A baseball player’s talent level is not always commensurate with the adulation he receives.
The following players may not be household names, but they deserve greater recognition from fans and pundits alike. These are baseball’s most underrated players entering the 2021 season.
David Fletcher
It’s time to make Fletch happen.
Mike Trout isn’t the only one who flies under the radar out West. Trout’s Angels teammate, David Fletcher, just might be the most valuable player unknown to the casual fan.
Traditional stats cannot do Fletcher justice; one must dig deeper to discover his true value. Fletcher is a jack of all trades on the diamond, with 70+ career games at third, second, and shortstop under his belt. He’s also played close to 165 innings at the corner outfield positions. As a defender, Fletcher is more than serviceable — he rates well above average at third and second, and slightly above average at short.
In an era defined by swings and misses, Fletcher is an exception to the rule. He’s struck out in just 10.3% of his career plate appearances, the third-lowest rate among players with 1,000+ plate appearances since 2018. Fletcher is underappreciated by Statcast because his exit velocity is surprisingly low for a player with a .292 career batting average. But Fletcher’s selectivity (he swings at just 37% of the pitches he sees) and aforementioned contact skills make him a terrific hitter nonetheless.
Tim Anderson
If you prefer your stars to have a little bit of braggadocio, Anderson is your guy.
Anderson’s brash style, which includes the occasional unapologetic bat flip, is not everyone’s cup of tea. Perhaps that’s why a player of Anderson’s caliber is often left off countdowns of the top infielders in baseball.
The White Sox shortstop won the 2019 AL batting crown with a .335 average, then backed that up with a .322 mark in 2020. It was in 2020 that Anderson emerged as a premier breaking-ball hitter — 14 of his 22 extra-base hits came off non-fastballs.
Anderson is an electric talent who, at age 27, is just beginning to enter his prime. He doesn’t walk much, but he’s made sufficient adjustments to sustain a high level of production for several more years.
Kyle Hendricks
What does Hendricks have to do to earn more respect?
All the man does is pitch effectively season after season, with little acclaim to show for it. The Dartmouth alum is the rare crafty righty — his “heater” averages about 87 MPH, and his average fastball spin rate ranked in the majors’ first percentile in 2020.
Velocity does not necessarily equal effectiveness, however, and opponents don’t square up pitches from Hendricks all that often. Blessed with impeccable control, Hendricks darts the strike zone with his sinker and four-seamer while sprinkling in a wicked curveball and an aesthetic marvel of a changeup.
It’s hard to ignore the similarities between Hendricks and Greg Maddux, another right-handed control artist who crafted his early masterpieces in a Cubs uniform. Though not quite Maddux-like, Hendricks does boast the sixth-best ERA+ among starters since 2016 (143). Every hurler ahead of him has multiple Cy Youngs to his name: Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Corey Kluber, and Justin Verlander.
Jon Berti
Speed has been devalued in baseball over the last two decades. Stolen bases are no longer en vogue, and team offenses are usually built around home run potential.
Players like Jon Berti are a throwback to the “slash and burn” offensive style of clubs like Whitey Herzog’s Cardinals of the mid-1980s. What Berti lacks in power (career .391 SLG), he makes up for in plate discipline (career .359 OBP) and speed.
So far in his big league career, Berti has stolen 27 bases and been caught just five times. On the bases, he’s so quiet you almost forget he’s there…until seconds later when he’s advanced to the next bag with nary a throw. The Mets are perhaps more familiar with Berti’s peskiness than any other team; in the summer of 2020, he stole three bases (including home) in a single inning at Citi Field.
Kenta Maeda
Did you know that Maeda’s 0.75 WHIP in 2020 was the second-lowest of the Live Ball Era, trailing only Pedro Martinez’s 0.74 in 2000?
It should be noted that Maeda did that over just 11 starts in a highly irregular, pandemic-shortened season. Even so, that number is emblematic of how underappreciated Maeda has been over the past five years. After shining in a supporting role for the Dodgers, Maeda was traded to the Twins last February.
Maeda’s Minnesota mastery was in line with what he accomplished in Japan, where he was a two-time recipient of the Sawamura Award (NPB’s equivalent of the Cy Young). Skeptics of Maeda’s performance should pay greater attention to his peripheral stats, which tell the story of his success. Last year, Maeda enticed batters to swing at 39.3% of his pitches outside the strike zone, the best rate in the big leagues. He also led all AL pitchers in hard-hit rate.
Seth Lugo
Lugo’s return to the rotation in 2020 didn’t go as planned. The versatile righty allowed 13 earned runs over his final 9.1 innings of work, raising his ERA from 2.63 on September 12th to 5.15 by season’s end.
Lugo makes this list because of his work out of the bullpen, where he’s posted a 2.53 career ERA (as opposed to 4.35 as a starter). Armed with one of the highest curveball spin rates in the game, the Statcast darling has the raw stuff of a closer and the durability of a traditional long reliever.
Since the start of 2018, Lugo has made 34 relief appearances of at least two innings and no runs allowed — the most by anyone in the majors in that span.
Searle’s Final Say
Even in the era of advanced metrics, it’s possible for highly valuable players to go unnoticed. One of my foremost goals as a researcher is to shine the spotlight on these underrated stars and give them the recognition they deserve. Baseball is a team game, after all, and no team wins a championship without some unheralded contributions.
