The Really Underrated team

dallasactuary

As always, underrated is in the eye of the beholder, mostly because "underrated" isn't defined. So I defined it. My definition isn't "right", but anyone who met it was pretty much ignored in his own time, and every player on my team is also pretty much forgotten today, but was also pretty damn good.

I defined "underrated" as "never received a single MVP vote" - not just 1st place votes, but ANY votes - in their entire career (post-War era only because MVP voting was sporadic and nonsensical before that). Do you know how hard it is to find people who played an actual career and never even got a single 15th place vote? Do you know just how bad some of the players are who have gotten MVP votes? (Very hard and awful are the answers.) But I found more than one at every position (I didn't do pitchers), and the one I put on my team was the one with the most offensive WAR in his career (nothing magical about that, just easy).

C Jason Kendall (40.8 OWAR)
1B Ron Fairly (34.6)
2B Ray Durham (43.6)
3B Bob Bailey (31.5)
SS Shawon Dunstan (20.7)
LF Ryan Klesko (34.0)
CF Chet Lemon (46.5)
RF Terry Puhl (23.7)

For context, some other OWAR numbers from better-known players:
Albert Belle (46.2)
Hack Wilson (42.7)
Rocky Colavito (40.3)
Roger Maris (34.4)
Roy Campanella (33.8)
Wally Joyner (31.4)
Ruben Sierra (23.5)
Cecil Fielder (20.3)

All of these no-voters are good players, and all of them had at least one, usually several, very good seasons that were worthy of at least a handful of votes. Chet Lemon was the most surprising to me; 3 time all-star, and a few excellent seasons; Kendall, Durham and Fairly also should have gotten votes several times.

If you think of someone better than anyone on this list I can almost guarantee you that that person got MVP votes at some point, but if you do find someone, you win.

Justacommeman

I see Toby Harrah got one 15th place vote and one 20th. I wouldn’t have thunk it

m

grote15

Interesting topic. I also would have thought Lemon for sure would have gotten some MVP votes in 1979 when he made the All Star team, led the league in doubles, hit .318 with an OBP% of nearly .400 and an OPS of .887. I remember thinking of him as a "star" player when I pulled him out of a pack of baseball cards that year.

Coinstartled

Never been a fan of the overrated/underrated discussions, but thank you for setting a benchmark.

Chester Lemon was indeed solid on the Tigers.

dallasactuary

@grote15 said:
Interesting topic. I also would have thought Lemon for sure would have gotten some MVP votes in 1979 when he made the All Star team, led the league in doubles, hit .318 with an OBP% of nearly .400 and an OPS of .887. I remember thinking of him as a "star" player when I pulled him out of a pack of baseball cards that year.

That season, more than any other for Lemon or any of the others, was the most surprising.

I've gotten Ron Fairly onto a few lists before, but I think this is a first for Bob Bailey. He plugged away on the Pirates for years in the shadow of Stargell and Clemente, then plugged away as the best player on some terrible Expo teams and nobody ever noticed him. But he was a fine third baseman, and a very good hitter for over a decade. A fair nominee for most underrated player ever.