Who is Baseball's Most Underrated Player of All-Time?

cardsnbeads

My pick Al Oliver. A .303 Average and 7 Time All Star with 2,743 Hits and a batting title. Al Oliver was no a home run hitter. Bill Madlock was almost as underrated but did not come even close to 3,000 and was only a 3 Time all star but he did win 4 Batting Titles. Both Oliver and Madlock got just over 4% in the Hall of Fame Voting. Oliver's RBI Totals are also very solid and right up there with most contact hitters in the Hall of Fame like Molitor.

Sean1125

I think Bobby Bonds is pretty underrated, not the most underrated of all time... But he finished his career with 300 HR's and 300 stolen bases... and very few have done that.

I think Shoeless Joe Jackson is probably the most underrated, before he got kicked he was .356 batting average....

cubfan89

Not the most under rated, but Frank Robinson & Stan Musial are 2 HOFers that might be.

Ron Santo too! As kid I always thought Carney Lansford was under rated.

Probstein123

Gavvy Cravath, won 6 home run titles !!!

Career highlights and awards

NL On base percentage leader: 1915–16
NL Slugging percentage leader: 1913 and 1915
NL OPS leader: 1913–15
NL runs leader: 1915
NL hits leader: 1913
NL total bases leader: 1913 and 1915
NL home run leader: 1913–15 and 1917–19
NL RBI leader: 1913 and 1915
NL walks leader: 1915
NL runs created leader: 1913 and 1915
NL extra base hits leader: 1913, 1915, 1917–18
NL times on base leader: 1913 and 1915
NL at bats per home run leader: 1912–15 and 1917–18

Dboneesq

Along the same lines as CubFan

Tony Gwynn - when looking at his batting average thru the years it's just AMAZING!

19 years IN A ROW with .300+

9 years IN A ROW with .320+

5 years IN A ROW with .350+. I find this stat unreal.

Compare to Musial - 16 years IN A ROW with .300+ and 7 years IN A ROW with .330+

cardsnbeads

Musial does not get the credit that should. Musial was better than Mantle and DiMaggio and they get more attention. Musial deserves MegaStar status like Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio but he is treated more like Ralph Kiner and Monte Irvin.

zep33

Bryce Harper

TheCARDKid

I was looking at Rogers Hornsbys wikipedia entry the other night, thinking, "this guy is ridiculously underrated". Do kids today even know who he is?

I think the problem with many 20's and 30's players (hack wilson, bill terry come to mind), is they all sort of get lumped together. Like not seeing the difference between mantle and mays, or clemente and rod carew.

"By most contemporary accounts, he was at least as mean and nasty as Cobb." Any stories or anecdotes? How could the "greatest right hand hitter" in history be so relatively unknown?

zendude

Johnny Mize

The guy was a beast and missed 3 prime years to WWII. He's in the HOF but you don't hear much about him and his cards are relatively cheap also.

ymarea

Jimmy Foxx. He has been overshadowed by his contemporary, Babe Ruth. Foxx's numbers are mind-boggling, and out distance nearly everyone except the Bambino himself.

SDSportsFan

Vada Pinson

Stats are surprisingly similar to Al Oliver's.


Steve

cardsnbeads

Vada Pinson is another great player that belongs in the Hall of Fame like Al Oliver, but Pinson stayed on the Hall of Fame ballot longer. If Pinson and Oliver had 2 More seasons they would have got to 3,000.

SDSportsFan

<< <i>Gavvy Cravath, won 6 home run titles !!!

Career highlights and awards

NL home run leader: 1913–15 and 1917–19 >>




That's 6 HR titles in 7 years. In 1916 (the year he didn't win the HR title), he hit 11 HRs. Two players tied for the lead with 12. One more HR would've given him 7 consecutive HR titles!

Steve

Beck6

Barry Larkin was always someone that did not get the credit he deserved. He played several years behind Ozzie Smith, so the gold gloves were not there, but very consistant stats and great leader.

edmundfitzgerald

Babe Ruth, and no, I'm not joking. What he could do as a pitcher and hitter was unreal.

If there is ever a conversation about who was the greatest baseball player of all time, and someone mentions someone other
then Ruth, then that contributes to his underrated status.

cardsnbeads

Bill James calls Darrell Evans "the most underrated player in baseball history, absolutely number one on the list." Evans is probably in my Top 5 with Oliver and Pinson. Evans hit over 400 Home Runs in an Era where 40 Home Runs in a season was rare and Evans got just 1.7% of the vote. Hall of Famer are really not underrated severely. Ron Guidry is probably the most underrated pitcher because he was so dominant in his prime. Koufax is considered one of the greatest pitchers ever and only had 4 Truly Great Seasons and only has a 165 Wins. Guidry 4 Best Seasons Come pretty close to Koufax's 4 Best and the fact that Guidry Pitched in the American League instead of the National League his numbers even more impressive. Guidry only won one Cy Young and should have won the 1985 CY Young. His 1978 Season where he went 25-3 and is right up there with Denny McLain's 31-6 season in 1968.

bigred1

Bill Freehan

itzagoner

Lonnie Smith

judgebuck

Great thread!! Al Oliver, Bill Madlock, Vada Pinson, Rogers Hornsby, Darrell Evans, etc. - all underrated. And, what if Frank Robinson or Stan Musial had played in New York for the Giants, Yankees, or Dodgers? Either would have been, in my opinion, as legendary as Mays or Mantle. (Of course, neither Aaron nor Clemente played in New York and they are both legends.)

fkw

Gavvy Cravath is a great choice and was going to be mine too!
Another guy not many know is Cy Williams with 4 HR titles also from the deadball-liveball Era.



for a HOFer that not many know about .... Id say

Aloysius Szymanski
11 straight 100+ RBI seasons
11 straight .300+ Ave
7 year run of .387 .341 .392 .351 .365 .381 .390
253 hits one year

stevek

Eddie Gaedel - perfect career on base percentage of 1.000

scmavl

<< <i>Eddie Gaedel - perfect career on base percentage of 1.000 >>



Yeah, but he had a "short" career.

WinPitcher

Al Simmons.


Ted Simmons.


Curt Simmons.

fattymacs

Reds bias here:

Frank Robinson
Barry Larkin

Short term phenoms:

Klu
Eric Davis


My all-time favorite Joe Morgan, the spark plug of the big red machine.

Jimmy Foxx: would have been the big dog of his time if not for the greastest ever, The Babe.

olb31

eddie mathews for hof

tommy john for non hof

Big80s

According to my childhood collection - Mike Greenwell.

illinifan912

ron santo rip

MooseDog

Lefty O'Doul.

Mickey71

In the ERA of a chit load of steroids....Greg Maddux's numbers are dominating. He did it never overpowering a batter; but with ball placement. Amazing pitcher.

EchoCanyon

There should be a HOF under-rated, an non-HOF

Golfcollector

Stan Musial
Sam Crawford
Yogi Berra

Cokin75

Some I didn't see above.

Mickey Lolich
Amos Otis
Cecil Cooper
Jose Cruz

Groiny

Nolan Ryan

Boopotts

I'd add Jim Thome.

cardsnbeads

Thome is going to hit 600 Home Runs and is probably the least famous member of the 500 Club along with Sheffield and will certainly be the least famous member of the 600 Club. Only 7 Guys hit 600. Thome would be the 8th and right now only Pujols has a strong chance of joining the 600 other than Thome. Adam Dunn is Young Enough but he is fizzling out and pretty much the Dave Kingman of this era. Thome has never been tainted by Steroids and Thome is more underrated than Musial. Thome's Average is about 15 points higher than Reggie Jackson, 20 points higher than Harmon Killebrew,14 points higher than McGwire, and 4 points higher than Sosa. .277 is actually a good average for a strictly swing for the fences player like Thome. Thome's rookies are all very cheap in 1991 and his autograph is also lower than just about every modern 500 Club Member. He is the most underrated 500 Club at the very least.

cardsnbeads

Lefty O'Doul should be in the Hall of Fame only Cobb, Hornsby, and Shoeless Joe have higher averages. Lefty played 11 Seasons only 6 or 7 full. I know he only 1,100 hits but his average was .349 and he helped make Baseball Huge in Japan. The Veterans Committee misses Lefty O'Doul and puts in Whitey Herzog, who won one 1 World Series. Danny Murtaugh and Tom Kelly are probably the most underrated managers of all-time. Two World Series for both. I know Kelly has a losing record but he won 2 with a Small Market team. Kelly belongs in the Hall over Herzog.

Goot

Warren Spahn


363 Wins (6th all time)
2,583 Strikeouts (25th all time)
382 Complete Games (21st all time)
63 Shutouts (6th all time)
93.4 WAR (Wins above replacement) which is 11th all time for a pitcher.
Won 1 Cy Young award, but the award was not introduced until he was 35. He also finished 2nd three times and 3rd once.
He served 2 years in the military, which postponed his career. He didn't win his first MLB game until he was 25.


Not horribly underrated, but far from a household name given the career he had.

NickM

I'll go with Johnny Mize too. His cards go for prices comparable to borderline HOFers like Irvin, Kell, and Boudreau. But this is a guy with a career batting average of .312 and a slugging percentage of .562 - which is 16th all-time, and was 8th all-time until the 1990s. The 4 guys right below him on the slugging percentage list until the last 2 decades were Musial, Mays, Mantle, and Aaron. Mize also lost 3 peak seasons to WWII.

The most similar player to Mize is Hank Greenberg (and vice versa), yet one is considered an all-time great by most fans and the other is ignored.

Nick

Dialj

Andre Dawson, Dale Murphy and Fred Lynn

fiveniner

Minnie Minoso, however Al Oliver,Ron Santo,Gil Hodges,Buck O Niel also deserve consideration and all should be Hall of Famers.

Stan Musial should be up there with the best of the best Hall of Famers with self centered Di Maggio only at the middle of the pact.

onebamafan

I'll also go Rogers Hornsby.............the best right-handed batter in baseball history!

chaz43

Clay Dalrymple. chaz

richtree

Bill Buckner by far..

He was a solid player for 20 years and if he didn't have the infamous error he would have had 3000 hits and maybe HOF consideration.

He was run out of Boston and his last 4 years he didn't get the ABs he would have in Boston, or anywhere else without the mental anquish held over his head.


.290 career hitting while being shipped around his last few years....

mj23kg21

Tony Oliva

msassin

As far as modern-era players go (people I can remmeber play) Lou Whitaker comes to mind.

epatmythes

Mark Grace

3-time AS, 4-time GG... led baseball in hits for the entire decade of the 90's!

Brick

<< <i>Babe Ruth, and no, I'm not joking. What he could do as a pitcher and hitter was unreal.

If there is ever a conversation about who was the greatest baseball player of all time, and someone mentions someone other
then Ruth, then that contributes to his underrated status. >>





Not only do I agree with this. This is the correct answer by a wide margin.

JoeBanzai

Tony Oliva was a wonderful player! To name someone not already mentioned; "The Capital Punisher", Frank Howard.

For Hall-of-Famers; Harmon Killebrew, Frank Robinson and Carl Yastremski.

I never liked Yaz until I kept seeing him at or near the top in a lot of areas while doing some research on Killebrew. From 1959 to 1972 Killebrew is consistently the most frequent player among the leaders in many offensive categories. Baseball reference.com is a great resource.

Joe

Stadium1978

Alan Trammell

Trammell was the best all around player of the 1980s at shortstop*, and is the first Shortstop in MLB history to have at least six seasons batting .300 or higher to NOT be inducted into the Hall of Fame.


*Cal Ripken Jr. only beats Trammell's stats when including the 1990s, but for the 80s it was all Tram.

DavidPuddy

@ CardsNbeads: Dave Kingman career .780 OPS, Adam Dunn career .888 OPS. Not close!

These are just my favorite "underrated" players. Most have already been mentioned.
Ted Simmons
Al Oliver
Reggie Smith
J.R. Richard
Fred Lynn
Mark Grace

edwardluger4

Wade Boggs