What could be worse than the overrated list? Probably the underrated list. Let’s see what we have here.
No. 1 -- Roy Oswalt
Could somebody please explain why this guy isn't considered the National League's Johan Santana?
Let’s look here:
Oswalt career ERA+: 141
Santana career ERA+: 143
Pretty good comparison, there, but here’s where we see a difference.
Santana: 9.54 K/9, .220 Opp. BA,
Oswalt’s career: 7.49 K/9, .253 Opp BA
Santana is a much more consistent strikeout pitcher than Oswalt, which means that people hit the ball much less against him. It’s also worth noting that Oswalt is 2 years older than Santana.
Oswalt is a two-time 20-game winner. He leads all active right-handers not named Pedro Martinez in winning percentage (104-50, .675). And he's the only active pitcher who can say he has never -- never -- had a season in which his winning percentage was worse than .625 or his ERA was higher than 3.50. Yet not only has he never won a Cy Young Award -- he's finished in the top three only once. Ridiculous, isn't it?
Wins don’t mean anything. Steve Traschel won 15 games last year and sucked, and Randy Johnson won more games last year with an ERA of 5 than in 2004 with an ERA of 2.60, because run support gives pitchers wins. The run support happened to be unevenly distributed in such a way that Roy Oswalt was in line for a win more than Clemens. You’ll notice that Clemens had more no-decisions than Oswalt, and also that Oswalt had more losses than Clemens – basically everytime he didn’t have an excellent start.
A couple of years ago, I asked his catcher, Brad Ausmus, how many people -- if I polled 10,000 Americans -- would have any idea Roy Oswalt was (at the time) coming off back-to-back 20-win seasons.
"That would depend," Ausmus chuckled, "on whether anyone on our team was among the 10,000 Americans."
OK, I retorted, suppose nobody on the Astros was among the 10,000 Americans?
"Oh," Ausmus said. "Then none."
What the hell does this prove? First of all, Oswalt was hardly a low-profile unrecognized pitcher. He was in the World Series in 2005, and if people don’t recognize him from that, it’s probably because FOX is so bad at broadcasting baseball that people would rather not watch the World Series. But the point is that Oswalt was recognized as the NLCS MVP, and he was also an All-Star in 2005 and 2006. I don’t think he can legitimately claim anonymity. But really, you don’t determine popularity by asking someone whether they think someone is popular, unless you’re a retard.
Your honor, and members of the all-underrated jury, we rest our case.
Case dismissed based on poor evidence. I would have said something about leading the NL in ERA and K/BB in 2006, or how he’s pitched over 220 innings each of the last 3 seasons, or how he threw 8 shutouts in 2005, or something that is a useful statistic.
No. 2 -- Trevor Hoffman
It's always fascinating how one month -- October -- can twist the perceptions of
players in every conceivable direction. So we're going to toss all postseason
stats into the dumpster and compare only the regular-season careers of two great
closers.
Good idea.
Closer A and Closer B have both had long, distinguished careers. Closer B is
considered a cinch Hall of Famer. Closer A still has folks debating whether he's
Cooperstown-worthy or not.
Wait, you caught me off guard at first. Didn’t you say we weren’t talking about careers now? Well, I guess you get to just ramble on whatever the hell you want, so we are now.
Yet Closer A has converted 89.5 percent of his lifetime save opportunities, struck out 9.8 hitters per nine innings in his career and held those poor opposing hitters to a .207 batting average and .264 on-base percentage.
So Closer A beats Closer B in every one of these categories. Closer B's figures: 87.9 percent, 8.0 strikeouts per 9 IP, .214 average, .270 on-base. Why, then, would anyone think that Closer A might not have Hall credentials as worthy as Closer B?
Easy question. Because Closer B is Mariano Rivera, the Greatest Postseason Closer Who Ever Lived (34 saves, 0.80 ERA).
Closer A, on the other hand, is Hoffman, who once went eight years between postseason save opportunities through no fault of his own.
All right, you used some somewhat useful statistics. They seem similar enough, though Hoffman has a higher career K/9. The reason people think more of Rivera than Hoffman is far simpler – Mariano looks more legitimate on the radar gun. When you throw a mid-90s cutter that breaks more bats than anything, you’ve got good stuff. Hoffman throws a Greg Maddux fastball and
a 72 mile an hour changeup. He's had some success, with that stuff, but it must also be remembered that he plays in a huger park with worse hitters facing him.
Now obviously, I'd have to be a major goofball to argue Hoffman has a better Hall case than Rivera. But that doesn't mean Hoffman hasn't been criminally underrated. Here's the best way to put their careers in perspective:
Mariano Rivera has a career ERA+ of 195, and Hoffman’s is 149.
They have basically the same number of blown saves in their careers -- 58 for Hoffman, 57 for Rivera -- except Hoffman has had 70 more opportunities.
In other words, Rivera would have to go two seasons without blowing a single save just to say he had the same save-conversion percentage as Trevor Hoffman. So can we please give this man his due already?
Well part of the save percentage thing is because Rivera spent more time as a setup man to John Wetteland. When you’re a setup man, you don’t get saves, you get holds, but if you screw up, you get a blown save.
But if you want to talk about what’s going on right now, Rivera’s in a funk and the Yankees are sucking so much they don’t get to him, but Hoffman looks like his stuff his getting weaker. In the interest of full disclosure, I hate Trevor Hoffman, and everytime I see him pitch I really think he’s going to blow it. He gets by on way too much luck, it seems sometimes.
No. 3 -- Hanley Ramirez
We liked playing that Player A versus Player B game so much, let's try it again.
Yay.
Player A is a National League shortstop. He is averaging a .303 batting average, 129 runs scored, 76 extra-base hits and 52 stolen bases per 162 games in his career. Player B is also an NL shortstop. He's averaging .288, 114 runs, 60 extra-base hits and 61 steals per 162 games.
Steals numbers but no stolen base percentage? At all?
Player A is 23. So is Player B. So which one would you start your team with? If
I didn't tell you the names, I'm betting you'd take Player A, right? But now
let's reverse that. Let's say I had never shown you those numbers. And then I
asked if you'd rather have Ramirez (aka Player A) or Jose Reyes
(Player B). Then what?
Well then I would say shame on you for a poor comparison. You have two 23 year old players. You are comparing one player’s performance starting at age 22 and one starting at age 20. Do you really not see anything wrong with this? To be fair, you should either include Ramirez’s minor league numbers and adjust them down to estimate what he would have been in the majors, or just disregard Reyes from 2003-2005. Then you could compare Reyes and Ramirez in 2006, and see then that Reyes was marginally better (OPS+ of 118 vs 116, SB% of 79% vs 77%).
Admit it. You'd take Reyes. Heck, to be honest, I'd probably take Reyes myself. But does anybody who doesn't own a teal cap know Ramirez's numbers are actually better? Dubious. Which sums up his underratedness just about perfectly.
The people who think Ramirez’s numbers are better are the ones who don’t understand player development, or are intellectually dishonest and want to throw together a list. Besides, why would you want to mark someone as underrated when they’re already a well talked about player – Ramirez won the NL Rookie of the Year award last year! You could talk about how the Red Sox thought Alex Gonzalez would be better than him, maybe, but that might not be so happy for some people.
No. 4 -- Jake Peavy
Is there a more fun pitcher to watch in the entire National League than Peavy?
If there is, he's at least on a list that's shorter than Tim Kurkjian. Well, of
course it is.
I could make a list that’s shorter than Tim, even if he’s a 3 foot midget. But hey, he’s good. Unless, of course, you think hitting home runs is fun to watch, or you like crazy antics. Then Jose Lima, who gave Juan Pierre his first big league homer, is definitely your guy.
Since 2004, if we compare the Padres' strikeout machine to all NL starting pitchers with as many innings pitched as he has, he tops the whole league in strikeouts, strikeout ratio, WHIP and ERA. And if you enjoy swinging and missing, Jake Peavy is your man. The only NL starter who has induced that with greater frequency than Peavy (27.3 percent), according to our friends at Inside Edge, is the Phillies' Cole Hamels (27.9).
Yeah, he’s a good strikeout pitcher. He led the league in strikeouts one year, and he led the league in ERA one year, but still no Cy Young. But his ERA crept over 4 last year, so you could ignore him then.
Yet Peavy is probably only about the 15th-most-talked-about pitcher in his own time zone. And anybody with that kind of greatness-to-pub ratio is a lock to make a list like this.
A bit of hyperbole there, but true enough. And forget his time zone; West Coast Pitchers will easily slip under the East Coast radar.
No. 5 -- C.C. Sabathia
You know what might be the biggest upset of the year? That Sabathia didn't get
one vote in our recent "Which Pitchers Would You Pay to Watch?" poll. Heck, I'd
pay to watch him.
Was it one of those online polls? Was it something where you could check multiple boxes, or did you have to pick just one? If I could pick just one, I’d pick Santana. But seriously, those kinds of polls are pretty useless because they suffer from voluntary response bias. But of course, you already knew that.
He's already the first left-handed pitcher since Andy Pettitte to start his career with six straight seasons of double-digit wins.
He has won more games (88) than any active pitcher under 27. And the Elias Sports Bureau reports he's just the fifth pitcher to debut in the last quarter-century and reach 1,000 strikeouts before turning 27. (The others: Roger Clemens, Dwight Gooden, Pedro Martinez and Kerry Wood.)
Um, that’s nice, but he also started younger too. He was thrown into the rotation in 2001, and never pitched in relief in the majors. Johan Santana was pitching at least some of his games out of the bullpen until he was 24 (the next year he won a Cy Young award). In fact, that’s about the only reason for such numbers with such an arbitrary statistic. Besides, Jake Peavy will do that later this year. Wait till Hammels has been around a while, too. I’d also count on Felix Hernandez doing it.
But the real reason C.C. is on this list -- aside from that snub in the pay-to-watch survey -- is simple: He's only getting better. He's striking out more hitters (9.05 per 9 IP) than he ever has. And he's walking fewer hitters (1.6 per 9 IP) than he ever has. And that's what aces -- especially underrated aces -- are made of.
You forgot to make that point with Peavy. Also, getting better is not what aces are made of so much as it's what players that haven't reached their prime are made of. You also forgot that
Hoffman is over the hill. Further, you're using small sample size data again talking about the current season. Talk about the previous season too, or else you'll use really bad data.
So yes, you are retarded.
No. 6 -- Carl Crawford
Joining the Devil Rays isn't exactly the same thing as joining the witness protection program. But it's close enough in Crawford's case.
Has anybody noticed that this guy has become the first player since Rogers
Hornsby to increase his batting average and home run totals five years in a row?
Has anybody noticed that the only other players since 1900 to match his 2006 numbers in batting average (.305), stolen bases (58) and home runs (18) were Rickey Henderson and Joe Morgan? Has anybody noticed he's on pace to become the only player besides Ty Cobb to reach 1,000 hits, 300 steals and 100 triples before he even turns 28?
Yeah, actually, people who pay attention to baseball, particularly fantasy players. People that steal bases are widely pursued in the fantasy game, and he hits for average and even a bit of power too. It also makes sense that a guy who starts in the major leagues really young is going to have higher totals in his counting stats, and that young players will improve until their prime.
Yeah, didn't think so (outside of those 29 general managers who would love
to trade for him). Well, we sure did blow his cover, didn't we?
ESPN - If you're dumber than we are, it's news to you.
No. 7 -- Placido Polanco
Polanco and his double-play partner in Detroit, Carlos Guillen, probably both should have made this team. But if I'd included everybody who deserved to make it, we would've blown a hole in cyberspace.
If by “blown a hole in cyberspace” you mean “pick someone who’s a much better baseball player” you would be correct.
So why Polanco? Because, when I was mulling over this list and brought up Polanco's name, one scout's instant reply was: "He should be your captain."
This is why you drive me insane. You go by scouts’ OPINIONS to determine who is underrated. DON’T YOU SEE HOW STUPID THIS IS?!
Players like Placido Polanco operate so far below the radar screen, you need a submarine to keep track of them. But since he arrived in Detroit on June 10, 2005, and got his chance to play every day, he has struck out less (only 49 times) than any player in baseball who has been to the plate as often as he has. And the only AL players with higher batting averages than his (.317) since then are Derek Jeter, Joe Mauer, Victor Martinez and Vladimir Guerrero. Ever heard of them?
Yes, but let’s see what else they do with those batting averages, with the magical EQA stat, and for simplicity’s sake I’ll just pull down 2006 numbers.
Jeter: .343 BA, .308 EqA
Mauer: .347 BA, .314 EqA
Martinez: .316 BA, .293 EQA
Vlad: .329 BA, .306 EqA
Polanco: .295 BA, .234 EqA
This rather clearly shows that Placido Polanco was not nearly as good as the other 4 guys listed there. Just like Juan Pierre isn’t as good as Albert Pujols. Striking out less means little, except that your batting average can rise a little bit because you have more balls in play.
The best way to describe Polanco, though, isn't with any number. It's with that word, "winner." He's one of those "glue" players. He glues your team together with all those little things he does. And the 2006-07 Tigers are a walking testimonial to that. Then again, so is his inclusion on this prestigious list.
The best way to describe that last paragraph, though, isn’t with any assumption of intelligence on the part of the author. It’s with that word “retarded.” It’s one of those “empty” paragraphs. Doing all the little things is nice, but they are just that, little things. Winning is all about scoring more runs than the other guy. The guys who do the big things are the guys that really get you there, anyway. Polanco did help by playing good defense at second base, which is important to a staff of pitchers that pitches to contact, but it's absolute BS that he's underrated, particularly as he's ahead of Brian Roberts in the all-star voting.
No. 8 -- Kevin Youkilis
When a guy has been a star in "Moneyball," and then becomes an everyday player
for the Red Sox, you wouldn't think it would even be possible for him to be a
candidate for an all-underrated anything team. So for Youkilis to make this
squad, it might have to rank as the greatest achievement in his whole career.
I’m not sure how much hype Moneyball is worth, but the Red Sox are a bunch of media whores.
But in case you haven't been paying attention, this fellow has turned into much more than just "The Greek God of Walks." The only AL first baseman outslugging him is Justin Morneau. Nobody beats him in OPS, batting average, runs scored or multihit games. And one AL executive wanted to make sure we noticed what an underrated defender he is -- so now that he mentions it, Youkilis hasn't made an error at first since last July.
His patience at the plate alone is a great asset – he could be quite useful still with just a .260 average or so if his OBP will end up at .360-.370. Nice that he hasn’t made an error, although it’s worth noting that he seems to get to balls pretty well too, thus a Rate2 of over 100. The problem with the other stuff you’re citing is that they’re statistics from May, which are useless. Wait until after you can drop your OPS by .100 in a week.
Nevertheless, he still gets overshadowed by just about every position player around him, and by half the other first basemen in the league. And you'd be amazed how often "overshadowed" translates to "underrated" when you're writing columns like this one.
True enough, but it’s not even the league – it’s his own team. In All-Star balloting, Youkilis is not even on the ballot, because David Ortiz goes in at first base in such situations. He also won’t get the RBI opportunities because he was the leadoff man (now he’s the 2 hitter behind Julio Lugo, who should be a 9 hitter for the Royals).
No. 9 -- Joe Nathan
What Johan Santana is to the front end of Twins games, Nathan is to the back end. Since the day he arrived in Minnesota in 2004, he's been kind of the Mariano Rivera of the Great Lakes. But has anybody caught on to that -- except the hitters?
Everyone who plays fantasy, especially people in a 5x5 Roto league, know that Nathan is really really good.
Nathan has converted 92 percent of his save opportunities (blowing just 11 saves in 143 chances). He has punched out nearly two hitters (301 altogether) for every one who has gotten a hit (155). And his WHIP (.97 baserunners per inning) beats any closer's in his league since then.
True enough. Wow, this guy is a hell of a lot better than Trevor Hoffman, and he doesn't have as many years going back to make himself look better. Maybe he should be moved up and Hoffman dropped.
I was tempted to put his side-wheeling set-up man, Pat Neshek, on this team instead. But Joe Nathan is one of the most unpublicized, unhittable, totally dependable closers on earth. And nobody knows it. But with any luck, they do now.
Yeah, people still think Trevor Hoffman is more overrated, like you, dumbass. Hoffman, who Superdumbass Phil Garner used over Billy Wagner in the allstar game because of his reputation, resulting in the NL losing the game. Gee, lefty who throws 100 or righty that throws 88?
No. 10 -- Travis Hafner
Hafner's Indians compadre, Grady Sizemore, would have been awarded this final roster spot if he hadn't fouled up his underratedness by making the cover of Sports Illustrated. And even Hafner was a borderline call, just because his nickname(Pronk) has gotten so much attention.
Borderline? Getting attention does not make you overrated, it’s how good people perceive you to be. You’re a retard, Jayson Stark.
Yeah, America has heard of him. Yeah, America knows he can thump a little. But most of America still hasn't comprehended how good he is. Heck, I rated him the third-most underrated DH of all time in the book.
Um, ok.
Who owns the best on-base percentage (.420) and OPS (1.019) in the whole American League since 2004? The Pronkster. Who's the only hitter besides Albert Pujols to have a .300 batting average, .400 on-base percentage, .500 slugging percentage and 100 RBIs in each of the last three seasons? The Pronkster.
Yeah, he’s had the highest OPS+ in the AL the last few years running. Turns out he’s really good.
So what am I saying? That this fellow is a masher in the same stratosphere as Pujols, David Ortiz, Vlad Guerrero and Manny Ramirez. Except they hog all the "SportsCenter" time, while Hafner just monopolizes the All-Nickname Team. And that, ladies and gentlemen, may be the ultimate prescription for underratedness.
Yes, so that’s why he’s freaking 10th on this list? That’s reason to put this guy on the top! The
Dude also has never been named to an All-Star team. EVER!
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