In each and every year throughout Major League Baseball, there are always a handful of players in both the American League and National League that seem to fly below the radar despite solid performance on the field.
There are many reasons why a player can be labelled as “underrated.” Maybe the player is not much of a media guy and tends to quietly go about his business (Mike Trout, anyone?). Some of the legends of the game were not very good soundbites and therefore were left out of the media circle and almost forgotten about, instead diverting the media’s attention to players on the opposite end of that spectrum and making said quiet player become underrated.
Another common way for baseball players to become underrated is if they’re pesky slap-hitters whose main value comes in the clubhouse. Maybe they’re good for some big moments throughout their career, but overall they may not be the flashiest player ever.
David Eckstein is my favorite example of a player like this.
David Eckstein, best known for his tenure with the St. Louis Cardinals in which he won a World Series championship as well as World Series MVP honors, played from 2001-2010, bouncing around from various teams in both the American and National leagues. His legendary postseason performance in 2006 is extraordinary. In the World Series of that year, Eckstein was hitless in game one. Over the next three games, his slash-line read .615/.643/.846 as he registered a total of eight hits — three of them for extra bases — scored three runs and drove in four, easily winning World Series MVP along the way.
By no means a slugger, the 5-foot-6, 170-pound Eckstein played in over 1,300 games and managed to hit just 35 home runs, never more than eight in a season and is a proud owner of a .355 career slugging-percentage.
A master of the walk and base-hit up the middle, Eckstein nearly walked as many times as he struck out during his career, always putting up a fight during his at-bats. The small speedster was also the league-leader in hit by pitches and sacrifice hits twice over the course of his career. Point being, David Eckstein always found a way to get on base by whatever means necessary. Never a big home run hitter and one that does not have any “black ink” on the back of his baseball card (meaning amount of times a player leads the league in any of the “important” offensive categories), Eckstein was and always will be very underrated, but damn did he know how to play the game of baseball.