First under appreciated player that pops into your head
 

Name first one you think of. Just one.....

Not his collectibles, but as a player. . .



Jimmie Foxx

Rogers Hornsby

Underappreciated
 

Jim Maloney- Trent King

Absolutely Jimmie Foxx.

Better than you think
 

Paul Blair

Pitcher: Spahn
Hitter: Carew

Hornsby

Rogers Hornsby
Hank Greenberg

easy ............... Eddie Collins

Under appreciated
 

Nice call on Paul Blair, Rocky! How about David Concepcion? Trent King

Eddie Mathews, That could easily happen to anyone when Hank Aaron is your teammate.

Lefty Grove

Roger Bresnahan

Mel Ott. Gets very little attention for such a beast in his time. Similar to Foxx.

Vada Pinson


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Frank Robinson

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Warren Spahn

Grover Alexander. Always seems to be relegated to a tier below Young Johnson Mathewson and Grove among prewar pitchers but should not be IMO.

Eddie Murray. Switch-hitting power hitters are very rare.

Johnny kling

Worthy Nats
 

Cecil Travis
Mickey Vernon
Camilo Pascual

Every one in the HOF playing their careers for most other teams

Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson and Curt Flood were HS teammates. Frank Robinson was also a HS classmate of Bill Russell.

Jimmie Foxx for sure.

Feel like Stan Musial doesn't get much love outside of baseball circles, nor does Carl Yastrzemski.

Good call on Ott, super under appreciated for the first National Leaguer to hit 500 home runs. and every thread needs a card.
-

Frank Robinson. Always Frank Robinson.

-Al

Firpo Marberry- first great reliever

Frank Robinson for me as well.

Attachment 547825

Maybe it is just me, but I struggle with players like Jimmie Foxx and Frank Robinson being underrated. But, I get that there is a difference between an absolute and relative scale. Those two are certainly underrated *relative* to some of their contemporaries, but are widely considered greats of the game (an absolute scale.)

I like the suggestion of Paul Blair, mainly because I have a Blair player collection. But, as someone who grew up rooting for the late '70s Yankees, I'd consider guys like Willie Randolph (65.9 WAR) and Graig Nettles (68.0 WAR) as not getting near enough love.

Good call on the tall Texan. Some serious history-making there but pretty much unknown outside of Nats buffs and even though tied in closely with Walter Johnson, Bucky Harris, and their back-to-back pennants in 1924-25..

Tempting to go for Foxx, Musial or Ott, but i would say Jerry Koosman. Big time lefty. If those Mets teams didn’t generally suck, he wins a lot more games. He still won 222 games, and his stats compare favorably to Jim Kaat for instance. Better ERA, same WHIP, 18 years vs 24 years, but aside from Kaat’s extra longevity stats, you might easily take him over Kaat. Good hitter too, and 4-0 in playoffs and World Series and led the Mets to the 69 title in game 5.

Collectors know, though, just look at the price of his rookie card! ;-)

Player
 

Curt Flood. Without him there would be no free agency.

I may get some flack for this one but much like the great Indian Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, free agency happens regardless of what Flood does. Flood took a brave stance and deserves to be recognized, but he lost his case and it didn’t really move the needle on the issue

To me, "overlooked" indicates a non-HOFer. My under-appreciated player is Dave Concepcion.

Doc Cramer

Vic Power.

Michael's phrasing was perhaps not the best, but still Flood was an important figure and even if he was short term unsuccessful he raised awareness and inspired others along the path. That it may have been inevitable doesn't really diminish him, so too was civil rights and many other historical trends but we still rightly revere certain leaders.

Dave Orr. He is Pete Browning without the bat story and a better fielder. His annual hitting line is almost identical to Dan Brouthers’ except his career was cut short by a stroke. In his one year playing against NL stars (1890 Players League) he was second in batting (.371) and second in RBIs (124).

Chuck Connors - Dodgers & Cubs

Hal Chase - I know, I know about being and ass and gambling along with his colorful personality - but his skill on the diamond was very impressive. If you interested the Black prince of baseball is a good read.

Stan Hack.

Hell of a hitter (.301/.394/.397 over 16 seasons, 8509 PA) and an above average defender at 3rd (great glove, not as great arm).

Even among Cubs fans he's mostly an "oh yeah, that guy was pretty good" afterthought even though he played his entire career with them and coached/managed in the Cubs system for many years following his playing career.

Hack was a huge collector of Cubs memorabilia, too.

This is a really good one.

I think most of the most underrated are 1) players who made the Hall but are almost universally panned for being in the Hall and there historical reputation becomes ‘that guy who is in the Hall but should not be’, and they never get credit for being very very good players in actual merit, or 2) players like Hack who just miss the Hall debates and have faded into complete and total obscurity even though they were very very good players as well.

+1 could not agree more

Eddie Yost
 

OBP? Who knew?

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1671318477

Lou Gehrig

George Sisler.

Eddie Murray

The "Mechanical Man"

Frank Robinson was the 1st one to pop into my head, as the question suggested. Don’t know if it’s the right answer, but it’s the honest one. ;)

Jeff frickin' Kent. Come on now!!

Al Oliver. Man could rake.

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.