most underrated players

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