ESPN had a column talking about the most underrated career records in pro sports. Pretty interesting stuff. They mention 3 baseball records. Ted Williams' .4817 on-base, Cy Young's 511 Wins, and Bonds' 688 intentional walks.
I agree with the intentional walks, I don't with the 511 wins. Everyone who should know about Cy Young knows about Cy Young. Most of those people are also aware that he has the most wins. This isn't underrated, everyone knows about it. Also, some could say it's overrated. It was such a different time pitching back then, I'd argue that Walter Johnson's winning 417 games, or Spahn winning 363 is more impressive.
So what are some other underrated records in baseball?
Craig Biggio, 285 HBP- Now this is an underrated stat. Nobody actually thinks of how many times a guy was hit by pitch do they? Not really, well I know Bill James does, and that's one reason he's talked so much about Craig Biggio being so valuable. On-base percentage is more than just your hits and your walks, it counts you HBP as well, and no player did that more often than Biggio. Biggio's career OBP is .363, if you take out his HBP it's .348. That's actaully a bigger difference than I expected.
Cal Ripken, 350 GIDP- Of course to have the most Grounded into Double Plays you have a long successful career. He's in good company on the list, Hammerin Hank, Yaz, Dave Winfield, and Eddie Murray round out the top 5. But, it's often overlooked how much GIDP hurt you. Cal Ripken is still one of the greatest short stops, as well as players of all time, but we shouldn't look past the fact he grounded into more double plays than anyone in league history, that's a lot of rally killers.
Everyone knows about a pitcher's wins, more people are now knowledgeable about on-base %, and even a few people know about intentional walks (although some people use it too much as reason for a certain players HoF case, cough cough Jim Rice cough cough), but I don't think too many people are going around talking about HBP, or GIDP.
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