Jayson Stark, I Have a Request, Sir

Please, PLEASE stop writing things about how overrated or underrated people are. It's subjective, so it's tough to be wrong, but you manage to do it anyway.

Here, we learn that Craig Biggio is the most underrated 2B ever.

You want a player who was overshadowed by other stars? Heck, he played with Jeff Bagwell, Lance Berkman, Moises Alou, Luis Gonzalez, Richard Hidalgo, and Steve Finley -- all of whom commanded at least as much national hoopla as Biggio did.

Richard Hidalgo is a true star. I bet if we took a poll among casual baseball fans (either now, or in 2000/2003 when he was actually relevant), more people would have heard of Craig Biggio than Richard Hidalgo. Remember the Killer B's? Biggio was very famous for being part of several different trios of B-men. Steve Finley???

And it wasn't the lineup that ever seemed to be the face of the Astros, anyway. It was all those pitchers: Roger Clemens, Roy Oswalt, Andy Pettitte, Randy Johnson, Billy Wagner, Brad Lidge, Mike Hampton, Mike Scott, Darryl Kile.

The only face that Brad Lidge could put on the Astros is a barfing face. He was a sick closer (a guy that pitches a relatively small number of innings) for like two years. Ask Mike Sweeney if that's long enough to become the face of a baseball team.

You want those always-helpful height issues? Biggio mastered them nicely, too. He could have grown an extra inch and made it to 6' even. But he understood, even during puberty, that that one little inch might eliminate him from consideration by important literary volumes like this one.

I acknowledge that you're kidding, but still, why did this get printed?

You want a man who avoided October? Okay, Biggio didn't quite do that. His teams did make the playoffs six times. But this fellow appeared in 2,564 regular-season box scores before he played in his first World Series game in 2005. That was more than any player in the whole World Series era (1903-present). So how poetic was that?

What does this have to do with Craig Biggio being underrated? And to answer your question, RIDICULOUSLY POETIC.

Finally, you want intangibles?

No, they aren't important, thanks.

We'll give you some serious stinkin' intangibles.

Gah, it's not like I thought you'd listen.......

What other seven-time All-Star (Non-Pete Rose Division) was willing to change positions four times (from catcher to second base to center field to left field and then back to second base) during his career, mostly because his team's lineup worked better if he made those moves? Okay, so Carlos Beltran and Willy Taveras had something to do with those final two relocations.

Position changes are very tangible. They are visible things that show up in stat books. Alfonso Soriano and Alex Rodriguez were required to change their positions......why doesn't that give them intangibles?

So what we have here is a player who has spent his career skating along two trails that don't always run parallel. One is leading him to the Hall of Fame. The other dragged him into this very chapter in this very book. So he can head for the window and cash that daily-double ticket any time he's ready.

No. Craig Biggio should not be in the Hall of Fame. Here's what it boils down to. Career .282 EqA. Career -123 FRAA. If you discount his first season in which he played in only 50 games, career 123.3 WARP3, which boils down to about 6.5 per season. Pretty good, but not Hall of Fame quality. A true future Hall of Famer, Frank Thomas, averaged 8.18 WARP3 in his full seasons, including 7 straight seasons 9.8 or higher.

Please don't use any cherry-pickish stats that try to convince me otherwise. When you're an above-average professional baseball player and you play for 20 years, you're inevitably going to be high on a lot of stat lists.

Oh, it's not as if Biggio has played his whole career incognito. The Astros showed up in October enough to assure that your average Baseball Tonight viewer knew his name, and could even spell it. But how many of those folks realized they were watching one of the all-time greats at his primary position (i.e., the position that didn't involve shin guards or mad sprints around the outfield)? Remarkably few.

You're right. Very few realized this. That's because you're making it up.

But that's what Craig Biggio is, you know -- an all-time great. By the time he's finished, the only men in history who accumulated more hits than him while spending most of their careers playing second base will be Eddie Collins (3,315) and Nap Lajoie (3,242). And in case those names don't bring back any vivid memories, it might be because they were both doing some of their best baseball work during World War I.

It's remarkable that Biggio has been serviceable at second base for so long, granted, but if you don't have a shitton of hits after playing for 20 years, that's sad.

And no player in National League history has hit more home runs leading off games than Biggio (who did that for the 50th time in 2006).

What did I tell you about cherry picking? And home runs leading off games are just about the least useful home runs you can hit.

It may be true that he wasn't passing Aaron in the kind of extra-base hit Aaron became most noted for. But for a guy like Biggio, doubles fit right into his underratedness formula. If you're known for hitting home runs, you're always in danger of making somebody's overrated list (even this one).

Overrated list? I thought that was the "being good at baseball" list.

If you want to be underrated, you do stuff like hit 50 doubles in back-to-back seasons. (Biggio is one of only four men to do that since the 1930s.) And roll up 50 doubles and 50 stolen bases in the same season. (Biggio's 50-50 season in 1998 made him the first player to do that since Tris Speaker, who did it in 1912.)

Stolen bases are a one-way ticket to overratedness. Scott Podsednik. Juan Pierre.

I've seen this man play enough to recognize that, at his peak, he may not have been as dominating as Joe Morgan, or as dazzling a worker in the second-base leather shop as Roberto Alomar. But Craig Biggio was still scoring 100 runs at age 38, and still hitting 20 homers at age 40. And he hustled his butt off to first base every time he put a ball in play. That's not something you can say about every guy who hangs around this many years.

The fact that he hit 20 homers at age 40 is impressive. I'll leave that little bit out and rephrase this paragraph.

"He may not have been as good a hitter as an actual Hall of Fame quality 2nd basemen, or as good a fielder as a Hall of Fame quality 2nd basemen, but he's still going to the Hall of Fame. He scored 100 runs at age 38, which shows he was really good at getting knocked in by hitters behind him (his .337 OBP that season is evidence that this was less Biggio's doing than others). Much like almost all players that play professional baseball, Biggio runs hard to first base to try to avoid an out or to get extra bases out of his hits."

Dependability and durability are qualities we sometimes take for granted -- when, in fact, they're the most valuable ingredients to look for in any athlete.

Ooooooohhhhhhhhh, sorry Jayson. The answer we were looking for was.....you're never going to believe this....yep....it's "talent".

I don't know what Biggio's actual chances are of becoming a Hall of Famer. In my mind, he's had a very good career, but he shouldn't be in, simply because even if a case was made for him being a truly great player, it would only hold between 1994 and 1998. The rest of his 20-year career is filled with average to above average performances.