Ian Kinsler Was Remarkably Underrated
People are always a bit surprised when I tell Ian Kinsler is one of my favorite Tigers of all time. He never won a playoff game here (though he was a huge reason why the team ended up winning the division in 2014), But some ball players just give off good vibes, and I love the vibes that Ian Kinsler gave off.
I say this with love and affection, but Ian Kinsler was a bastard. He was the kind of player who would rub dirt on a broken bone to avoid missing ball games. He was an entertaining player to watch, and even though he was excellent in Detroit, his best years came in Texas. I thought I was the number one guy who led the Ian Kinsler charge. Still, I looked at his baseball-reference page, I realized that Ian Kinsler was a remarkably valuable player and easily one of those underrated of a generation.
I love the value that a great leadoff hitter provides. Great leadoff hitters are pests, man. If you can start the game with a double or home run, you put so much pressure on the other team. Kinsler was a master of this. When I watched him play, it always seemed like he was on base, and when he was on base, he tended to wreak havoc. He swiped many bags in his time, ultimately finishing with 243 steals. Everybody wants to develop and retain five-tool players.
While he may not have been overwhelmingly great in any area, Kinsler was a five-tool player. He could hit, he could hit for power, he had speed, a great arm at second base, and he was an elite defender. He only won two Gold Gloves, though if analytics and statistics like defensive runs saved were as popular when Kinsler played as they are today, he probably would've won a lot more.
Baseball has the highest percentage of underrated players. Analytics are a huge part of this. The statistics we use to determine a player's actual value have changed compared to those in the 80s or 90s. Former Tiger Alan Trammell was a prime example of this. If Alan Trammell played today, he would be one of baseball's highest-paid players. But he played in an age before WAR and the analytics we pay attention to nowadays, so we never really appreciated him at the time.
I feel very similar about Ian Kinsler. We're talking about a player who had five seasons where he put up a Wins Above Replacement of five or better. He was the clubhouse leader in Wins Above Replacement in 2011 when the Rangers were one strike away from winning the World Series. He set a career-high that season with a WAR of seven. There are Hall of Famers who never had seasons that good.
Kinsler never won an MVP award (he never really came close either), but if a player in the modern age compares to him in terms of career statistics, it's probably Josh Donaldson. Josh Donaldson won the MVP in 2015, but he had a solid eight-year window where he was one of the best players in baseball. Donaldson, much like Kinsler, wasn't able to pad their stats the way some other generational talents can. Kinsler finished with 1999 hits and a career bWAR of 51.4. His last great season came in 2016 with the Tigers, where he put up a war of 5.6. If he could've maintained that pace for two or three more seasons, his Hall of Fame candidacy would be legitimate. But he'll rightfully be put into the hall of very good.
At some point, I'll do a deep dive into players who would've benefited the most from the new rule changes, and Ian Kinsler is at the front of that list. I feel like baseball is rewarding good athletes, and Ian Kinsler was a great athlete. And while he stole 243 bags in his career, I'm sure he would've swiped a lot more now that we have the new pick-off rule in place. We'll never know what could've been, but Kinsler was one of the more underrated players of his generation.