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David Schoenfield offers up a little tribute to Craig Biggio.

I apologize, but this one lends itself to being stat-heavy.

Craig Biggio's name has never been linked to performance-enhancing drugs, but I know two things he tested positive for during his Hall of Fame career: hustle and dirt.

Other players who have tested positive for hustle:

Jim Thome
Jack Wilson
Ronnie Belliard
Alex Rios
Eric Byrnes
Yuniesky Betancourt
98% of the rest of Major League Baseball

Other players who have tested positive for dirt:

Everyone who has ever slid into a base.

This Biggio fellow is pretty unique, eh?

Despite playing much of his career in the Astrodome, Biggio always found a way to get dirt on his uniform.

This is in no way impressive. Biggio had a great career. You are basically shitting on him by pointing to this as a reason and ignoring things he was actually good at.

But (and no offense to David Eckstein here) Biggio was much more than a scrappy hustler: He's arguably one of the top 50 players in the game's history.

Now that the lunchpail alert is officially the brightest red it has ever been, I can successfully puke.

Just off the top of my head, Biggio had 3 contemporary teammates who were definitely better than him: Jeff Bagwell (career .322 EqA....monster), Roger Clemens, and Lance Berkman. You really think it's tough to knock off another 47?

If Biggio gets into the Hall of Fame, which he probably will, and deservedly so (I've come around on this), it's on the strength of his durability, character, and counting stats. He was a legitimately great player for like 6 years or so in the 90's when he was OBPing .400 and stuff. Top 50 of all time? No.

He came up as a catcher, became an All-Star, moved to second base and was a Gold Glover.

Fielding stats are pretty sketchy at times, but Biggio's FRAA was -163 for his career, and had 11 seasons of -10 FRAA or more. I think it's pretty clear that Biggio was not a very good defensive second baseman.

He topped 10 home runs just once in his first four seasons, but finished with eight seasons of 20-plus home runs.

Reggie Sanders had 10 of those things.

He stole 50 bases once

Juan Pierre has done that 4 times.

he hit 56 doubles another time;

You got me there.

he scored 146 runs in 1997 (only Astros teammate Jeff Bagwell has scored more in a season since 1950);

22 of which he scored with no teammate assistance!

Funny you mention Bagwell.....you think he might have been a large part of the reason Biggio got to that absurd total? Bagwell had 85 extra base hits that year! The REAL reason that was a great season for Biggio was his .415 OBP.

Jimmy Rollins managed to score 139 runs this year on a .344 OBP. You think he wants to thank Ryan Howard and Chase Utley?

he once played 162 games and didn't ground into a single double play

That is just plain sick. Amazing job Biggio, no joke.

only 12 players have scored more than his 1,844 runs.

Because he played 20 healthy seasons batting in front of power hitters maybe? Biggio's career OBP is .363. Good, not great. It pales in comparison to say, Jeff Bagwell's .408 career OBP. I have a gigantic man-crush on Jeff Bagwell.

And, those 12 are all legends of the game -- names like Mays, Cobb, Aaron, Musial, Gehrig. His run scoring ability offers a little insight into how underappreciated Biggio was during his career; after all, isn't the object of the game to score runs?

For the last fucking time. Scoring runs is not an individual ability. It is a team ability. Getting on base is an individual ability. When you're standing on 2nd base, you can't control whether or not the guy at the plate gets the single you need to score.

For a time, it appeared Biggio's legacy (shared with Bagwell) would be one of failed Octobers. From 1997 to 2001, the Astros lost four straight playoff series and Biggio hit .083, .182, .105 and .167 in them.

Remember this, you A-Rod nay-sayers.

Finally, in 2004, Biggio hit .400 as the Astros beat the Braves for the first playoff win in franchise history. Although they lost to St. Louis in the National League Championship Series that year, in 2005 the Astros reached the World Series as Biggio hit .316 and .333 in playoff series victories. Biggio was past his prime by then, but at least he finally showed a glimmer of his greatness on a big stage.

Blah blah blah batting averages in playoff series are so luck-based it's scary. If you want to pay homage to Biggio, at least cite the facts that he is in the 3000 hit club, played 19 full seasons and only failed to crack 130 games played once for reasons other than the 1994 strike, was consistently pretty good at getting on base, and was a great character/team player/presence in the Astros clubhouse/dugout (a little puffy, but definitely true).

Instead, you chose things like dirt, hustle, that season he stole 50 bases, the 8 seasons he was an above-average home run hitter, the awesomeness of the hitters behind him at driving him in, and postseason batting averages.

I sincerely hope David Schoenfield is never asked to give a eulogy at a funeral.

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.