slight OT, most under-rated team

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Posted By: steve

Interesting discussion - most under rated team of all time.

My picks:

1B McCovey
2B Lajoie
3B E. Mathews
SS A. Vaughn
C Campanella
OF Musial
OF F. Robinson
CF Speaker
P Grover Alexander
P Hubbell
P Feller
P Marichal

What are you folks' picks?

steve

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

The 2008 Detroit Tigers!

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Posted By: David Smith

Has to be the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.

I mean, nobody EVER talks about them, ESPN and Fox NEVER televise their Games and Sports Center and Baseball Tonight NEVER shows their highlights.

As a baseball fan, I think THAT is what America NEEDS; MORE coverage of the Yankees and Red Sox because, gosh darn it, there just isn't enough right now.



NOT!!!!!

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Posted By: dennis

i do understand what you are saying but all your guys (except vaughn) are 1st tier hall of famers.i don't think anyone would deny these guys their place in immortality.
how about these guys
cather bill freehan all star catcher from 1963 thru 1973
ist base dick allen
2nd base joe gordon lost 3 years to war
ss alan trammel lost in the ripken/arod/jeter love fest
3rd base ron santo was disliked during his playing days by his contempories
lf jim rice most feared hitter during his career
cf dale murphy lost power just as the steroid era began
rf minnie minoso 5 tool player who played in mlb after his prime years
p denny mclain 2 cy youngs and 2 pitcher of the year awards by age 25 & 100 wins
p allie reynolds
p wes farrel 6 x 20 game winner best hitting pitcher ever?
p pilly pierce best lefty in AL besides w.ford in the 50s

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Posted By: MVSNYC

sorry Dennis, but i have to disagree...IMO, the ONLY "first tier" HOFers i see on his list are:


2B Lajoie
OF Musial
OF F. Robinson
CF Speaker

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Posted By: Shawn Chambers

Wait, G. Alexander NOT a first tier HOF'er? Wow, 373 career wins AND a .642 w/l % ...old Pete is spinning in his whiskey bottle! I can agree that a few are NOT first tier, but leaving Alexander out is criminal!

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Posted By: MVSNYC

totally agree...i glanced over the list too fast and didn't even see him.

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Posted By: Jason L

can't see how they would be considered under-rated, nor anything but 1st tier...

I don't think an Under-rated list can have any HOFers on it, to be honest. The fact that they made it into the Hall means they were recognized.
You can have over-rated HOFers, but not Under-rated HOFers.

There's no way that Nap Lajoie could ever be considered to be under-rated. In his time, he was so popular that they named the team and the dog mascot after him!

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Posted By: dennis

you new yorkers are a tough crowd!!

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Posted By: steve

Sorry, I didn't quite phrase the original topic properly.

What I originally had in mind:

List me your on-the-bubble first tier HOF'ers that have faded from popular discussion relative to their contemporaries.

steve

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

That might be impossible for this crowd since we collect and study these players. Now it might be easy for some ordinary Joe to say that Napoleon Lajoie is underrated, but he certainly isn't amongst us.

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Posted By: Bob Pomilla

Hornsby, Sisler.

As per your clarification, Steve.

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Posted By: Steve

Pitchers B/T Ht Wt DOB
63 Rafael Betancourt
55 Fausto Carmona
58 Brendan Donnelly
57 Zach Jackson
30 Masahide Kobayashi
31 Cliff Lee
50 Jensen Lewis
49 Edward Mujica
53 Rafael Perez
27 Anthony Reyes
34 Juan Rincon
45 Jeremy Sowers
Catchers
44 Sal Fasano
10 Kelly Shoppach
Infielders
13 Asdrubal Cabrera
7 Jamey Carroll
25 Ryan Garko
26 Andy Gonzalez
15 Andy Marte
2 Jhonny Peralta
Outfielders
17 Shin-Soo Choo
20 David Dellucci
12 Ben Francisco
38 Franklin Gutierrez
24 Grady Sizemore

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

I agree that Arky Vaughan is a VERY underappreciated SS, even though he is a HOFer. His #'s are pretty strong when compared to the other HOF SS's (aside from that Wagner guy).
-Rhett

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Posted By: Jason L

excellent choices in Hornsby and that other guy...you know, the one from the Turf ciggies card.

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Posted By: howard

Starting w/the last couple of years of his career Eddie Matthews was and has remained terribly underrated. He retired as the greatest 3rd baseman in baseball history and yet had to wait ten years for his HOF induction.

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Posted By: Andrew S.

P Don Gullett
C Joe Torre
1B Eddie Murray
2B Craig Biggio
SS Barry Larkin
3B Ron Santo
LF Chick Hafey
CF Vada Pinson
RF Ross Youngs

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Posted By: Bob

Most underrated:

of Vada Pinson
of Tony Oliva
of Curt Flood
3b Billy Cox
ss Dave Concepcion
2b Roberto Alomar
1b Kent Hrbek
c John Roseboro
dh Turkey Mike Donlin
p Bert Blyleven
p Deacon Phillipe
p Eddie Cicotte
p Ed Reulbach

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

Bob,

Thanks for your selection of my personal all-time favorite player, Hoss Cox. I dare say that he is the penultimate in underrated post-war players (there truly is no question from a purely defensive standpoint, but he wasn't too shabby at the plate, either!).



Visit www.vintage-autographs.com for the hobby's finest selection of vintage baseball signatures.

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Posted By: Stephen Mitchell

OF...Bob Johnson
OF...Doc Cramer
OF...Vada Pinson
3B...Stan Hack
SS...Cecil Travis, Alvin Dark
2B...Larry Doyle
1B...George Tioga Burns, Jack Fournier, Jake Daubert, Hal Trosky & Joe Judge (5-way tie)
C....Elston Howard
P....Wes Ferrell
P....Ed Reulbach
P....Bobby Mathews
RP...Lee Smith

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Posted By: paulstratton

non-hof'ers

C- Bill Freehan
1b- Darrell Evans
2b- Joe Gordon
3b- Dick Allen
SS- Barry Larkin
OF- Wally Berger
OF- Bob Veach
OF- Jim Rice
P- Old Jack Morris
P- Joe Wood
P- Bobby Mathews
P- Babe Ruth(only his pitching)

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Posted By: Mark

It will be interesting to see how Barry Larkin fares in the HOF voting, when his time comes. When compared to the shortstops of his day, he should be a no-brainer inductee. Plus, he has a World Series championship and MVP under his belt. Terrific fielder/team captain/leader as well... and he played his entire career for one team.

Unfortunately he did not get much National acclaim in Cincinnati, and played most of his career concurrently with Ozzie Smith. I hope that doesn't hurt his chances. There are not a lot of other big names in his year of eligibility, so I'll remain hopeful.

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Posted By: Mark

If you limit it to pre-war players, I'd like to mention these fellows:

c Earl Smith
1b Jack Fournier/ Stuffy McInnis
2b Larry Doyle
3b Heine Groh
ss Bill Dahlen
of Irish Meusel
of Carson Bigbee
of Bobby Veach
p Artie Nehf, Sam Leever

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Posted By: Tim Newcomb

If Sisler is underrated, I'm Steve Dalkowski. You're talking about a singles-hitting base-stealing first baseman who never walked, in an era where whole teams hit .300-- He never won a pennant and was washed up in his early 30s. He was the Rod Carew of his era-- clearly a HOFer, but underrated????? That's insane to me.

Hornsby has a better case to be made as maybe the best right-handed hitter in BB before 1940. But still, I find it hard to see how he is underrated..... everyone knows he is an A-list HOFer-- where's the underrating?

I agree with the posters who commented that any HOFer is by definition not underrated--

Some guys who were a heck of a lot better than many Hofers, yet not elected:

Freehan
Mattingly
Whitaker & Larry Doyle
Trammell
Santo
Sherry Magee
Jimmy Sheckard

PITCHERS:
Sam Leever
Billy Pierce
Wes Ferrell

These are the true underrated.

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Posted By: Mark

Tim,
I think you're under-rating Sisler, who is said to have been the best fielding first baseman of his era as well as a hitter for a spectacularly high average. And it isn't his fault that the Browns turned out to be the Browns.

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Posted By: paulstratton

Sisler can't be all bad, he did go to Michigan. Lay off Tim. I wouldn't say he was underrated though. I would have put Trammell and Whitaker in there as well but I didn't want to seem like too much of a homer, even though I am.

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Posted By: PC

I lost track of what the qualifications are for this list, but I'll add Ralph Kiner.

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

Tim,

Something tells me ol' Dalko, with his 60-70 I.Q., couldn't have constructed such a clever retort!

You gotta love the fact that Dalkowski managed to kick his habit AND defy his projected life expectancy by more than a decade! It's such a shame that his alcoholism destroyed much of his memory. Now that he has dried out, it would have been the most opportune time for him to finally open up about what very well may be baseball's most interesting life story. He will always be on my "top three" list for favorites.

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Posted By: Joe Drouillard

It is pretty tough to do this when you account for all the teams, but when you only consider the team that you have followed throughout the years it becomes possible. Here is my picks for most under-rated for the Yankees.

1B Don Mattingly
2B Bobby Richardson
SS Frank Crosetti (Koenig had more power, but look how long the Crow was the anchor at short)
3B Graig Nettles
RF Roger Maris
CF Bernie Williams
LF Bob Meusel
C Elston Howard
RP Red Ruffing
LP Ron Guidry (Lopat a close second)
RP Sparky Lyle (Until this year it would have been the Goose, but he finally got his due)

Manager Billy Martin

Best wishes,

Joe

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Posted By: Anonymous

The name has been mentioned once in this thread:

Jake Daubert