Monday, July 23, 2007

Hanley Ramirez: Most Underrated MLB Player

I try not to get too big in the "underrated/overrated" game, because it's so subjective, and players are ranked differently by pretty much everybody. But in this case I have to make an exception, and claim Hanley Ramirez as the most underrated player in the MLB right now. I think people know he's good, but I'm not sure people realize just how good.

The biggest reason for this is that he plays in Florida in front of about 100 fans every game. The Marlins are an OK team, but they have, well, not much of a fan base. Second, everyone is so enamored with Jose Reyes they hardly have time to focus on another NL East SS. This isn't such a bad thing... Reyes is really good after all... and they're really pretty close when you compare them, but I think people tend to overlook Ramirez because they don't think he stacks up to Ramirez.

This rings true when looking at the final All-Star voting, when Jose Reyes was voted the NL Starter and Hanley Ramirez finished 8th. 8TH. Among NL Shortstops. And then he didn't even make the team as a reserve. That's a crime.

Well, as you could tell when I said Hanley Ramirez was my first-half NL MVP, I think he's a pretty special player. He is only 23 years old right now, 6 months younger than Jose Reyes. It's not very often that you see 23 year-old SS being one of the best hitters in the League, but that's the case here. He ranks 9th in the NL in OPS, and again this is especially valuable coming from a SS with lots of speed.

Ramirez was very good last year as a rookie (when he won ROY), but has bumped his performance up from being a very good player to being a star. His average is up, he is getting on base at about a .390 clip, and he is showing a lot of power. He's on pace to hit 46 doubles, 8 triples, and 27 homeruns. That's absurd.

He's also a terror on the basepaths. He's not quite the base stealer Reyes is, but he already has 27 stolen bases, which is 4th in the NL. This is following up the 51 that he had last year.

He dislocated his shoulder in Sunday's game, and hopefully it isn't too serious so that he can continue to put up fantastic numbers to hopefully get him some more recognition. There are better known SS's in the MLB, and there are a lot of better known player, but I'm not sure there's too many players that are better than Hanley Ramirez is right now, at age 23. Indeed, he currently sits 3rd in the MLB in VORP, behind only A-Rod and Magglio Ordonez.

So by that measure at least Hanley is a top 3 player in the MLB... so why doesn't he get any recognition for it?

8 comments:

rstiles said...

I agree 100% about Hanley....he is a sweet player and very under-rated....if stayed with Boston he would have been known by everyone, but he is stuck down in florida

Anonymous said...

and then he gets hurt. the curse of Complete Sports....

Anonymous said...

Anyone who plays for the Marlins has a case for being thought of as underated because nobody really notices any of them.

But in Hanley's case, yeah the definition works.

Kasey Loessberg said...

It would be nice if the Marlins could ever get a new stadium. Maybe then they could afford to keep their players.

ncaabasketballscores.blogspot.com

Kevin Hayward said...

8th in AS voting? That's bad. But then again, I think the majority of votes come from home fans, and as you say, there aren't many of those to speak of in Florida.

Larry Brown said...

I was thinking about posting this exact same topic over the weekend. I swear, we share half a baseball mind. Did you see his HR on Saturday? The hardest hit home run I've seen this year.

Anonymous said...

酒店打工 酒店兼職
台北酒店 打工兼差 酒店
酒店經紀 禮服店
酒店兼差 酒店上班 酒店PT 酒店應徵 酒店工作

Unknown said...

Strongly agree

Temanjudi