A few that come to mind:
Mariano Duncan
Joe Oliver
Bo Diaz
Norm Charlton
Jeff Shaw
Eddie Taubensee
Dmitri Young
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A few that come to mind:
Mariano Duncan
Joe Oliver
Bo Diaz
Norm Charlton
Jeff Shaw
Eddie Taubensee
Dmitri Young
I was thinking Mariano Duncan as well. The second name that come to mind was Billy Hatcher.
Chris Stynes
Bip Roberts
John Franco
Scott Sullivan....the set-up types sometimes get forgotten
Eric Davis...still underrated
Scott Sullivan
Bip Roberts
Eddie Milner (The equivalent of Harry Craft)
John Franco
Mariano Duncan
Jason LaRue.
This should go back 40 years...... beacuse Mike De La Hoz is clearly, hands down...the most underrated.
Besides myself.
Rob Murphy
Mario Soto
John Franco
Kevin Mitchell
Bip Roberts
Jason Larue
Scott Sullivan
Sullivan
Milner
Franco
In terms of "underrated," the first guy to come to mind is Dan Driessen. Growing up, I thought of him as a weak offensive first baseman, and a guy with unfulfilled promise (peaked at age 25).
Having learned more about run creation (and out-avoidance), he actually seems to be a pretty decent (at least average, if not above average) offensive player for his era... even at first base.
His batting average and homer totals were subpar. But he got on base and had an rc/27 well over 5.00 for his Reds career.
Most of the guys people are calling underrated, are guys I always thought were good.
Jason LaRue
Mike Cameron
John Franco
John Smiley
Bo Diaz
Alex Ochoa
I'm looking at it from the perspective of "baseball fan" versus "Reds fan". I knew always that Mario Soto was good. But if you ask 100 baseball fans who were the best three NL Starting Pitchers were through the early 1980's, I doubt you'd hear more than one who'd say "Mario Soto".Quote:
Originally Posted by cincinnati chili
Even after being beat to death by a horrible team the guy finished his career with 1730.3 IP while allowing 1395 Hits.
From 1982-1985, Soto threw 1025.3 IP and allowed 786 Hits. That's ridiculous. His BB rate was 3.13 per 9IP. His HR rate was 0.90 per 9 IP. The guy never played with a truly great team. Never played with a truly great defense. Always had to struggle to get through every Inning on his own.
I simply can't think of a Reds player who was more underrated in the context of overall baseball than was Mario Soto. If that guy had been on a good team who knew how to handle him, we might have seen a Hall of Fame career.