Most overrated baseball superstar ever?

[rats60]

Originally Posted by cardsagain74

"Might be top 20-25"......?

Mantle's lifetime road OPS was .958. His WAR/season is also top 10 caliber.

I understand people thinking he's a little overrated (though I don't agree), but this is taking it way too far.

Thanks for proving my point. DiMaggio's lifetime road OPS was 1.016 and that is with losing age 28-30 seasons to World War 2.

[cardsagain74]

Originally Posted by rats60

Thanks for proving my point. DiMaggio's lifetime road OPS was 1.016 and that is with losing age 28-30 seasons to World War 2.

That changes nothing about whether Mantle had a top 10 career. It only shows how much better Dimaggio was than his base numbers (since he was a right-handed hitter in Yankee stadium in that era).

Your other post about Dimaggio is wrong too, because he said that his chart only includes those with at least 2000 games. Dimaggio's career didn't have that many (otherwise he would've been way up there too)

[cardsagain74]

Another thing about the WAR numbers: look at the top 10 of that list, especially if you replace A Rod with Dimaggio. Most every day fans with no concept of the fancy modern statistical metrics would agree that those were pretty much the 10 best position baseball players of the modern era.

The only thing it doesn't account for is how much being a catcher hurts your offensive numbers, especially careerwise. Maybe substitute Bench in for someone.

But overall, the WAR numbers appear to do a great job of representing a player's ability, career accomplishments, and value to his team

[rats60]

Originally Posted by cardsagain74

Another thing about the WAR numbers: look at the top 10 of that list, especially if you replace A Rod with Dimaggio. Most every day fans with no concept of the fancy modern statistical metrics would agree that those were pretty much the 10 best position baseball players of the modern era.

The only thing it doesn't account for is how much being a catcher hurts your offensive numbers, especially careerwise. Maybe substitute Bench in for someone.

But overall, the WAR numbers appear to do a great job of representing a player's ability, career accomplishments, and value to his team

Well even by WAR, Mantle is 21st. If you remove the one 19th century player, he is 20th. Remove the 3 steroid users 17th. That is not close to being a top 10 player even before addressing the problems with WAR that skew Mantle's numbers higher than they should be. Bill James and Nate Silver have been critical of WAR. I am not drinking the koolaid. In the end WAR is just one (or two) person's opinion of players value. I do not agree it does even an adequate job of representing a players value. It skews some players like Mantle too high. It skews catchers like Johnny Bench way too low. A stat that thinks Phil Niekro and Bert Blyleven were better than Bob Gibson and Pedro Martinez can't be taken seriously.

[cardsagain74]

Originally Posted by rats60

Well even by WAR, Mantle is 21st. If you remove the one 19th century player, he is 20th. Remove the 3 steroid users 17th. That is not close to being a top 10 player even before addressing the problems with WAR that skew Mantle's numbers higher than they should be. Bill James and Nate Silver have been critical of WAR. I am not drinking the koolaid. In the end WAR is just one (or two) person's opinion of players value. I do not agree it does even an adequate job of representing a players value. It skews some players like Mantle too high. It skews catchers like Johnny Bench way too low. A stat that thinks Phil Niekro and Bert Blyleven were better than Bob Gibson and Pedro Martinez can't be taken seriously.

You're just looking at the basic cumulative career WAR totals. Mantle, Pedro, and Gibson had much shorter careers then Niekro and Blyleven. That's why the chart above looked at it per games played. It's the sensible measure of who was "better" for players who lasted long enough for HOF consideration.

And as mentioned above somewhere, Mantle led the league in on-base percentage, walks, and especially OPS a bunch of times. So even if you forget throw out the WAR stats, those Bill James type numbers are well in his favor too.

The only objective argument for Mantle not being a top 10 all-timer is if you punish him a lot for not having a really long career. Which is the same thing you don't want to do to Pedro or Bob Gibson (who are in the same boat).

[G1911]

Overrated superstars, these are the ones that come to my mind. Most of them have some emotional pull for a great many fans that seems to supersede math when rating them.


Cal Ripken, Jr. Deserving Hall of Famer and his game streak is one heck of an accomplishment, but overrated performance on the whole.


Nolan Ryan - Big points for longevity, but he wasn't particularly good at not giving up runs (112 ERA+), which is all that really matters at the end of the day for a pitcher. His extreme walk totals are as impressive as the K's that everyone talks about. 20+ seasons of effective pitching gets you a HOF ticket in my book, but many mediocre pitchers were better at not giving up runs than Nolan was. Probably the most overrated pitcher of all time.


Derek Jeter? - Torn on this. He is now so famous for being overrated that he is underrated by WAR lovers and still massively overrated by casual fans. His defense was not actually as bad as is often stated now.


Roberto Clemente - Value wise, he is pretty much the same as Al Kaline, a great Hall of Famer RF. He does not belong ranked with Mays and Mantle; perhaps the prime example of emotional attachment affecting rationality.


Bryce Harper - His hype train is still trucking and seems like it's not going to ever meet reality at this point. A talented man, whose numbers do not support the press clippings.


Pete Rose - Writing yourself into the lineup for several years after you have stopped being even a league average bat sure helps break records. Too much is made of his hits, and not his batting average and all-time plate appearances and at-bats records. I value longevity more than most, but Rose is still not the top 15-20 player he is usually made out to be by the public.

Carl Yastrzemski - A HOFer, a truly great player from 1967-1970, but the press clippings pretend he played at that level his whole career. He wasn't much special outside of a 4 year peak, just an effective, reliable bat.


Thurman Munson - Catcher stats are the hardest to evaluate I think, but he seems the primary example of the big market bias + tragedy = hagiography equation.


Hal Chase - Anecdotes aside, his numbers are not that impressive and a player rigging games against you almost certainly causes more losses than wins. a replacement player was probably more valuable to his teams winning percentage than Chase was.


There are many others that are overrated by certain fan groups (geographic/ team or ethnic usually) but these are the ones where I can't get the math to ever meet the broadly accepted narratives. As for Mantle, I think he is overrated in that he was probably the 2nd greatest player of his time and not the 1st, but this seems to me a rather pedantic and technical point that misses the forrest for a tree.




For the opposite end of the coin, Underrated:
Minnie Minoso, Frank Robinson, Ralph Kiner come to mind. I think Lefty Grove was severely underrated until Bill James.

Most players that played just a big below a Hall of Fame level, particularly in small or mid markets. Guys like Will Clark, Tori Hunter level players.

Most players who made the Hall of Fame but weren't really Hall of fame level players, and whose claim to fame is now being undeserving. They were almost all actually excellent players, and their accomplishments are no longer remembered, only that Frisch or someone else shoved them through to the Hall.


Most 19th century players. A huge portion of the baseball fan base speaks as if 1899 doesn't count, and 1900 is when the first good players came around.


Players elected to the Hall of Fame primarily for their defense, who are popularly attacked as underserving because they have mediocre hitting stats. HOF voters were well aware that Rabbit Maranville was not a titan at the plate, but the narrative has become that these players were mediocre or even worse.


Players who excelled by the stats of their day, but WAR doesn't like have become underrated as nuance is lost. George Sisler, Pie Traynor, etc.


Players who excelled in stats and areas of the game not known or fully realized in their own time. High on-base low-average guys through the 60's, for example.