most underrated players

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.

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)