ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark wrote a column Friday called “Who’s most underrated? Start with Oswalt.”

When I read the headline I was intrigued. How could anyone call Roy Oswalt underrated? Curious to find out why, I opened Stark’s column in search of his explanation.

Here’s the start of Stark’s explanation on Oswalt:

Could somebody please explain why this guy isn’t considered the National League’s Johan Santana?

Oswalt is a two-time 20-game winner. He leads all active right-handers not named Pedro Martinez in winning percentage (104-50, .675). And he’s the only active pitcher who can say he has never — never — had a season in which his winning percentage was worse than .625 or his ERA was higher than 3.50. Yet not only has he never won a Cy Young Award — he’s only finished in the top three once. Ridiculous, isn’t it?

As far as NL starting pitchers go, is there anyone that knows anything about baseball that wouldn’t put Oswalt in the top five? We can argue endlessly as to where, exactly, he belongs in that top five, as a case can probably be made for any of those slots. But I don’t think anynoe is underappreciating him.

Rob Neyer, among other analysts, picked him to win the Cy Young this year. It’s hard for me to believe that players who are getting picked as preseason Cy Young favorites are underrated.

The next two players on Stark’s list are also a bit absurd: 2. Trevor Hoffman and 3. Hanley Ramirez.

Let’s break them down:

Hoffman is a lock for the Hall of Fame. He is closing in on 500 saves and is already the career saves leader. Underrated?

Can a future Hall of Famer be THAT underrated? I don’t think so. (AP Photo)

After reading through Stark’s Hoffman explanation, I scrolled back up to the top to see what terms he used to define underrated. If his terms were “Future Hall of Famers that have set the benchmark at their position,” then I would have accepted this choice. But, alas, there was no definition of underrated.

Hanley Ramirez is an odd choice because he’s only in his second season. Can anyone really be underappreciated if they have barely played 200 Major League games in their career?

He’s easily a top three short stop, and if it weren’t for a guy named Jose Reyes, he’d be the best NL short stop, at least in terms of his bat — his defense isn’t spectacular, but it’s nothing to scoff at, either.

So how can these players, who are the class of their respective positions, be called underrated?

Some players on the rest of Stark’s list made sense to me. Names like: Placido Polanco, Kevin Youkilis and Travis Hafner are not household names, and they’re certainly underrated — by any definition (except maybe Hafner, who even Stark admitted was a stretch).

Just, out.

The Brewers finally made the decision to call up big time third base prospect Ryan Braun.

The team’s third base platoon ranked in the bottom five in slugging percentage, batting average, home runs, runs scored and RBIs.

Braun has torn up the Pacific Coast League, though, with a 1.152 OPS and a .342 batting average.

His poor defense was the reason he was left down so long, but apparently he’s made strides toward improving it and is ready to play — hopefully everyday.

The Brewers are going to be a whole lot tougher to catch, I think.

Just, out.