most underrated players

prompted by a recent perusal of the statistics of active leaders in WAR, in which 19 and 20 stood out:

1. Alex Rodriguez (34) 101.50 R
2. Albert Pujols (30) 81.40 R
3. Chipper Jones (38) 80.00 B
4. Ken Griffey (40) 78.40 L
5. Derek Jeter (36) 70.00 R
6. Jim Thome (39) 69.00 L
7. Jim Edmonds (40) 68.00 L
8. Manny Ramirez (38) 67.30 R
Ivan Rodriguez (38) 67.30 R
10. Scott Rolen (35) 65.70 R
11. Andruw Jones (33) 59.10 R
12. Vladimir Guerrero (35) 58.40 R
13. Bobby Abreu (36) 57.70 L
14. Todd Helton (36) 57.50 L
15. Carlos Beltran (33) 55.40 B
16. Ichiro Suzuki (36) 53.10 L
17. Jason Giambi (39) 52.90 L
18. Johnny Damon (36) 48.10 L
19. Mike Cameron (37) 47.40 R
20. J.D. Drew (34) 46.80 L

also pondering a guy like Paul Konerko, who has been hiding away on the south side of chicago for a decade+ now and whose stats are definitely not on the same level w/other guys of his era, but who probably doesn't deserve to be forgotten come HOF voting time (by "not forgotten" i mean he deserves to stick around on the ballot for away before dropping away.)

favorite all time underrated/illest batting stance: mickey tettleton

Dang, Alex has a big lead on Pujols there.

if you consider that a-rod has had 15 full seasons at the end of '10 to pujols' 10 full seasons, it's a surmountable one imo

Is WAR a cumulative stat?

i think Griffey can come off that list - which would leave Posada at 20.

oops, he sure can

also, leaders in adjusted OPS+, which has a-rod at #4 just behind jim tho-

jim thome

50. Matt Stairs (42)

0_o

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.

My favourite underrated player ever is Tom Henke. He was as good year-in and year-out as other relievers who got far more attention.

hey speaking of WAR, i read a blog entry today that noted that dante bichette's career WAR was a robust 2.0 because of his horrendous fielding.

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

I was mistakenly looking at Buford's oWAR for those years, not total. Corrected range: 2.5 - 6.9, minus his first and last season.

The old timers at the Orioles Hangout forums never game him the same respect they gave Boog, Belanger or Blair, probably cause he didn't have a standout traditional skill. He was sort of a Zobrist type before anyone knew how valuable that was. Or a worse fielding Bobby Grich.

Lotta B names on those Orioles teams

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)