Most underrated baseball players of all time

[Damage]

Who are some guys that stick out in your mind?

To me, Matt Stairs is one. I really had no clue he has hit 257 career HR's, 870 RBI's, and never had over 500 plate appearances until the age of 29. That's a crazy statistic.

 

[The Oi]

Mel Hall...

 

[PIP]

Derek Jeter

 

[Lee]

Most are going to say my suggestion is ridiculous but I say Hank Aaron. The reason I say Hank is because he was known as a homerun hitter only, but he was a tru 5 tool guy and one you could make an argumant for the greatest all around player of all time. (although I personally believe that is Willie Mays)

Ofcourse he finished with the home run record, but he also had 3700 hits, way over the 3k mark. He fishished is career as a .305 hitter...so he could hit for average. He had 240 career stolen bases, which doesnt seem like much until you realize he would have doubled that total had he been a 2 hitter instead of clean up....so he had spead. He also won 3 gold gloves in his career so he could field. Thing is, he is known for just one thing...but he could do so many.

 

[Lee]

Another player that derves mentioning is Dave Winfield. I might say he isnt an underrated baseball player, but he is for sure an underrated athlete. When talking of the greatest athletes of all time he never gets mentioned. But, he is the only person to ever be drafted in all 3 major sports...in fact he was a first round draft pick in both baseball and football and a late round basketball draft pick. He is a HOF baseball player, and the only person I can think of (besides danny ainge) that was a good enough athlete to be a proffessional in 3 sports.

For those that are curious, ainge was drafted in baseball and was one of the top ameature golphers in college too.

 

[camakazee]

Tony Gwynn.

I have a buddy from San Diego and he sold me on the legend that was Tony Gwynn. Gwynn is the only player in the 20+ years of collected data to ever hit .300 with two strikes for the entire duration of the data. In two strike counts he hit .302 over his last 14 years of his career (data not available for his first 6 seasons). The next best is Ichiro at .264.

But here is the craziest stat of them all, batting averages from 93-97. Not only did Gwynn lead the MLB in batting average over that span, a time period in which he was 33-37 years old, his two strike batting average was higher than anyone else's regular batting average.

http://www.baseballspast.com/samplegwynn.htm

I just really can't overstate how unreal that is. But yeah, Tony Gwynn is a boss. 3,141 career hits, .338 career batting average, had the league's highest batting average eight different seasons. Don't know what else to tell ya.

 

[The Oi]

Gary Gaetti

 

[PIP]

Hideki Irabu

Hideo Nomo

Shigetoshi Hasegawa

 

[Damage]

Thanks to PIP and Jig for the hijacking

 

[PIP]

Thanks to PIP and Jig for the hijacking

Yeah, but c'mon, how can you not like that Irabu pic ?

You can just look at George's face and tell he's thinking: "Look, I own this Japanese fella.. All mine !!"

In fact, back in 1999 he called him a "Fat pussy toad" :chuckles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideki_Irabu

George Steinbrenner publicly expressed disgust at his weight, at one point calling him a "fat pussy toad" (as in 'full of pus') after he failed to cover first base on a ground ball during a spring training game. Steinbrenner refused to let Irabu accompany the team to Los Angeles,

 

[Maximus]

Babe Ruth

 

[jlj3184]

I think the most underrated active player is Adrian Gonzalez. Dude is a stud (no homo).

2008: .279, 103 R (18th in MLB), 36 taters (9th, in the best pitcher's park in the L), 119 RBI (8th), all while batting in a lineup where the next best hitter was Kevin Kouzmanoff
2009: .269, 44 R (21st), 22 HR (2nd), 43 RBI (25th), again with Kevin Kouzmanoff "protecting" him

 

[David]

Charlie Sheen

Oh wait... that was a movie...

 

[KCOTT]

switch-hitter, too

 

[JayP146]

Mel Hall...

Ouch.