Under-rated, underappreciated
emar
Posts: 726 ✭✭✭✭
I don't recall a thread like this before.
I scour baseball stats in search of players in the almost-hall category with great careers under their belts.
Part of my collection are these players' rookies; in a way to pay homage to their contributions to the game. (also adds enjoyment to collecting)
A great example I have here is Carlos Delgado.
Carlos finished his 17-year career with Stargell-type numbers after a 21-year career
Delgado with 2038 hits & 473 hrs while slashing .280/.383/.546
Stargell with 2232 hits & 475 hrs slashing .282/.360/.529
Both over 1500 RBIs
I enjoy the game and appreciate the players that make it fun to watch.
Who are your underappreciated players? Any sport
Here is somewhat of a rare Delgado RC. Bought 2021 for $28.
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Comments
Delgado is definitely an underappreciated hitter.
Albert Belle is also another player who often gets overlooked. had he not come down with that degenerative hip injury at age 34, he would have been a HOFer for sure
he had a season of 50 hr and 50 2b
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Delgados 92 Bowman was a $20 card at one point during his first few years of playing. Strong stat line for him.
At this point b
uy Bench, Rose, Fisk, Seaver, Gibson list goes on. Cream of the Crop Hofs and especially those who won Championships. Same in all Sports.
Bonds, Griffey, Yount, Molitor, Schmidt, Banks, Sandberg, Gwynn, Brady, Manning, Sanders, Starr etc.I realize some have not won Champs but key into the biggies and most of the rest fall off. Its a crap shoot all in all but the pure likeable Legends will rise. No one cares about Merlin Olson FB which is sad.
I grew up watching Rams games so I remember the Fearsome Foursome very well. Merlin Olsen was a well-liked intense player, as were Lamar Lundy, Deacon Jones and old pal Rosey Grier, who used to visit a public park I frequented many years ago when I played in basketball pickup games. Rosey's kids were always there, so he was a regular. Did a lot of preaching. Big man. Still with us at age 94.
And Merlin was on the Little House on the Prairie.
Now that I think of it.....Buy Merlin😆
I guess I’m collecting wrong. Should I throw this away then. I bought it because he was a favorite of mine with KC and the Reds uniform looks cool. Please advise…. I screwed up big time huh? 😫
I've made a 20-year career here talking about underrated/underappreciated hitters, and while I definitely agree that hitters like Delgado and Belle can be underrated, it is also true that pretty much everyone knows that they were, at the very least, excellent hitters. The degree to which they are "underrated" is really not that big. What fascinates me more are the players that people either haven't heard of, or if they have heard of them, dismiss them quickly for one reason or another as not even "good" hitters when they were actually "very good" or rate them as "good" when they were actually "great".
Some examples: the top 6 in Win Shares for the period 1973-1980:
Morgan - 244
Schmidt - 238
XXXXXXX - 224
Reggie - 218
Rose - 216
Carew - 215
And Win Shares includes defense, and everybody on this list got more defensive Win Shares than XXXXXX did, so he was in fact THE best hitter in MLB for this 8-year period. He was a GREAT hitter. Who knows who he is?
Or this: the top 5 in Win Shares for the period 1970-1974:
Morgan - 169
Rose - 150
Bench - 150
YYYYYYY - 146
Stargell - 143
Again, not much defense from YYYYYY; he probably still doesn't catch Morgan as the greatest offensive force for these 5 years, but lots of Morgan's offense was SB, so just as a HITTER, YYYYYY was probably the best of this era.
Or, zero in on just the three years 1970-1972:
YYYYYYY - 101
Morgan - 92
Bench - 90
Rose - 89
ZZZZZZZ - 89
Even without adding much on defense (X, Y, and Z were all corner outfielders), YYYYYY jumps to #1, and solely as a hitter the margin is huge. And at #5, ZZZZZZ enters the frame. Yes, it's just 3 years, but how many players that were among the best 5 hitters in MLB for a 3-year span does nobody ever talk about. ZZZZZZ isn't underappreciated, he's not appreciated at all.
X, Y, and Z are Ken Singleton, Bobby Murcer, and Roy White. Nobody talks about them anymore, and nobody talked about them much when they were playing. Murcer was the best player in the AL in 1971 by a margin usually reserved for top-tier HOFers, but he came in 7th in the MVP vote, right behind Freddy Patek. Now THAT is underappreciated. Ken Singleton was head and shoulders better than lots of recent HOF inductees, but you never hear him mentioned. White was the worst of these three (but still better than Jim Rice), but he had his only MVP-caliber season in 1970, and Yaz was (a little bit) better, just as Singleton had his best season in 1977, and (deservedly) lost out to Carew. All of them played in pitchers parks, and all of them had their prime years on bad teams, and so they just fade away. But they were all MUCH better than people think they were.
48swellrobinson and I talked about Singleton a few months ago. The discussion was about who was a better player strictly with the Orioles, Ken or Frank Robinson.
Frank Robinson yes. Sixto Lezcano no.
Lefty O'Doul
In my opinion, there is no more glaring example of a person who should be in the Hall of Fame and is not. Lefty started his career as a pitcher and teammate of Babe Ruth. After going 25-9 with a 2.39 ERA with the SF Seals in 1921, Lefty hurt his arm, and his career was basically over. He decided to switch to the outfield in 1924 and proceeded to become the best hitter in the PCL. The PCL was of an equal level to the MLB during this time, and from 1924 to 1927 he collected 973 hits, 88 home runs, and a .370 batting average.
At 31, he decided to leave the PCL and go back to the MLB, and joined the New York Giants in 1928. For the next 5 years, he hit .365 with 960 hits and a .982 OPS, showing how the switch of leagues did not change hit success in any way. After an injury-prone 1933, he returned to the Giants for one last season at age 37. He hit .316 with 9 home runs and 46 rbi's in just 177 at-bats.
It was during his peak playing days that he asked his old buddy Babe Ruth to join him, along with a bunch of MLB greats to join him in Japan for exhibition games he organized. After the exhibition games, he went back to help coach players and to help set up the first Japanese pro league. He named Japan's most famous team the Tokyo Giants after the team he played for. He continued to go back to Japan until the outbreak of war with the US.
In 1935, he became the manager of the San Francisco Seals and was the most successful manager in PCL history.
After WW2, and after years of the US having little to no success with communications with Japan, Lefty was asked to take a trip to Japan to help open dialogue. He scheduled exhibition games but was not sure what to expect, having been away for so long and after the war. When he arrived, there were a million people waiting to greet him and the players. After this, Japan reopened communication with the US. General MacArthur stated that what Lefty had done in Japan was the greatest form of diplomacy he had ever witnessed.
Lefty's greatest legacy came long after his death, as the baseball culture he was heavily responsible for creating in Japan has now produced today's greatest player, Shohei Ohtani, as well as one of its greatest pitchers, Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
If that is not worthy of the Hall of Fame, I do not know what is. Underappreciated, Under-rated, and virtually unknown.
Mark Grace played for the beloved Cubs and led all of baseball in hits during the 90s. His Topps Tiffany, Score Glossy and 1986 minor league are all tough in PSA 10.
Sweet Lou Whitaker and his 75 WAR come to mind.
Buddy Bell and Reggie Smith
Lamar Lundy grew up in Richmond, IN ( not far from my hometown in Connersville, IN) …and was a two-sport star ( football and basketball) in high school and college at Purdue…before playing for the LA Rams in the NFL.
Sweet Lou, Buddy and Reggie Smith. All great players who should get more props. Bell was a great defensive guy who played on some of the worst teams ever. If he’d been on a team that consistently contended he’d be in the Hall.
Buddy's RC has been on my saved search list for a long time. Mint 9 would be great. They don't come up for auction too often. Impressive 2500 hits over 18 years. Not too shabby 66 WAR
there are 8 players with WAR in the 20 all-time that played after 1940. you would think that all 8 would be unbelievably hot all the time but they aren't.
more people would rather spend their money on bo jackson than clemens or arod, even for baseball cards. and i have never understood why stan's cards weren't massively elite. maybe the best hitter of all-time.
as for this thread's main relevance. steve garvey, whitey ford, warren spahn
Dwight Evans is under rated especially when you consider his gold gloves.
Dusty Baker, Dave Kingman, Frank Tanana, Ron Cey, Willie Randolph, Nettles, Al Oliver, Bill Madlock, Tony Pena, Brett Butler, Kirk Gibson, Garvey, Evans, Lynn, Grich.
Agree with all of them.
Wasn't Kingman a big d-bag? Tommy Lasorda interview after Kingman's 3-HR game is hilarious.
Oliver IMHO should be in HOF, 2700 hits & .303 BA.
Madlock was a great hitter, 4 batting titles & .305 BA
I was looking at Butler the other day and never realized how strong his career stats were: 2375 hits, .290 BA, 558 SB, lead the league in triples 4 times. Butler's '82 RC on the list!
Add Bobby Grich and Willie Randolph
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
kingman was supposedly a terrible guy. listen to jeff pearlmans podcast about him.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
this is the very player that came to my mind....good hitter with a really good outfield arm
@dallasactuary I love the analysis!
He's the ONLY guy to do that. And did it in a shortened season.
He belongs in the Hall.
If anything, as a player anyway, Grace is overrated. Everyone cites that stat but so what? Nobody ever asks "who had the most hits from 1986-1995", do they? It's just very arbitrary. And he had just 8 more than Rafael Palmeiro who was a vastly superior hitter. No one would ever bring up Grace if he'd played those years with the Brewers.
Dennis Martinez underappreciated for his longevity, 23-year career.
Age 33-42, ten years, 129-83 record & 1150 SO with 51 complete games over that time period.
Age 37 lead the league in ERA (.239), complete games (9), & shutouts (5)
Kudos El Presidente
agreed. had he not been such a mean basket case i feel he would have gotten the sandy koufax/addie joss treatment
or, if he just could have played maybe 3 more seasons he would have had the counting stats to get in anyways.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Terrible is an accurate assessment of Dave Kingman. See below:
https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/news/30-years-ago-dave-kingman-sent-a-live-rat-to-a-female-reporter
Dave Kingman, then with the Athletics, was 37 years old and playing in what would be his final season. He was fined $3,500, which is a little over $7,600 in 2016 dollars, for sending a live rat in a pink box to a female reporter, Susan Fornoff of The Sacramento Bee. The rat wore a tag that said “my name is Sue.”
Kingman refused to apologize, saying, “I’ve pulled practical jokes on other people and I didn’t apologize to them.”
collecting O-Pee-Chee (OPC) baseball cards
also collecting US & Canadian junk silver
>
The Bull; still an icon in Philly
For reasons I really don’t understand, my little brother and I each had a favorite non-Tiger player growing up. His was George Foster, mine was Greg Luzinski. This was back when you had to wait for the afternoon newspaper to arrive to know what happened in the rest of the country. We would immediately go to the box scores to see how our guys did and talk trash to each other. I seem to remember an inordinate amount of “4 2 2 3” box score lines for each of them.
As a side note, “LUZINSKI” was also a huge scorer in our baseball player last name scrabble games (along with Jamie QUIRK and Joe ZDEB. FISK was solid as well).
Agreed. I kick myself for always forgetting about Ken.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
I may have missed someone saying this?
A player doesn't have to rate being in the "hall" to be under-appreciated/rated. Right?
I was talking about Kent Hrbek today - he was a darn good player - how many people could pick him out of a lineup? I know I couldn't.
He doesn't have a peak as high as the guys I mentioned earlier, and his same-last-name counterpart was already deservedly mentioned, but Darrell Evans is a good choice for the most underrated player in history. He's got a low batting average, and that is the one and only negative he has. He got on base more than a lot of .300 hitters, he hit over 400 HR, and he was a Gold Glove caliber third baseman, although he never won any (he should have). A good argument could be made that he is one of the 100 greatest non-pitchers in MLB history. A better argument could be made that he belongs in the HOF. No argument exists that he was less than great. What he does have in common with the guys I mentioned earlier is that he played for bad teams almost his entire career, and he spent his prime years in a terrible hitter's park (Candlestick).
This has been a great discussion - my best friend and I spend the better part of 2 days a week at the book store discussing players and stats. Not 100% of the time but quite a bit.
Is that a lost art? And the internet has made it easier and more fun. 👍
Eh. He was 29 when he got traded to Atlanta. He went from slugging .419 and .406 his last two full years in Atlanta to slugging ... .416 and .404 in SF. With an average that was actually higher. He played his first 5+ seasons in Atlanta, including his 26-28 seasons, and slugged .420 just once in a full season. Never had 30 doubles in a season. Other than the 1973 anomaly, when everybody and their grandmother hit 40 homers for Atlanta, he really didn't show much pop at the plate until he suddenly got more pop at age 36.
The reality is that he topped 5.0 in WAR just twice.
Darrell was a fine player but a HOFer? Nah.
Evans used to be a borderline HOFer, maybe he still is, but he was SO much better than so many recent inductees that I think a good argument could be made. Statistically, I'm going to ignore WAR since it is pure, unadulterated crap, but we do have these:
WPA: 77th all time (ahead of LOTS of HOFers, including Boggs, Berra, Molitor, Banks, Greenberg, and Piazza)
Runs Created: 92nd all time
RBI: 93rd all time
HR: 56th all time
Times on base: 58th all time
Win Shares: 56th all time (through 2000), ahead of Brooks Robinson, Robin Yount, Duke Snider, Tony Perez, Dave Winfield)
I concede that more of Evans' "value" is in longevity than peak than most HOFers, but he did not hang around being bad, he hung around, like Yaz, being very good for a very long time. And I listed most of the people who he beats in career Win Shares because they, too, had very long careers. I don't think it is much of a stretch to say that Darrell Evans was a better baseball player than Tony Perez, and it has never bothered me at all that Perez is in the HOF - he was a great player.
It comes down, as these things often do, to subjective preferences - how much do longevity and peak get weighted, how do you measure fielding value, etc. I'm not married to the idea that Evans belongs in the HOF, but my point isn't that he does belong, it is that anyone who dismisses Evans as "a .248 hitter" has ignored everything that matters and overlooked one of the most underrated players in history. Evans was GREAT, and anyone who tried to argue that Jim Rice or Harold Baines (or Pie Traynor or George Kell) was better than he was would just embarrass themselves. For a player nobody here has thought of for 20 years or more, I'd say he belongs at or near the top of this thread.
'tis true my Grams was on the 73 Braves and clobbered 40 HRs.
Darrell Evans played 21 years and had a 58WAR, Baines played same amount of years and had a paltry 38WAR. Baines however had a multiple convicted drunk on the committee on his side
Neither should be in Hall but Evans would be far less egregious than frickin Harold Baines
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
I definitely agree with this.
Will Clark had an OBP of .418 in his final season at age 36 and career .384 OBP. 137 career OPS+
He retired early to help his wife take care of their special needs boy and got penalized for not playing out his old man years because if he had it would have really boosted his career numbers even if they were average seasons.
Would have been a no doubt’er if he played to age 40
Sometimes it's hard to do things like that when you' ego gets involved with things in your career, and I respect him for doing that.
Like I tell my wife all the time 'a 1,000 years from now none of this bullsh*t will matter at all.'
Although I couldn't stand Will as a kid (was a Bash Bros guy), I've come to appreicate him more in my older age. It is remarkable when you compare his stats over his 15 seasons. See Dick Allen and Ron Santo as potential HOF comps for guys who played exactly 15 seasons. Not saying Clark is better than those guys, but it's an interesting stat comparison.
The Royals drafted Will Clark in the 4th round of the 1982 draft. He decided to go to college at Miss. St. instead. 😩
KC could have had Brett at third and Clark at first for several years because I don’t think he would have been in the minors for long even out of high school.
I was going to ask where everyone was at with Will Clark, now I know. How about Dale Murphy?
i agree about Clark. very very good/great player. the only thing we didnt see were his old man years.
should be a HOFer. and i didnt know that about the royals. what awesome corners they could have had!
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Put. Him. IN
Murphy should and will eventually get in. I met him and got to spend the day with him. Well worth the money if anybody has the opportunity. As good a person as you will ever meet.
Will Clark, who has a lot of opinions, has been on a podcast saying he feels Mattingly and Murphy should be in. The podcast he does with Eric Byrnes can be quite entertaining.