Underrated Player of the Year: 2002

In this series, I look at one player per year from 1991-the present who came out of nowhere or had a great year that no one really noticed or expected.

Casey Fossum emerged as a full-time pitcher for the Red Sox in 2002. He was never really a top prospect, he just kind of arrived. Fossum was very versatile in his time with the Red Sox and this was the year that he showed this versatilty the most. Fossum pitched in 43 games in 2002, starting twelve, finishing thirteen, and coming in somewhere in the middle in the other nineteen.

Fossum generally pitched pretty well too. He went 5-4 with a 3.46 ERA and 101 strikeouts in just over 106 innings. Decent numbers for someone without a clear role. He did walk a lot of batters and gave up a lot of hits, but he mostly limited the damage.

Fossum would later be the key piece the Diamondbacks got in the Curt Schilling trade, but he never pitched as well as he did in 2002.