Historically Underrated Players

[da55bums]

I looked at his career. Meh. He hasn't been particularly good.

He was never a particularly good hitter. Solid but unspectacular career line of .278/.335/.466 with a 111 OPS+. And his defense was always overrated. He was good, but won a shit ton of gold gloves based on highlight reel catches. Meanwhile, I've never seen an outfielder turn more singles into triples in my life by diving for balls he had no chance to catch.

And for all this he's made 5 all-star teams, won a bunch of awards, and received MVP votes in 4 seasons. Hard to consider that underrated.

Actually great points...don't know if his defense was overrated...the guy went 100 percent all out....I still think Tim Raines is more underrated, if he can't get into the HOF, then there isn't much hope left for non PED guys.

Its actually extremely hard to rate players against batters and pitchers who were using PEDs to the ones who were not....and none of us know who was and who wasn't based on stats.....back up players may have become back up players just because of PED's....back ups were lower end starters because of PED's

from 1990 to 2010 it will be hard to say who were the best natural players...

 

[ImSmartherThanYou]

How about Bernie Williams? He was consistantly above average for a long time... But I haven't heard much about him sice he "retired".



And, here's B/R's list. I saw some names I had forgotten about...

The 50 Most Underrated MLB Players of All Time | Bleacher Report

FWIW, I'm a huge Bernie fan, but his defense was always vastly overrated. He took good routes to balls and caught anything he could get to, but his range wasn't good, his arm was atrocious, and he was never one to lay out for a big play.

 

[ImSmartherThanYou]

Hasn't been particularly good? Are you trying to troll people? His OPS+ as a center fielder was 109, as a RF, he's posted a 119 OPS+. 109 for a centerfielder is pretty good. He's amassed basically 50 WAR in 15 seasons, which is actually around the borderline HOF list. He has over 2000 career hits and nearly 800 extra base hits. He's posted an .858 OPS in 146 post season games. I don't think he's underrated (he's made nearly 150m and every team talks about how great he is) but to say he isn't "particularly good" is flat out wrong. Most ML players will never have close to his career.

Yeah, "particularly good" was a poor word usage on my part. "Not great" would have been a better choice. He's a solid, steady player, but nothing more. That said, he's been made out to be a star, which clearly isn't the case either. Postseason numbers are indeed impressive.

 

[da55bums]

Carlos Beltran is and has been underrated for years also.

 

[da55bums]

How about Bernie Williams? He was consistantly above average for a long time... But I haven't heard much about him sice he "retired".



And, here's B/R's list. I saw some names I had forgotten about...

The 50 Most Underrated MLB Players of All Time | Bleacher Report

pretty interesting, well for the guys who played after 1950...lol