most underrated players

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).

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)