Docs Website

53 Years Strong! A Trusted Leader In Sports Picks, Best Bets and Predictions Since 1971.

Main Menu

Seven MLB Sluggers Who Didn’t Get Enough Accolades

by Jeremy Block - 6/19/2025

MLB sluggers without accolades Vladimir Guerrero

Baseball’s spotlight always had a short attention span. If you weren’t hitting missiles all season or didn’t have a catchy nickname, chances are your career got filed under the “oh yeah, that guy was good” category. Meanwhile, plenty of reliable power hitters were doing their thing while the media obsessed over whatever Yankee was having a midseason crisis.

This list is for the real power threats who never got the attention they earned. No legacy tour, no bobblehead nights—just players who crushed it year after year while flying under the radar. Let’s look at seven sluggers who didn’t get enough credit.

Doc’s Sports offers MLB expert picks for every game on our baseball predictions page.

Riggs Stephenson

You know you’re underrated when your name sounds like either a 1920s mob accountant or the third-string quarterback from a  low-budget Friday Night Lights reboot. But Riggs Stephenson could flat-out annihilate the ball and is completely overlooked. Stephenson hit .336 over a 14-year career, and no one talks about him because he did it while Babe Ruth was busy hogging the spotlight.

Look, Stephenson wasn't a slugger in the 50-homer sense, like Ruth and others, but he was a slugger. He racked up 1515 hits, and posted a career .407 OBP, and had over an .850 OPS in eight different seasons. That’s not “good for the era”—that’s just good overall. If Stephenson had done this in the steroid era, he’d be on a Wheaties box, no questions asked. But because he didn’t hit 500-foot moonshots or run his mouth, he never got the credit he actually earned.

 Lew Fonseca

Lew Fonseca doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue when you talk about batting champs, but the guy earned his spot. In 1929, he hit .369, led the American League batting average, and took home the batting title. Not a huge home run threat, but Fonseca knew how to crack the bat, and make pitchers miserable.

Fonseca finished his 14-year career with a .316 batting average. Yet somehow, he remains buried in baseball history, lost between bigger names. Maybe it’s because he didn’t swing for the fences, or maybe Cleveland and Chicago just didn’t have a big marketing team back then. Either way, Fonseca deserves more credit than he gets.

Bill Madlock

Some hitters pile up numbers quietly, sneaking under the radar while the crowd cheers for the obvious superstars, and Bill Madlock fits that description perfectly. He wasn’t the guy smashing jaw-dropping homers, but he was a reliable bat that brought the heat. 

With a .305 career batting average, a .365 OBP, and over 2,000 hits, it’s clear Madlock made pitchers pay every time he stepped to the plate. He wasn’t flashy, but the stats speak loud enough. Sadly, the Hall of Fame has yet to recognize his worth.

Chili Davis

Sliding into the fourth spot on this list is Chili Davis. Yeah, the name sounds like a fictional player you’d make up for a book, but he was very real—and very good. Davis finished his career with 350 homers, 2,380 hits, and did it with the kind of consistency that makes sportswriters forget about you entirely.

The three-time World Series champion was also a switch-hitter and had multiple seasons with a .300+ batting average and 20+ homeruns—which used to mean something before the analysts ruined the game. Davis was the kind of player who made your offense instantly better. And yet, most of the baseball world doesn’t even know who he is.

Jim Edmonds

Jim Edmonds may have eight Gold Gloves, but what people forget is that he could hit a baseball so hard it probably needed trauma therapy. With 393 home runs and a career .903 OPS, Edmonds wasn’t just making diving catches—he was also obliterating any pitch that he liked.

So why doesn’t he get more love? Probably because he made it look too easy. Or maybe because he spent most of his career in St. Louis and Anaheim instead of Boston or the Bronx. Either way, Edmonds was one of the best center fielders of his generation, and the lack of recognition is just weird at this point.

Ellis Burks

Coming in at number six is Ellis Burks. Now, Burks had one of those careers that aged way better than anyone seemed to notice. Over 18 seasons, he put up more than 2,100 hits, 352 home runs, and more than 1,200 RBIs. That’s not a nice little run—that’s a borderline star who somehow never got treated like one.

Adding to that, Burks had four different 30-homerun seasons, hit .300 or better six times, and kept producing well into his mid-30s. Burks didn’t make headlines, but the numbers speak for themselves, and they’ve been ignored for way too long.

Vladimir Guerrero

Now hold up. Yes, ‘Vlad’ got some love. But not nearly enough. People often saw him as just an above-average hitter with a rocket of an arm, when in reality, he was an offensive wrecking ball. Vladimir Guerrero hit .318, launched 449 home runs, and finished with a .931 OPS for his 16 years in the league. Those are career numbers that should be getting shouted from rooftops.

He wasn’t known for his glove, fine—but his bat more than carried the weight. Guerrero posted eight seasons with 32 or more homers and never batted under .290 outside of his rookie season. For a hitter with that kind of power and consistency, it’s wild how often he gets overlooked.

Get MLB picks on every single game, or if you want our very best bet premium picks by the experts, sign up for your free $60 account with a guarantee.


 

Most Recent Baseball Handicapping

One E-mail A Week Is All You Need!
Our weekly newsletter is loaded with exclusive free picks,insight and advice from our expert handicappers