Who Are The Most Underrated Players In MLB Today?

Baseball sucks at marketing its stars.  Sucks ass if I’m being frank.  But it also stinks at marketing as a whole; for instance I truthfully didn’t even *really* know that the Yankees and Red Sox were playing in England until like… a few days before they played in England.  I didn’t *really* know that Ichiro, one of the most electric players of the last 25 years, was playing one final regular season game in Japan at the start of this season until I turned on my TV at 7am and he was taking the field.

It’s gross.  So it’s my duty to you to tell you all about the players MLB should be telling you about.  Because there’s a ton of talent outside the Mike Trouts, Christian Yelich and Max Scherzer’s of the world that not many people know of.  I’m just going to rattle off like 5 names.  Some of them you may have heard of.  Some of them not.  The casual fans will fall in the latter and that’s not their fault.  It’s MLB’s.

Let’s start:

Ketel Marte, Arizona Diamondbacks MIF

I probably use the word superstar too frequently, as there can only be a finite amount of actual superstars before the term gets watered down… but this dude is a goddamn superstar.  Since he entered the league full time in his age 24 season in 2018 he’s put up this slash line:

and he’s REALLY taken off this year, sitting pretty at 4th in all of baseball at 6.1 fWAR behind just Trout, Bellinger and Yelich.

He was traded from Seattle to AZ in a package deal, and you gotta think Jerry Dipoto really wishes he wouldn’t have given up on Marte so soon.  Dude’s a stud and should be on the pantheon of today’s great SS’s with Fernando Tatis Jr., Frankie Lindor, Gleyber Torres (when he plays SS), Seager, Bogaerts and whoever I missed.  He has an outside shot at taking home a batting title this year and will hit 33-35 dingers.  Nobody talks about him though and he’s been a freak this year.

Marcus Semien, Oakland Athletics SS

I have a list of players I hate and Jeff Samardzija is A1 at the top of that list.  And the Sox traded Marcus Siemien for him in an attempt to “compete” aka catch lightning in a bottle.  That obviously didn’t work and Shark only played 1 year on the south side and he STUNK when he was here.  Just sucked all over the field.  Fuck him.

But Marcus Semien has been about as steady a solid player as there can be in baseball over the last 3-4 years.  Now he’s not on the super star level like the aforementioned Ketel Marte, but he’s a perfect glue guy.  Over the last two years he’s put up a combined 8.9 fWAR and slashed these numbers in 2019 to date:

Just a guy who will give you the epitome of professional at bats in the meat of the lineup.  A guy that any team can win and win a lot with.  A steady Eddie.  Billy Beane, you bastard, I’ll never forgive you for taking him from us for Shark.

Whit Merrifield, KC Royals Super Utility Player

Now I say “super utility player” because I don’t really have another word for him.  He’s a 2B by trade and should be playing there every day, but the Royals have Nicky Lopez playing 2B for them this year which has shifted Merrifield to RF which is far from his natural position, though that’s not to say he’s bad at it.  Just not what he’s best at.

Now I’ve gotten to know Whit a little bit as his agent is one of my good friends from college, and he couldn’t be a better dude.  As down to earth and quiet as someone who’s SECOND IN BASEBALL IN HITS THE LAST THREE YEARS CAN BE.

This year he’s 4 off the league lead in hits, last year he lead the league, and since 2017 he’s only 22 off the lead trailing only Charlie Blackmond (who ironically enough would probably be on my all overrated team).  Oh, and over that stretch he has the 4th most SBs in baseball too.  Dude’s a really, really good offensive player anyway you slice it.

Whit’s averaged about 3.5 fWAR the last 3 years on top of amassing 528 hits and you wouldn’t even really know it because MLB stinks at marketing their good players.  That and he’s a hot looking dude and should be in more commercials and shit.

German Marquez, Colorado Rockies, Pitcher:

Marquez sits around 96-97 with angle and a devastating slider but pairs those two pitches with a fading change piece;

and a cutter that just takes a left hand turn and is unhittable for… anyone really:

he was my outside the box pick place a future’s bet on for Cy Young this year, as his odds were like +1000000 or something, even coming off a 4.5 fWAR age 23 season where he racked up 196IP and 230 strike outs.  Unfortunately he just got shelved with shoulder fatigue and Coors has inflated his stats a little this year, but if he pitched in a normal ball park he’d be one of the more dominating pitchers in baseball if you don’t consider him one already.  He has FREAKY good shit.

If I asked someone like… Chief or Eddie I’d guess that they haven’t heard of Marquez.  Again by no fault of their own, but because MLB sucks ass at marketing its product.

Kyle Seager, Seattle Mariners, 3B:

3.8
4.2
5.2
3.8
5.2
3.6
1.6
2.6

Those are the fWAR accumulations of Corey Seager since his first full season in 2012.  That’s good for 20th best in all of baseball in that time.  But you probably have only heard of him because he’s Corey’s brother, not because he’s been one of the better 3B in baseball for a long time.

Now he had a down year in 2018 and has only been decent this year, but the dude was consistently one of the best all around 3B in baseball for a 5-6 year stretch.  Hands of gold defensively and good for 25/90/.350/.475 seemingly every year and in a really tough park to hit in.

Andrelton Simmons, California Angels, SS

Arguably the very best defensive short stop in baseball.  There’s an old adage that says good teams are “strong up the middle” aka they have great defensive catching, middle infield and CF play.  Well Simmons is 29 years old and has 4 Gold Gloves to his name.

No, he’s not some freak offensively.  Just a fine bottom of the order bat who will hit .275, spray some gaps and move runners.  Kinda a 1980s throwback type player.  But they also say a run saved is as good as a run scored.  And this guy saves runs in spades.

Everybody thinks of Nolan Arenado as the best fielder in the game.  I won’t argue that.  But I will present you with this statistic that shows Simmons absolutely dominating him in terms of saving runs since he entered the league in 2013.  That’s 174 runs kept off the board for whatever opposing team Simmons is playing against.  That’s invaluable.

Dude is a fucking wizard at SS, with all due respect to Ozzie Smith.

Now I know I probably missed a few guys.  This was done off the top of my head.  I also know you guys have the attention span of goddamn gnats, so I wanted to keep it shorter.  A few other guys that I considered were Jose Quintana, Adam Eaton, Jose Berrios (kinda), Jack Flaherty, but I didn’t choose them for a multitude of reasons that don’t really matter.

But IF there was a glaring miss on my end, feel free to cordially leave it in the comment section.  But don’t forget it’s not my fault I omitted them, it’s MLB’s fault for not force feeding whichever player I missed down my throat.  Because MLB SUCKS at marketing its product.