The greatest thing about sports—about being a sports fan—is the raw emotion it produces in all of us, leading to some epic discussions and debates.

Chances are, after looking at the title of this article and seeing Mr. Lincecum as the lead photo, you’ve already begun to construct a rant about how he can’t possibly be considered underrated. Overrated maybe, but underrated? No way!

I beg to differ, and perhaps you’ll find yourself looking at “The Freaky Franchise” differently after you’ve read this.

Maybe not.

But that’s what I’m out to do here: change our perceptions of one player on each team who simply doesn’t get the attention, credit and notoriety that they deserve. Some of it is due to injury, others due to the markets in which these players play.

To be sure, there are a handful players on this list who are simply having down seasons, lowering their value—both real and perceived—around the baseball world.

But you could make the argument that a contender could—and probably would—find a roster spot for each and every player mentioned here if the opportunity to add one to their team presented itself.

Let’s take a look at who we are talking about, shall we?

 

 

*Unless otherwise noted, all statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference and are current through games of August 5.

*wRC+ courtesy of Fangraphs; QS (Quality Starts) and HLD (Holds) courtesy of ESPN. 

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