most underrated players

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)

I think there's enough evidence now to mention Danny Jansen (by me too). He's injury-prone, but across six seasons and a bit, his pro-rated stats are good. Per 162 games:

26 HR, 77 RBI, walks and strikeouts average, .225/.310/.440, 3.4 WAR

His pre-season ranking in our fantasy league was #1,113. I don't know how he'd fare if he ever had a season where he played 140 games--he might just be effective as a part-time player.

Baseball savant backs you up

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/danny-jansen-643376