most underrated players

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

Holy cow--I need serious CliffsNotes there.

Watching the Dodgers series I definitely had the thought “whotf is this guy and why is he the best guy on the team?”

Then I googled Eric Soggard to check if they actually looked like each other or if they both just wore glasses. Turns out it was the second option

Anyone who plays in L.A.--especially in the middle of this dynasty--is always going to get a certain amount of attention, but Will Smith is definitely underrated. (Yes, it took his 3-HR game yesterday for me to post.) In six years, he's made one ASG (this year will probably be his second) and never received an MVP vote. Statistically:

-- a career OPS+ of 128; never under 115, 140 this year
-- 17.8 WAR in five-and-a-half seasons, COVID year included; 5.2/162 games

How are they a dynasty? They only have one short season WS and that was four years ago.

*ahem* 2017

I don't think WS titles are the only way to measure a dynasty; long-term success in general works for me. This is their 8th consecutive year of .600+ baseball (how many teams have ever done that?), 12th consecutive year of .550+, 14th consecutive year of .500+. Surely that's a dynasty.

When the World Series switched to Houston for Games 3, 4, and 5, top Dodgers brass met with the starting pitchers for those games: Yu Darvish, Alex Wood, and Clayton Kershaw. The Dodgers brain trust didn’t want to freak out their pitchers, but they delivered a message: we have suspicions that the Astros are up to something, so let’s use multiple signs even when no one is on base. Kershaw and Darvish both declined to heed that advice. The only pitcher who agreed to deviate was the least-renowned pitcher of the bunch, Wood. It just so happened that Wood fared the best: he didn’t allow the Astros a hit until the sixth inning of Game 4, which wound up a 6–2 Dodgers win, evening the series at two games apiece.

Wikipedia lists agreed baseball dynasties as winning multiple titles:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasty_(sports)

I just don't agree. Dynasty can be a matter of degree. When I think of the '70s, I don't just think of the A's, Yankees, and Reds, who won seven of the decade's WS titles; there was also the Pirates, Orioles, Dodgers, Phillies, and Royals, they were all dynasties to a degree. What the Dodgers have done the last eight years, even though it's been almost entirely driven by spending, is remarkable I think.

Your favourite writer, Bill James, actually devised a system a few years ago for measuring dynasties. Tried to find it, but all I could get was a Reddit link, and I learned that I've been blocked by Reddit. Which is interesting, because I access Reddit about once every two years.

Apologies, mookieproof--the Pirates of course won two WS during the '70s. I should have said four teams were responsible for 9/10 WS wins (all but the Orioles in '70).

Fourth HR in a row for Smith.

I think you could use a few things to quantify the concept of underratedness. Two I mentioned above, the most obvious two: ASG appearances and MVP support. You could look at a large sample of fantasy leagues, see if a player consistently gets drafted lower than his value suggests he should. I don't know if it would work now, but there was a time when card values probably identified someone who was underrated; in the late '90s, when Craig Biggio was at his peak, I'm sure his cards would have been considerably cheaper than Juan Gonzalez cards. I don't know if salary would work. With some players there might be a strong correlation between being underrated and being underpaid, but maybe some players are underpaid just because they have lousy agents. (Also, hardly anybody's actually underpaid anymore--some players are just less overpaid than others.)

After retirement, HOF voting would be an important indicator: Lou Whittaker, Bobby Grich, Rick Reuschel, etc.

people are absolutely sleeping on the season jarren duran is having

More generally, I'd say his season points to a couple of other reasons players are underrated: 1) doing a number of things well instead of one thing noticably well (the Amos Otis Rule); 2) having a breakthrough season a few years into your career, past the age of 25. Big seasons by 22-year-olds get noticed--people (like me!) start thinking about the HOF; a 27-year-old having his first MVP-type season might get missed.

For whatever reason, Will wasn't held to be the primo game caller earlier in his dodger career. Kershaw starts would nearly always have Austin Barnes behind the plate (who I love, but he's has no bat). Whether this "subpar game caller" narrative was true or not, it's basically disappeared for Will in the past couple years and so he really has become a catcher with no downsides. Power, contact, plate discipline (Will and Muncy's ability to determine balls and strikes has me amazed), game calling, not "catcher-slow" on the bases, serviceable arm on the pick-offs. 10 year 140mil was money very well spent by the dodgers locking him up. He played with broken ribs for a couple months last year and still managed to pose the question whether he's the best catcher in baseball (no disrespect to Sean Murphy).

Not underrated in his day, but quite forgotten: Gil McDougald. Played 10 seasons, '51-60.

- WARs ranging from 2.5 (never lower) to 5.8; 4.9/162 games
- played 500 games each at second and third, another 300 at short
- ROY, five AS games, five seasons with MVP votes (highest finish 5th)
- Yankees won five WS, lost two

You hear about Mantle, Berra, Ford, Rizzuto, maybe Hank Bauer; McDougald, hardly ever.

Not underrated this year, but Max Fried is putting together some kind of a career under the radar. He's never really had a bad season, just an injury-shortened 2023. His career box reminds me of someone like Don Gullett or Andy Messersmith, great pitchers with impressive stats and shortened careers. Fried's career rate states are excellent across the board.

Thought this revive would be for Cal Raleigh, dominant season whether he’s behind or next to the plate.

Jeremy Peña. Didn't break in till he was 24, got a fair amount of attention his rookie year: GG, ALCS and World Series MVP. Not much since--he was good in both 2023 and 2024, playing 150+ games each season--having his best season yet in 2025, and now stands at 5.2 bWAR per 162 games.