The Most Forgotten MLB Players Of Our Time

White Sox Dave9/19/2019 4:45 PM

A few weeks back, I did a blog on the most underrated players in the game right now. In it I fully admitted that I was naming players off the top of my head. I missed a few and the comment section picked up my slack.

But today I wanna talk about something a little different but not; players from our past that nobody realize were fucking great at baseball that are no longer playing. I’m talking under the radar studs that most people born from today will never hear of unless they’re some sick baseball nerd.

I thought about breaking it down into every sport but I don’t know dick about anything other than baseball and a little bit of football, so we’re limiting it to just baseball. But FYI I think one football player that’s already kinda forgotten is Marshall Faulk. Freak of nature and one of the best ever but people already seem to have forgotten him.

Anyways, let’s do it. As always if I have any glaring misses, let me know in the comment section.

Magglio Ordonez

Maggs was the player that inspired me to concoct this list. He was one of the very best hitters in baseball for a decent stretch. Take a look at his 2007 season:

Sneaky one of the better offensive seasons of all time, and he didn’t even win the MVP that year. That award went to A-Rod. Nevertheless Maggs was a freaky good hitter. I was out on NJ on a family vacation one summer when I was in middle school and went to a White Sox vs. Yankees series and Maggs had a couple of dingers. All you could hear was “let’s get this guy in pinstripes.” Fucking Yankee fan dickheads. But I understand why, he was that good for a hot minute.

Career .309/.369/.502/.871 slash line with 294 dingers and 36 fWAR. If he would have put together a few more seasons that were similar to his career splits, he might just be talked about as a Hall of Famer today.

But hardly anyone will remember him a few years from now.

Barry Larkin

Barry Larkin is the perfect example for this blog as he’s a Hall of Famer yet if you asked me who the best players of my time were, I wouldn’t even think to name him really. I kinda forget he even exists. I was just a little too young to remember how great he was. Or maybe it was because he played his entire career in Cincinnati.

Nevertheless, he’s one of the best all around SS’s to ever play the game. 67 career fWAR, good for 10th all time for short stops, .295/.371/.444/.815 slash line with a 30/30 season, 12 all star games, 8 Silver Slugger awards, and 3 Gold Gloves… and this was a little bit before short stops were dropping dick on baseballs like they are in today’s game.

Placido Polanco

Not a Hall of Famer nor should he be, but I fucking hated playing Detroit with Polanco in the mid 2000s. He was the epitome of a “I fucking hate playing against that guy” player. But he wasn’t just scrappy or a pest, though he was “that guy” in spades. He was pretty goddamn good at baseball. Great defensively and damn near impossible to strike out. He had a Tony Gwynn-esque 6.8% career K rate and always put pressure on the defense. A real throwback type player. His offensive game wasn’t great, but he was the type of player any team on earth would love to have.

Jeff Kent

Jeff Kent fucking HATED steroids… or so he says. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was so outspoken about them just because he was juiced up himself. He was ALWAYS speaking out against them and had he played in a different era, he’d probably be a Hall of Famer, but his numbers were totally overshadowed because of the era he played in:

I don’t care what era one plays in, those are really fucking good numbers across the board, especially for a second baseman. He hasn’t even come close to getting in The Hall but if I had a vote, he’d get one.

Nobody will remember him 20 years from now though. Not at all.

Craig Biggio

Probably the worst example on this list as most baseball fans will remember him down the road, but I loved Craig Biggio and it’s my blog so fuck you. Hall of Famer, but another player who’s career was overshadowed by the stats of other players in his era.

3000 career hits, 7 all star games, 5 silver sluggers, and played allllll over the field. Catcher, CF, 2B, you name it, he could field a baseball.

Albert Belle

If you read Jose Canseco’s book “Juiced”, you’d know that Canseco says Albert Belle wasn’t on steroids. Not sure how credible a source that is, but Belle was fucking huge.

But Belle cheated in other ways. In 1994 he was popped for having a corked bat and after the bat was confiscated, the Indians had Jason Grimsley crawl through the ceiling into the ump’s locker room and switch the corked bats out for another player’s. Fucking hilarious. And yeah it didn’t work, he got caught by the FBI who conducted an investigation no less! He was suspended for 7 games for the incident.

Oh and he was really good too. Signed the largest contact in baseball history with the White Sox and was one of the premier hitters of the 1990s.