Baseball's all-time all-underrated squad

by user Neatesager

Nothing kicks up a good argument like debating who's underrated and who's overrated ... here's Out of Left Field's' lineup of underrated ballplayers.

BATTING FIRST, THE LEFT FIELDER ...

Tim Raines. Here's a Sportspages piece I wrote in 2003 about the lack of respect Raines' career gets, even in Canada. Bill James has ranked him the eighth-best left-fielder of all time, and a few years back Total Baseball ranked him among the top 50 players ever. If Raines could have played his entire career in an American city, on grass, more people would realize how special he was.

BATTING SECOND, THE SECOND BASEMAN...

Craig Biggio. Believe it or not, in an ESPN.com survey about three years ago, most fans responding to a Rob Neyer column said they didn't believe he was Cooperstown-worthy. Biggio fulfills all the criteria of underratedness: hasn't played in a major market and is quietly effective -- patient hitter, surprising power, good glove man, although he doesn't play the glamour defensive position, shortstop. Still going strong at age 40 and has moved into the top 10 all-time in doubles; has eight seasons with 100 runs scored and lost two others to playing in the pitcher-friendly Astrodome. Joe Gordon and Bobby Grich would also fit here.

BATTING THIRD, IN CENTRE FIELD...

Jimmy (The Toy Cannon) Wynn. If he had stayed healthy, had avoided playing in Houston and had maybe been born a few years later, Wynn might have been the first 40-homer, 40-stolen base guy. He had 43 steals in 1965; in '67, he hit 37 homers. To give you an idea of what kind of year it was for hitters, Houston had only two other players crack double-digits in homers. Both had 10.

BATTING FOURTH, THE DESIGNATED HITTER

Pedro Guerrero. Spent his whole career in the National League, but never really had a defensive position, playing over 200 games apiece at all four corner spots. (Ask a Dodgers fan about his stint at third base.) He never led the NL in any Triple Crown stat since he played in Dodger Stadium when it a hitter's graveyard, and his best finish in the MVP voting was third, but his 1985 season was probably the second- or third-best of by any NL slugger in the decade, and his lifetime park-adjusted OPS is also among the top 100 of all-time. He was just in the wrong league in in the wrong park in the wrong era.

BATTING FIFTH, PLAYING RIGHT FIELD...

Reggie Smith. He was always the "other guy" -- in Boston he played next to Carl Yastrzemski, and later when he went to L.A. it was all about that star infield led by Steve Garvey. However, it's telling that every team Smith played regularly for had a winning record; he put up good numbers across the board, leading the league in on-base average; he was runner-up in slugging pct. twice and finished third in two other seasons. His career park-adjusted OPS (on-base plus slugging relative to the league) is among the top 100 of all time.

BATTING SIXTH, THE FIRST BASEMAN ...

Bob (Bull) Watson. As a player, baseball's first African-American GM is remembered mostly for scoring baseball's one-millionth run in 1976 and for his cameo in one of the Bad News Bears sequels. He could flat-out hit, but the Astrodome diminished what his stats should have been, just as it did for a couple of other underrated first basemen who've come through Houston -- Jeff Bagwell, Glenn Davis and Rusty Staub. Norm Cash and Fred McGriff were also considered here.

BATTING SEVENTH, THE THIRD BASEMAN...

Heinie Groh. Dead Ball Era player (career high in home runs: 4) helped the 1919 Cincinnati Reds beat the Black Sox in the World Series and later hit .474 for the New York Giants in the '22 Series. Regularly led National League third basemen in fielding percentage and double plays, and put in context, his stats are impressive than they first appear. He led the NL in on-base average and in doubles twice. Darrell Evans, who played third base in the first half of his career, is often named the most underrated player ever -- Hardball Times has it right when it says "on every circumstance liable to render a player underrated, Evans scores about an 11 on a 1-10 scale." However, there's already a preponderance of '70s/'80s players, so Groh's the choice here.

BATTING EIGHTH, THE CATCHER...

Wally Schang. Switch-hittng catcher of the Teens and '20s who played on World Series winners with Boston, New York and the Philadephia A's; solid defensively, could steal a base and had a career .393 on-base percentage despite playing much of his career in the Dead Ball Era.

Schang was part of Harry Frazee's mass sell-off of players that sowed the seeds for the Yankees dynasty of the '20s... and the three decades to follow. Baseball Evolution has inducted him into its alternative Hall of Fame.

BATTING NINTH, THE SHORTSTOP

Jim Fregosi. Modern fans know him as the classic big-bellied, profane, oft-fired baseball manager, but as a Los Angeles/California Angel he was selected to six All-Star games and managed to pry the Gold Glove away from Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio in 1967. Unfortunately for Fregosi's hitting, he came on the scene just as baseball's second Dead Ball Era was beginning in the early '60s, so his stats look kind of puny, but Bill James has ranked him as the 15th-best shortstop ever.

LEFT-HANDED PITCHER

Hippo Vaughn. Old-time Chicago Cubs pitcher from the 1910s had a lifetime .565 winning percentage despite pitching on some lousy teams; won the pitching Triple Crown in 1918.

RIGHT-HANDED PITCHER

Urb Shocker. No one talked about WHIP (walks plus hits allowed divided by innings pitched) in the 1920s, but Shocker finished in the top 10 in the American League for nine straight seasons before his premature death from tubercleuosis. Had a career .615 winning percentage (187 wins, 117 losses) despite pitching most of his career for the St. Louis Browns in a bandbox ballpark. If you could include a Hall of Famer on the all-underrated team, Ferguson Jenkins would be the choice here.

CLOSER

Tom Henke. There's probably never been an 8th/9th inning tandem that was more automatic than Duane Ward and "The Terminator" for the Blue Jays between 1988 and '92, but Henke seems to have largely been forgotten. (Please don't bring up Mariano Rivera and John Wetteland with the Yankees, since they were only together for one season.)

Henke had only 10 full seasons in the majors, but that was enough time for him to rack up 311 saves -- not bad, considering Ward also averaged about 15 per year when he and Henke were teammates. Career-wise, Henke's 1.09 WHIP, 9.81 strikeouts per nine innings and a career ERA that was 56% better than league average all surpass 2006 Hall of Fame inductee Bruce Sutter.

Former Royals closer Jeff Montgomery gets some consideration here.

MANAGER

Billy Southworth. Manager of the Cardinals and Boston Braves in the 1940s; had a career .597 winning percentage and every one of his teams finished in the first division (fourth place or higher).

(For more articles like this one, click on Out of Left Field', especially if you're Canadian.)

Date

Fri 07/21/06, 7:24 am EST

Date

Fri 07/21/06, 8:09 am EST