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The 10 most under-appreciated players of the 1990s: #2 Kenny Lofton

Posted by Andy
Kenny Lofton is #2 on our countdown.

So most of us think Lofton is pretty good. He played 17 seasons and had a 107 OPS+ over a ton of plate appearances.

But those number sell short just how good Lofton was.











Let's start with defense. Lofton put up 11.5 dWAR over his career. Over 1992-1999, he had 11.3 dWAR alone. Here are the most fielding runs in baseball over that period:

Rk Player Sean Smith of BaseballProjection.com">Rfield Age Pos Tm
1 Robin Ventura 119 24-31 *5/36D CHW-NYM
2 Ivan Rodriguez 114 20-27 *2/D TEX
3 Kenny Lofton 109 25-32 *8/D CLE-ATL
4 Brian Jordan 100 25-32 *98/7D35 STL-ATL
5 Andruw Jones 99 19-22 *89/7 ATL
6 Sammy Sosa 98 23-30 *98 CHC
7 Luis Gonzalez 92 24-31 *7/D83 HOU-TOT-CHC-DET-ARI
8 John Valentin 80 25-32 *65/4D BOS
9 Mark Lemke 71 26-32 *4/5 ATL-BOS
10 Royce Clayton 69 22-29 *6/5 SFG-STL-TOT-TEX
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/19/2012.

Lofton was simply one of the best defenders to ever play.

With his defensive contributions, Lofton's career WAR was 65.3, which is 80th among position players.

Here are all the players since 1901 to average at least 0.16 runs scored per plate appearance, minimum 8000 PAs:

Rk PA R
1 Jeff Bagwell 9431 1517
2 Barry Bonds 12606 2227
3 Ty Cobb 13068 2246
4 Kiki Cuyler 8098 1305
5 Jimmie Foxx 9670 1751
6 Lou Gehrig 9660 1888
7 Charlie Gehringer 10237 1774
8 Rickey Henderson 13346 2295
9 Rogers Hornsby 9475 1579
10 Kenny Lofton 9234 1528
11 Mickey Mantle 9909 1676
12 Willie Mays 12493 2062
13 Mel Ott 11337 1859
14 Alex Rodriguez 10634 1824
15 Babe Ruth 10617 2174
16 Larry Walker 8030 1355
17 Ted Williams 9791 1798
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/19/2012.

Pretty fine group, huh? Granted, Lofton benefits from playing during a high-offense era, but notice that there are just a few contemporaries of his.

The card is 1992 Pinnacle #582. It's quite striking since it's almost all black, but it's a nice card. It's got an action photo on the front and a nice posed shot on the back. It's short on decent stats, though...

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