ESPN: Diamondbacks’ Ketel Marte, Christian Walker among MLB’s underrated players

Arizona Diamondbacks fans have called Ketel Marte and Christian Walker underrated for years, and ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle dove into the proof.

Doolittle took players over the past four seasons (with a minimum 11 WAR) and compared their WAR numbers to Phase I All-Star balloting and postseason MVP balloting to find which players have outperformed their national reputation. This only applied to position players.

This problem came to mind recently when a colleague texted me about another sparkling performance from Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte. This person declared Marte “the most underrated star in baseball right now.”

Really? Again: Who is doing the rating? What is the basis for those ratings?

So, here we are.

We can rate the players on performance, no problem. But what is the perception of those performances? How do we measure that?

Walker and former Diamondbacks outfielder Daulton Varsho landed in Doolittle’s top 10 for most underrated players. Marte did not after getting voted an All-Star Game starter this year, although he still came out of the wash as notably underrated compared to his production. Chicago Cubs outfielder Ian Happ turned out to be the most underrated player in the league by Doolittle’s metrics.

Walker was sixth after having been snubbed from the All-Star Game.

His performance ranks — balancing WAR totals from Baseball Reference and FanGraphs — 47th, but his support rank came out at 112th.

Walker has won two Gold Gloves but, now 33, still hasn’t played in an All-Star Game. He’s a late bloomer and that might hold back enthusiasm over his play. Through age 29, Walker had 42 career homers and 3.2 bWAR. Since then, he has hit 102 bombs and put up 11.9 bWAR.

Walker received a down-ballot MVP vote last year for the first time in his career.

Varsho — who spent the 2021 and 2022 seasons in Arizona before a trade to Toronto — was the eighth-most underrated player, ranking 33rd in performance and 78th in support.

Marte came out 30th in performance and 38th in support.

We might find out how underrated Marte is or isn’t come MVP balloting time. Shohei Ohtani, who, incidentally, leads all players in both performance rank and support rank from 2021 to 2024, is the NL favorite and is often referred to as the front-runner. That’s not wrong, but by the metrics, Marte is a lot closer than most people seem to realize. In fact, right now, his 6.1 bWAR is higher than Ohtani’s (6.0).

The most overrated player in the game by Doolittle’s ranking was Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels.

This was not due to skill but rather availability. The three-time American League MVP has averaged 66 games played per year since the start of 2021.

Longtime Diamondbacks star Paul Goldschmidt was the fourth-most overrated player given his step back over the past couple seasons after he won the 2022 NL MVP.

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