Koosman was one of my favorites growing up & I agree he was under appreciated as was teammate John Matlack. But his ineptitude as a hitter was a running joke when he played.

I'll keep this in the 20th century. Bob Johnson is the first player when I think of as under appreciated, well, at least from a hobby stand point. Four points higher on his lifetime BA (.296) and he might be in the HOF with his 8 x 100 RBI seasons with 7 of those consecutive and 2 other 90+ RBI seasons and a greater than .500 slugging percentage (.506). He had over 1200 RBIs and runs lifetime.


I can't help myself, for the 19th century, Bobby Mathews with 297 wins. Just 3 more W's and he'd most likely be in. There were probably other pitchers more deserving in the 19th century that were overall statistically better, but 3 wins shy of that magic number.

Stan Musial

One of the greatest but seldom gets the recognition he deserves.

Stan Musial

Spahn was the first to pop into my head, but Kid Nichols is way more underrated.

Johnny Mize. He hit .312/.397/.562/.959 OPS+ 158. That is the 15th highest slugging percentage, 17th highest OPS and 18th highest OPS+. His OPS+ is higher than Mays, Aaron and DiMaggio and tied with Tris Speaker.

His first year on the HOF ballot, he received 16.7%. His second he received 8.8%. He peaked at 43.6%. After falling off the writers ballot, it took another 8 years for the Veteran's Committee to elect him. How does a great player like Mize get snubbed for so long by HOF voters?

Bill Madlock…. No consideration of HOF?

.305 lifetime BA……and 4 Batting Titles,

AL: Roger Maris.
NL: Dale Murphy

+1

Bob Johnson gets mentioned a lot in these type of threads but I dunno...


Most similar players from Baseball Reference

Brian Giles (921.7)
Matt Holliday (913.0)
Magglio Ordonez (908.0)
Moises Alou (907.3)
Ellis Burks (905.3)
Del Ennis (900.4)
Reggie Smith (896.1)
Will Clark (894.7)
Bernie Williams (892.9)
Chuck Klein (892.3) *

+1 on Al Oliver. Career .303 hitter over 17 seasons and just a few hundred hits shy of 3,000.

First random names that pop in my head…

Eddie Collins
Tony Mullane
Dick Allen
Curt Flood
Frank Robinson

Dick Allen

Oops, memory failing me on that. Seaver was a good hitter?

Kenny Lofton - A sure-fire HOFer by every metric and only gets 3.2% on the first ballot then never sees the vote again.

I like the Mel Ott suggestions because when I saw them I thought, “oh yeah, I forget about Mel Ott.”

But to answer the question of the OP, oddly, Troy Glaus was the first name to come to mind. But after a minute of thinking, Lance Parrish. So many guys are great for not quite long enough, and then they get sort of erased from memory.

Strong agree. Plus he did it in the heart of the roid-era with extremely little suspicion of him taking part in it (very outspoken about it, too).

Beyond the numbers, he was fun to watch. His defensive highlights in the 90s and early 00s were all over the sportscasts.

His biggest knock was being oft-injured and working 130-ish games a year most of the time. Still, he put in 16 "full" seasons and a 20-game rookie season for 17 seasons of great production when he was playing those games.

Jim McCormick, Bobby Mathews and Tony Mullane

Seaver was definitely better than Koosman but still not good. The two did have a tongue in cheek rivalry as to who was the "better" hitter which may be what you remember.

Albert Belle

A lot of great responses here. I'd add 2:

Allie Reynolds

"Reynolds got his start in the majors as a solid pitcher for the Indians in the 1940s. However, once he got to the Yankees in 1947 his career took off. During his eight seasons in pinstripes, he went 131-60 with a 3.30 ERA. Reynolds helped the Yankees to six World Series titles, racking up a 7-2 record with a 2.79 ERA over 15 World Series games.

Reynolds made five All-Star games and had two top-three MVP finishes. Reynolds got a late start to his MLB career and pitched in only 12 full seasons. As a result, his final career numbers don't match up with the great pitchers of his generation. But when he was at his best, Reynolds could pitch with anybody."

and...

Lefty O'Doul

"O'Doul is in the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame and is credited with helping to popularize the sport in Japan in the 1930s. Before that, O'Doul had some great seasons as a left fielder after being converted from a pitcher at the age of 31. O'Doul had just seven full seasons as an offensive player, but he had two top-three finishes in MVP voting.

O'Doul had one of the greatest offensive seasons in major league history in 1929 when he set a National League record with 254 hits. He batted .398 that season and led the league with a .465 on-base percentage. O'Doul finished his career with a .349 batting average, still the fourth-best in major league history.

His best season on the Hall of Fame ballot came in 1960, when he received 45 Hall of Fame votes, a total higher than 27 future Hall of Famers. He had more votes than players like Ralph Kiner, Chuck Klein, Lefty Grove and Lloyd Waner."

First name that popped into my head was Aramis Ramirez. Completely consistant. Not a HOF , but should have at least stuck around on the ballot.

Hornsby
Collins
Murray

The Walking Man
 

I picked two HoFers off the top of my head, both playing 162-game seasons, to compare to Eddie Yost, who played 154-seasons:

Eddie Yost Tony Gwynn Rod Carew

Home Runs 139 135 92

Times on Base* 3,576 3,955 4,096

*Hits, Walks, and HBP

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1671367488

Paul Waner hit .333 with 3000+ hits and most fans don’t know who he is

Underappreciated
 

Johnny Mize

Eddie Collins
Tris Speaker
Lefty Grove
Frank Robinson
Steve Carlton
Dick Allen

Bucky Walters - 3rd baseman converted into a fine pitcher
Riggs Stephenson - Look at his batting average
Thurman Munson - THE catcher before his tragic death
Johnny Vander Meer - Nobody ever beats that record
Cecil Travis - Frozen feet in the Battle of the Bulge

Name all you want, these fellows define underappreciated

What’s my name again?

Anyway, looking it up, Koos went 2 for 4 with an RBI against the Reds in 73 playoffs! So there is that.

Lefty O'Doul - Both for being a solid player and for his massive contribution to fueling baseball's rise in Japan

George Brett - For just kind of being forgotten about and never mentioned after his retirement. Those last three years were rough, but he had an incredible run his entire career. And now you only ever hear him discussed in the context of the Pine Tar game

Musial - I know, wild to say. I just really think that we do not recognize how INCREDIBLE he was. He sometimes seems to get grouped into "Oh just an HOFer from the 60s," giving short shrift to the fact that he's a top 10 player in history.

Salmon should get some more nods than he does. Not an HOFer by any means, but posted fantastic numbers for a decade and only retired after injury. But yet, never gets mentioned in the discussion around the 90s.

Seaver wasn't a terrible hitter. At the time I remember him seemingly to be quite good (relatively speaking of course). Seems like most years he hit more HRs than Bud Harrelson did.

12 career HRs. Not too shabby.

Agreed

Bernie Williams

I'll go with a under appreciated owner August herrmann father of the world series and brought peace between the nl and al. For a player jake daubert the best first basemen of his era in my opinion.

Bill Freehan
11X All Star
5X Gold Glove
Worlde Series Championship

Not saying he’s a HOF but definitely underrated.

I’ll go with Ed Reulbach, who incidentally died the same day as Ty Cobb in 1961, with infinitely times more championships under his belt (ok 2), against Ty’s Tigers no less…

Dwight Evans
 

Dwight Evans

Concepcion and these 90s guys are all great suggestions.

Other 90s names that popped into my head are: Sean Casey and Paul Konerko.

I always debated whether I would prefer the Reds have Konerko rather than Casey.

I also debated whether the Reds should have kept Edwin Encarnacion rather than trade for Scott Rolen.

Sent from my SM-G9900 using Tapatalk

Shortstop Bill Dahlen

I liked Concepcion as being "overlooked" because it was virtually impossible to compete for attention on a team with Rose, Morgan, Bench, Perez, Foster and all the rest.

But after seeing the mention of Vada Pinson, I think that's a tough one to improve upon.

Doc Cramer
 

Local hero at the New Jersey shore...

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...ramedo01.shtml

Will White.

Agree 100%

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

Samuel Earl Crawford

Agreed on a few mentioned in the above
 

But my THREE large oversights are from the 70's, and 80's mainly:

1. Don Mattingly
2. Steve Garvey
3. Keith Hernandez

IMO all three should ALREADY be Hofers. The fact they are not makes them "underrated".

Rod Carew

James (Shanty) Hogan Hitting over .300 four consecutive seasons in New York

12-17-2022 11:49 PM
abothebear I like the Mel Ott suggestions because when I saw them I thought, “oh yeah, I forget about Mel Ott.”

But to answer the question of the OP, oddly, Troy Glaus was the first name to come to mind. But after a minute of thinking, Lance Parrish. So many guys are great for not quite long enough, and then they get sort of erased from memory.


Both of these...Tigers had an almost 30 year run of top C between Freehan and Parrish...and a couple nice years of Nokes.

Get tired of the top 15 guys being mentioned as underrated...by who?....Like me saying Kaline is underrated....not by anyone in Detroit!

Look at Lance's # vs Fisk/Carter...then look at Molina...This guy didn't even get a sniff on the ballot.

I will also add in Lolich...best Lefty of his era not named Carlton...again...no respect....I bet Bob Gibson didn't underrate him!

Max Patkin :D

+1 On Freehan and Lolich....There was an interview with Tim McCarver on a Bob Costas show talking about the 1968 World Series. McCarver said the guys were talking about Denny McLain, when Roger Maris (who had joined them in 67) said something to the effect that McLain was no worry, the one they really had to worry about was Lolich......