Bill James called former Red Sox Darrell Evans "absolutely" the most underrated player in all of baseball history, pointing out that he hit almost all of the criteria on the below list.Here's that James list of criteria that cause players to be under- and over-rated, with a few more recent player examples...

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1. Specialists (Omar Vizquel) are overrated; players who do many things well (Randy Winn, Mark McLemore) are underrated.

2. AVG (Sean Casey) is overrated; BB, 2B, etc (Brian Giles) are underrated.

3. RBI (Carlos Lee) are overrated ... R underrated (Juan Pierre earlier).

4. Players with rings (Derek Jeter) are overrated.

5. NY-LA players (Jeter, O'Neill, etc.) are often overrated; players in small markets are underrated (Richie Sexson and Mike Sweeney a few years ago ... imagine them in NY).

6. Being glib and popular with sportswriters (Jeter) gets a player overrated, many times. Compare a guy who is hated by the press (Erik Bedard).

7. Playing in parks that favor a player's skills (lefties in NY like Tino Martinez, pitchers in Dodger like the earlier Chan Ho Park, e.g.).

8. Hitters from big-hitting eras (1930's), pitchers from the 1960's.

9. Undocumented skills (leadership, defense, etc) are underrated (Mike Cameron).

10. Things that "break up" a player's career - team changes, position changes, etc -- cause him to be underrated (Melvin Mora).

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=== Current Red Sox ===

Dustin Pedroia, a fine player, hits in a park that favors him.

HBT pointed out that Adam Dunn hit 16 balls in 2008 that were 400+ feet and that were NOT home runs -- 16 different fly balls >400 feet that didn't go for HR's!

Pedroia hit 17 home runs and never hit a single ball 400 feet. His longest was 391, but the line showed 17 homers. Again, Pedroia is a very good player, but some fans think of him as the best player in the league.

For his career, Pedroia has a 893 OPS in Fenway, 766 on the road. That's 115 in one park and a below-average 85 in all the others.

The Sox don't care about that, since Pedroia will in fact be hitting those 370-foot fly balls in Fenway. And he was only 24 in his MVP season, so has room to improve even from where he is now. ...but it's safe to say that Pedroia would not be thought of as highly, if he played in Kansas City.

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Kevin Youkilis was underrated for many years, because he's a doubles-walks guy (#2 above). This can especially cost you rep points if you play 1B.Even last year, Youkilis had a 143 OPS+ ... he was 43% better than a solid AL player even AFTER you adjust for Fenway. Youk was only a few ticks behind ARod, and was ahead of Mauer, Morneau and Hamilton. Does anybody think of the 2008 Sox as having had a Justin Morneau at first base?

Cheers,

Dr D