he was disliked by writers (the rat incident hadn't happened yet, but he was already disliked). And he still finished 13th. Why? Because he hit 35 HR, and even more so, because he knocked in 118. He didn't get any votes two years later when he also hit 35, but I'm sure that was because he fell short of 100 RBI (94) and his average had plummeted from an acceptable .268 to a more hideous .210. My point is, I don't think player evaluation by the writers changed that drastically between '84 and '86 (James was getting better and better known, but his influence was still relatively narrow), and I don't think there was all that much change between '86 and '93, when Kingman might have debuted with 500 HR.

Today, it wouldn't matter--one and out, as should be the case. Then, I don't think so.

Kingman had his best year for the '79 Cubs, leading the NL in HR and slugging; still finished only 11th in MVP that year. The deserving reasons are that he still didn't crack the league's top 10 in bWAR (just 10th in oWAR, behind the likes of Larry Parrish and Lee Mazzilli) and his counting stats were goosed by Wrigley Field; the actual reasons are likely that he played for a noncontender AND the writers hated him.

Assuming those extra 58 HR to get to 500 didn't result in a couple 60-HR seasons, I think he slides off the ballot after one year anyway.

i think even then kingman was regarded as just a "two true outcomes" guy, and it's not like beyond his '79 season he was ever a super-impressive homer guy on a season-by-season basis. when he was playing my childhood memories of his '80s seasons were that he was overshadowed in the HR department not only by the obvious suspects like schmidt and murphy but also such legends as gorman thomas and tony armas. i suspect one and done as well.

Actually for the early to mid 80s Kingman was a pretty impressive homer guy. It was not a super homer friendly era.

Kingman was a more consistent hitter of homers than any of the non-Schmidt/Murphy guys you mentioned too (Greg Luzinski also sprang to mind although he was a bitter all around hitter than Armas/Thomas/Kingman).

Yeah I mean his HR numbers were always up there and I guess he was fairly consistent. I guess I phrased that poorly, I just think in those seasons there always seemed to be some less famed slugger who would out perform him HR wise or some old rando like Darrell Evans would drop 40 HR like nbd, and I think during that era he was overshadowed in those seasons. Except for '79. But yeah he retired when I was 10 so I'm probably misremembering.

he hit lotsa tape-measure bombs in his Mets heyday, but no one cared when he was dealt (well, it was same day as Seaver)

I tried to actually project forward to the appropriate ballot, and you guys are probably right, one and done.

If you give Kingman three more years of overstaying his welcome so he could get to 500, he retires in '89, comes on the ballot in '95. Looking to see who was the best first-year match for him that year--keeping in mind that no one really matched up well with Kingman in those days; he was Adam Dunn/Mark Reynolds 25 years before the fact--George Foster was probably the closest. Not really similar, but in a general sense they were both low-OBP power hitters. (Darrell Evans also came on that year, and he matches up better in terms of HR and BA, but he of course was a really good all-around player.) Foster only had 348 career HR, which is well short of 500, but he had other advantages over Kingman: the 50-HR season (still sort of legendary then, before the deluge), the MVP, the famous team. Foster got 4.1% of the vote and was finished. Baylor, a somewhat closer match, got 2.6% in his second year and was finished.

So even though 500 HR was a much more hallowed number then than now, it probably wouldn't have been enough to keep Kingman on the ballot. I will point out, though, that even coming onto the ballot well short of 500 in '92, he still finished ahead of both Ceser Cedeno and Toby Harrah in their first years, players who were far superior, and he was only behind Grich (also first-year) 11 votes to 3, and he's now recognized as one of the greatest players not in the HOF.

Jim Rice was a one dimensional player with inflated hitting stats from his home ballpartk and everybody hated him. Somehow he's in the HOF (and he hit fewer HR's than Kingman).

I'm not saying Kingman would have gotten in, but there's no way he's one and done with 500 HR.

And yeah, Rice had a couple of monster seasons and won an MVP award, Kingman didn't. I think there's still a comparison to be made though.

I'm not happy that Rice made the HOF, but he does have a 47.4 WAR to Kong's 17.3.

Kingman was also a world class dickhead.

well, so was Ted Williams

i think torii hunter is kinda underrated (despite a -.6 war this yr ¯\(°_o)/¯)

Brisbee:

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/8/19/6045751/most-underrated-players-in-baseball-mlb

don't know what his top 5 will look like, but I still think Beltre is underrated.

lol @ the cody allen quiz

i'm gonna guess alex gordon for #1

also i'm curious about this:

He's hitting .297/.335/.406, good for a 105 OPS+. Those are fine numbers, sure, but you have to force yourself to remember it's 2014, which is a lot closer to 1968 than 2000 when it comes to the run-scoring environment. Put him on the 2000 Royals, and you might have a .330 hitter, someone who clearly stands out.

*pitching was worse

Pitchers are definitely better now, basically every team has two or three relievers throwing 95 and putting up K/9 rates like Billy Wagner or Eric Gagne in their primes. I also think that all of the big tech/stats breakthroughs (pitch f/x, better valuations of defense and defensive positioning) have favoured pitching and defense.

alex gordon is the kind of player who would deserve to get into the HOF if he plays like he has for another ten years.

i'm starting to think Alex Gordon has a slim chance at the MVP, and is def. getting nominated.

naaah, we're not there yet

I also don't think he's in Trout's class (no one is)

Brisbee pt 2

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/8/20/6049561/most-underrated-players-in-baseball

another year under the radar i might put Rendon on that list

yeesh i'm not sure anyone's missed the klubes train this year, which is his first full year as a good baseball pitcher

gordon should've been somewhere

Hiroki Kuroda deserves a prize for being underrated even though he's played with the Yankees and Dodgers for his entire career.

ya, i have no idea how he pulled that off.

Ian Kinsler. I was looking at this career box the other day:

-- his career WAR is 46.7 after his age-33 season (didn't get started till he was 24); his per-season WAR is 4.7, per-650 PA 5.4
-- only twice (1.9, 2.4) in 10 seasons has he been under 4.0
-- 184 HR, may end up in the 250 range
-- 100+ runs five times, between 70-90 RBI seven times
-- excellent defense, pretty good speed
-- MVP votes four out of 10 seasons
-- JAWS has him as the 23rd best second baseman ever

Real longshot, but--coming off WARs of 5.0/5.7/6.0--four or five more seasons like that and he'd be in the HOF gray area. Is he generally regarded as one of the most underrated players in the game? He doesn't show up in this thread.

^^^ian kinsler is i think turning into the new Beltre, as far as consistency and that creeping possibility of a good HOF case. not sure he can have another four or five seasons like his last few but if he does he'll be approaching a career WAR of 80. that's probably a real stretch, though.

he'll probably pass jeff 'most homers by a second baseman' kent in WAR this year but i think kinsler will be hurt by a) never getting anywhere near an MVP b) maybe never being the best hitter on his own team

Similar Batters
Hanley Ramirez (910)
Chase Utley (910)
Brandon Phillips (903)
Travis Fryman (888)
Rich Aurilia (888)
Bret Boone (884)
Bobby Grich (879)
Jhonny Peralta (875)
Joe Gordon (875) *
Dustin Pedroia (868)

As I wrote on some other thread, I think Adrian Gonzalez's home parks (Dodgers and Padres for the bulk of his career) have ensured that he'll never get any HOF consideration. He's basically the opposite of Troy Tulowitzki:

(close to the same number of games)

Home: .280/.354/.459/.813, 127 HR, 513 RBI
Away: .300/.369/.524/.893, 181 HR, 633 RBI

If you simply double his road stats, he still falls short. But if you take his road stats and add them onto a favorable home park(s), who knows.

until writers learn to look beyond unadjusted dinosaur slash stats -- hey, there are already some! it's not 1997! wowza!

was surprised to not see Beltre on the above list, but that list wasn't including the 2010. since the beginning of that season, he's accumulated 46.2 WAR and passed everyone on that list except Pujols and A-Rod. also 17 of those guys have retired (except Beltre, Pujols, and Suzuki.) the current active top 20:

1. Albert Pujols (17, 37) 100.2 R
2. Adrian Beltre (20, 38) 90.7 R
3. Carlos Beltran (20, 40) 70.4 B
4. Miguel Cabrera (15, 34) 69.7 R
5. Chase Utley (15, 38) 64.8 L
6. Robinson Cano (13, 34) 64.3 L
7. Ichiro Suzuki (17, 43) 59.2 L
8. Ian Kinsler (12, 35) 54.8 R
9. Mike Trout (7, 25) 51.9 R
10. Joe Mauer (14, 34) 51.1 L
11. Dustin Pedroia (12, 33) 51.0 R
12. Joey Votto (11, 33) 50.3 L
13. David Wright (13, 34) 49.9 R
14. Evan Longoria (10, 31) 48.5 R
15. Matt Holliday (14, 37) 45.6 R
16. Curtis Granderson (14, 36) 45.4 L
17. Ryan Braun (11, 33) 44.4 R
18. Troy Tulowitzki (12, 32) 43.7 R
19. Adrian Gonzalez (14, 35) 43.2 L
20. Ben Zobrist (12, 36) 43.1 B

oops, Beltran also hasn't retired. anyway, Beltre is also the only one still playing at a high level.

i guess from that list, in keeping w/the spirit of this thread, I think Evan Longoria is super underrated. playing in Tampa doesn't help, and maybe neither does the fact that he was a massively hyped prospect who was maybe overshadowed and has simply had a vv quietly outstanding career to date.

was a lil surprised that Nellie cruz only has 28.1 career war tho I guess a product of not being a regular til he was 28 yrs old & prob having negative defensive ratings factored in

nick markakis being a decent two week stretch away from 2,000 career hits is blowing my mind.

for some reason i often find myself navigating to cruz's stat pages and being surprised by his WAR, as well.

personally, i always underrate ian kinsler. it's totally arbitrary, but he's 12th in fWAR since 2010

i guess it's just because he's in the AL so i rarely watch him play, and he accumulated a lot of his value through solid defense, which lends itself to underratededereradfdsf

I was thinking about Cruz the other day, that he might be on a list of highest percentage of career WAR accumulated during a player's 30s.

Comparison to three guys I associate with this:

Cruz - 20.5 WAR during 30s/28.1 career WAR = 73%
Bautista - 27.7/34.7 = 80%
Jeff Kent - 40.6/55.2 = 74%
Luis Gonzalez - 32.5/51.5 = 63%

Bautista was 29 when he hit 54 HR, otherwise he'd be up near 100%. I think it's much more common for this to happen with pitchers.

also
edgar martinez - 49.6 of 68.3 = 73%
ozzie smith - 52 of 76.5 = 68%

i should subscribe to the B-R play index so i can see the top ten and past twenty

The Jays had two of them--Edwin just crossed 60%, and I wouldn't be surprised if he works his way up to 75% by the time he retires.

The flip side:

Albert Belle - 68% before he turns 30
Juan Gonzalez - 78%
Ken Griffey Jr. - 84%
Andruw Jones - 92%
Nomar Garciaparra - 93%

mark fidrych - %100

Elvis Andrus? Crossed 30 WAR last season, most years in the 4.0-4.5 range, off to a great start in 2019. Jays fans will always remember him for his role (two crushing errors) in the bat-flip inning.

In James's piece on the greatest center fielders ever:

"I guess that what I am saying is that even among underrated players, (Jimmy Wynn) is underrated. We have a kind of list of historically underrated players, in our field; Bobby Grich, Darrell and Dwight Evans, Gene Tenace, Rick Reuschel. I’m not sure that Wynn gets the references that he deserves on that list."

James has him 14th, a little higher than Jaffe (17th).

brian giles

OBP
1998: .396
1999: .418
2000: .432
2001: .404
2002: .450
2003: .427
2004: .374
2005: .423

....oh

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/sdut-steroid-talk-barred-trial-ex-padre-giles-2011apr04-htmlstory.html

Conceding some recency bias here, José Abreu? He's really putting together a steady, solid career, with a possible MVP this year. His career OPS+ is 136. Haven't really heard a lot about him since his rookie year.

really good player; tough that he arrived so late and that we are no longer impressed with first basemen

we'll have to settle for stories about how his veteran leadership helped tim anderson/luis robert win other awards

Abreu got a fair amount of press his rookie year as hit power was so impressive, but the White Sox have been in the doldrums until now.

Add Abreu onto Konerko and then Big Hurt before being a primary DH and the Sox have had a really long run of good hitting first basemen.

"I think a question on Dunn is whether he will hit the wall like Richie Sexton did, who is probably one player that is somewhat similar to Dunn (although he didn't draw as many walks). Sexton was pretty consistently decent, losing only one season to injury and he hit age 32 and he was finished. Don't know if this will be the fate of the Big Donkey or not, but it could be."

Poor Big Donkey, he hit the wall.

Ray Durham is a player who was solid, never really a star, but you could do worse having him at second for a decade.

2000+ hits - .277/.352/.436

Durham did not have as much power, but probably similar career to Ian Kinsler. Hall of Very good at least.

A list of the worst base-stealers ever (based on success rate over 300+ attempts) showed up on my FB wall today. Don Buford was on there at 65.6%.

He was a name when I first started following baseball, so I remember him well. Looked him up, and, in a very short career, definitely underrated.

Only played 10 years, age 26-35, including a 12-game call-up in 1963. Over that time: yearly WAR from 2.3 - 4.9, except for that call-up and a poor final season (4.5 per 650 PA); MVP votes in four out of nine full-time seasons; one of the best position players on the Orioles' historic '69-71 run (about even with Boog Powell after Frank Robinson and Paul Blair; a bit ahead of Brooks Robinson).

Still alive at 83.

contrary to my statement above, we *are* still impressed by first basemen

I was mistakenly looking at Buford's oWAR for those years, not total. Corrected range: 2.5 - 6.9, minus his first and last season.

The old timers at the Orioles Hangout forums never game him the same respect they gave Boog, Belanger or Blair, probably cause he didn't have a standout traditional skill. He was sort of a Zobrist type before anyone knew how valuable that was. Or a worse fielding Bobby Grich.

Lotta B names on those Orioles teams

James tries to quantify underrated and overrated (not behind the paywall):

https://www.billjamesonline.com/the_perception_deficit_score/

Salvador Perez? Very consistent, coming off what likely would have been a career season at 30 if played out. He got some attention when the Royals were in the WS, but I don't hear a lot about him otherwise.

he's a victim of playing in KC, in terms of exposure. if he was in NY he would be a legend

actually, ok, i overstated that, glancing at his stats. i always thought of him as a defensive wunderkind but at least on fangraphs, the defensive stats don't seem to reflect that. that's probably just fangraphs-specific: they added catcher pitch-framing to WAR a while back, as we all probably remember, and there were some HUGE repercussions on career WAR numbers. perhaps Perez was one of those that lost some "value"?

he was pretty middling there for a couple years before missing 2019. good power, absolutely refuses to take a walk.

offhand i can't remember seeing a bigger split between bWAR (24.2) and fWAR (11.9)?

Yeah, I was going by bWAR, where he does decently offensively but really well defensively.

Anyone else find it really odd when a catcher can’t walk to save his life? Like you’d think being a fucking catcher, they’d have a good idea where a ball might be going.

yeah, yadier molina very much cannot take a walk either

It’s weird, right?

it is, and it's excruciating to watch sometimes. but i wonder if that comes down to different styles of hitting. some players are "guess hitters", picking a certain kind of pitch or location, or walking up thinking "i'm going to swing full strength on the first pitch", or taking all the way. other guys are more about insanely fast judgments, pitch recognition, figuring it out in the moment.

yadi seems very much like the former, a guess hitter who is frequently betting on himself to swing first and figure it out

i think i remember yelich saying that he didn't "guess", and that it was all just quick reactions and pitch recognition for him

I suppose when you’re catching, pitch recognition is meaningless when you know whats coming.

New Rule for 2021: Catchers get to call their own pitches while at bat.

Obvious one, but Michael Brantley, having one of his best seasons ever at 34.

Might put José Ramírez first on the list. Relative to his accomplishments, you hear virtually nothing about him.

good one. he’s also on an incredibly team-friendly contract

As points of comparison, think of how well publicized Kris Bryant and Anthony Rendon have been. A lot of that has to do with winning a WS title, and some, I'm sure, with Chicago/Washington/L.A. vs. Cleveland as media markets.

Ramirez (age-28 season): 34.2 bWAR/34.5 fWAR
Bryant (29): 28.6/31.8
Rendon (31): 32.2/36.1

Rendon is a couple of games ahead in fWAR with three extra years.

Machado (age-28 season, 45.1/40.3) at another level in both performance and publicity, although much of his publicity has been bad.

perhaps. bryant has won an mvp, tho.

and i don’t think rendon is actually well-publicized? he’s never even been the biggest star on his own teams

Forgot about the MVP. Rendon seemed to get a lot of (deserved) attention during Washington's WS run, and then a lot during his off-season free agency--or at least relative to Ramirez.

hank greenberg.

only play 9 full seasons. lost most of 41-45 to ww2, bookended by a 7.7 fWAR 1940 and a 7.2 WAR 1946. career OBP of .412.

he has 61.1 career fWAR, which ranks only #115 in MLB history. but it was over only 1394 games. i think there is only one player in MLB history who has more fWAR over fewer games, and that's Mike Trout (1388 games and with 81.2 fWAR already)

in terms of fewest games and greatest value, buster posey came close. 1371 games, 57.5 fWAR

Jackie Robinson: 1382 games, 57.2 WAR
Mookie Betts: 1093 games, 49.9 WAR

I think this is the first Posnanski column in a while that's been sharable; hit 10 most underrated players ever.

https://open.substack.com/pub/joeposnanski/p/baseballs-most-underrated-players?r=1jtu0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Haven't had a chance to wade through this yet; pretty exhaustive.

https://www.billjamesonline.com/the_most_underrated_players_of_all_time/

Didn't realize that was the last of a three-part post. The numbers are explained in the first part, part II is the most overrated players. I think they're all free.

brett butler was my favorite giant when I was like 6, very cool to see him on that list (I knew James was a fan)

BRENT

He was really good (it is Brett); just had the bad timing of playing in the shadow of the greatest leadoff hitter ever (Henderson) and maybe the second greatest (Raines).

Me being seduced by a middle infielder yet again...I think Marcus Semien may end the year at the margins of a HOF case. He's leading the AL in bWAR right now at 2.7, maybe headed for a 7.0 or 8.0 season, which at 33 would leave him with:

1) ~ 42 career WAR
2) 200+ career HR
3) the single-season HR record at 2B
4) two top-3 MVP finishes, maybe a third this year

He'd have to keep playing somewhere between an All-Star- and MVP-level for another five years, but he could. As good as Chapman's been this year, hated losing him.

he's a good player, but i would hesitate to call anyone on a $175m contract 'underrated'

several of these guys were good players too
https://i.imgur.com/jgVZUmm.gif

(xpost) When I think about underrated, I don't factor in salary, I think in terms of fans/writers/awards.

Posnanski last week: "José Ramírez just keeps on being José Ramírez (.286/.358/.500, 13 homers, 9 steals, good defense). Without him, these Guardians might not have scored a single run in the first half. I think Ramírez might just be the most underrated baseball player of this century, but I also think he’s going to end up in the Hall of Fame, so that will end his underratedness."

When Ramirez does come up for the HOF many years down the road, I could see where the COVID season factors into a close call (like the strike of '94 may have hurt Cone and Key, and hurt McGriff with the writers). He finished second in MVP voting that year and was headed for his greatest season (pro-rated): 46 HR, 124 RBI, .292/.386/.607. (At least till this year, the winner that year, José Abreu, would have been my other most-underrated-of-the-century.)

Came across Chris Bosio's name in connection to Immaculate Grid today--had forgotten about him. While I wouldn't say he was egregiously underrated, he did accumulate ~25 WAR for his career (with a couple of 5.0+ seasons), retiring at 34, without getting a single Cy Young vote. He may have been overshadowed by another underrated pitcher on his own team, Teddy Higuera, which sounds weird, I know.

I'd like to see a list of the most career WAR for pitchers who never got a Cy vote (and whose careers started no earlier than 1967, when they went to two awards).

Started for the Giants the year they went to the WS with Bonds

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hernali01.shtml

Never heard of him myself

going down the list i'm seeing Tom Candiotti, Danny Darwin, Charlie Hough as the top 3. between the three of them they also had a sole All-Star game appearance (Hough, in 1986.)

scanning the list, there are a lot of guys who placed on the Cy ballots once but never again. Kevin Appier, for example, who had back-to-back seasons w/bWARs of 8.0(!) and 9.3(!!)

I guess it'd be pretty easy to visually scan a WAR list and eliminate all the pitchers you 100% know got Cy votes. Livan was electric when the Mariners won in '97...two knuckleballers, not surprising--often underrated.

Marlins, that should read, not Mariners.

I just gave the Mariners their first-ever WS, then took it back eight seconds later.

Unfair when they’ve never even been 🥲

Never heard of him myself

― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Friday, March 29, 2024 12:00 PM (two hours ago)

many, many mentions of him on this board, including his own thread title:

iLIVAN!, John, and pray for a drenched lawn (the 2006 Nats thread)

somebody needs to study their World Series MVPs

Definitely 🫣

Too soon for Steven Kwan? He got some attention early on but haven't heard much since. GGs and 9.0+ WAR in his first two seasons, solid on-base guy, high SB percentage, doubles and triples, leading the league in hitting and runs right now for the 9-3 Guardians.

An outfielder who does a lot things well but doesn't hit HR is almost always going to be underrated.

He played prep locally to me and I'd say he's underrated even by bay area folks.

Off to a heck of a start. Already two home runs (just 5 last year)