Which players were underrated by both MVP votes and Hall of Fame Votes?

The links to the two relevant posts are given at the end of this post. Those links explain the regression method and have links to the complete rankings. The basic idea is that if a guy got fewer MVP shares or fewer Hall of Fame votes than expected based on his WAR, he was considered underrated.

Some players were very underrated in one measure but very overrated in the other. The MVP study had 810 players and the Hall of Fame study had 430. So the ranks are not quite comparable.

Table 1 shows how the 20 most underrated by the Hall of Fame measure ranked in the MVP measure.

Table 1

HOF Rank	Player	MVP Rank
1	Ron Santo	53
2	Ken Boyer	524
3	Bobby Grich	9
4	Duke Snider	620
5	Scott Rolen	11
6	Eddie Mathews	5
7	Dick Allen	624
8	Sal Bando	354
9	Richie Ashburn	24
10	Jim Wynn	46
11	Kenny Lofton	17
12	Cesar Cedeno	60
13	Jim Fregosi	101
14	Alan Trammell	56
15	Bobby Abreu	12
16	Graig Nettles	14
17	Buddy Bell	8
18	Keith Hernandez	707
19	Minnie Minoso	738
20	Bobby Bonds	163

 

The players in red are in the top 20 in both lists, so they could be considered very underrated.

Table 2 shows how the 20 most underrated by the MVP measure ranked in the Hall of Fame measure.

Table 2

MVP Rank	Player	HOF Rank
1	Lou Whitaker	30
2	Willie Mays	340
3	Wade Boggs	393
4	Rickey Henderson	392
5	Eddie Mathews	6
6	Willie Randolph	36
7	Ozzie Smith	426
8	Buddy Bell	17
9	Bobby Grich	3
10	Willie Davis	NA
11	Scott Rolen	5
12	Bobby Abreu	15
13	Chet Lemon	28
14	Graig Nettles	16
15	Johnny Damon	69
16	Darrell Evans	31
17	Kenny Lofton	11
18	Hank Aaron	390
19	Carl Yastrzemski	399
20	Tony Phillips	51

 

When I did the original posts back in 2014, Damon, Rolen & Abreu had not yet become eligible for the Hall of Fame. Since they have come up on the ballot after that, I estimated their predicted vote % and ranked them accordingly. Willie Davis never actually appeared on a Hall of Fame Ballot.

Here are the two original studies:

Was Willie Mays The Most Underrated Player In History? Or Was It Wade Boggs? Is Albert Pujols The Most Overrated? (Revised) (has the MVP study)

Using A Player's WAR To Predict First Year Hall Of Fame Vote Percentage (and possibly estimate "underratedness") g

Update Jan. 9: Joe Posnanski recently came up with a top 10 list. See Baseball's Most Underrated Players Ever.

Five of the seven guys I have highlighted in red above made his top 10 (the guys who were in the top 20 of both of my studies). They were

Bobby Abreu
Buddy Bell
Bobby Grich
Kenny Lofton
Eddie Mathews

What about the other five on Posnanski's list? How did they do in both of my studies? In general, they were underrated in both.

Willie Davis was number 10 in my MVP vote study but did not have a rank in the Hall of Fame study since his name never actually appeared on the ballot. If we give him 0% his score would be -.22 since he would have been expected to get 22% of the vote. That would put him 21st in the Hall of Fame study.

Darrell Evans would be 32nd in the Hall of Fame study if we included Davis. He was 16th in the MVP study.

Lou Whitaker was first in the MVP study and 31st in the Hall of Fame study.

Dwight Evans was 47th in the Hall of Fame study and 54th in the MVP study

Keith Hernandez was 19th in the Hall of Fame study and was 707th in the MVP voting study (which means he did well in the MVP voting during his career).

The two guys among the seven who were in the top 20 of both my MVP study and my Hall of Fame study that are not in Joe Posnanski's top 10 are Scott Rolen and Craig Nettles.