[G1911]

It's in good fun. This is a list a baseball pal and I decided on this afternoon at lunch, the players who acclaim is most distant from their measurable, statistical performance, for a full starting 9. I'd like to see your picks for a team.


SP Nolan Ryan
C Yadier Molina
1B Tony Perez
2B Jackie Robinson
SS Cal Ripken
3B Pie Traynor
LF Lou Brock
CF Mike Trout
RF Roberto Clemente


SP - 112 ERA+. The K’s, the No Hitters, the press. But he wasn’t particularly good over the course of his career at not giving up runs. His astounding longevity is impressive enough; but his legend doesn’t stand up to statistical scrutiny.

C Yadier Molina - Maybe it’s me, but I don’t see it. Reliable, good catcher for many years, which is genuinely worth a lot, but his reputation has grown greatly the last few years into being hall worthy, and seems to be expanding from there into a no brainer. A compiler.

1B is the realm of sluggers, Perez I think is the most overrated of them. He made the Hall for being on the Big Red Machine and chalking up RBI’s on a time where that’s not much of an accomplishment. 122 is an abysmally low OPS+ for a 1B. He led the league in GDP once, and that’s it. Unlike many of Frisch’s cronies and other poor elections, he isn’t usually brought up as one.

2B can only be one, painful as it is to put him. Jackie was a great player, and a great man who represents a watershed moment of progress. It doesn’t change that he was nowhere near as good as the public generally holds him to be off his fame. It is often difficult to divorce his significance and impact from his actual performance, which was excellent and Hall worthy itself, but not near top 5 great.

3B is hard; I couldn’t think of one that’s severely overrated today. Traynor was generally rated as the greatest 3B of all time well into the post WWII era, which seems very difficult to reasonably find in the statistics. I don’t think the baseball public is really far off the 3B generally found in discussion, Schmidt, Chipper, Matthews, Boggs.

SS I almost chose Jeter. He’s a hard case, half think he’s basically Ruth but the other half think he was garbage and the worst defensive player of all time, which is rather excessive. He’s spawned more of an ‘opposite reaction’ to an initial overrating in the public consciousness (other than cheaters) than anyone else. Ripken is a 112 OPS+ guy, a compiler with great durability, which has a lot of value, but his reputation is as a contender for the best SS of all time. He’s not, objectively.

LF A major record holder for awhile, and he hit .293. He didn’t do much besides hit .293 and steal bases. By most total value measures, he is one of the hall’s worst, but due to the record isn’t usually highlighted as a mistake. I think there’s a good argument that holding the career SB record is reason enough to be in the Hall, but he really wasn’t hall level quality of play.

CF He might rival Mays for the CF GOAT when it’s all done, but the baseball public is ready to crown Trout after 11 seasons. It’s far out of proportion to a sober look at what he has actually done. Tomorrow is not writ today.

RF Clemente was an actual hero, who died doing the right thing when he didn’t have to do anything. But his virtue has nothing to do with his performance on the diamond. He was the 3rd or 4th best RF of his era (Aaron, Robinson, toss up with Kaline); the public attention makes him seem like the 3rd or 4th best of any position ever. A deserving Hall of Famer, a deserving great, but not deserving of the top tier he is always placed in above everyone else who posted similar statistics.





It is opinion; claims to a players performance or a particular stat should be true, but evaluating total value is an opinion. It is an opinion in good fun; it is not an insult to anyone, just a fun exercise baseball fan’s have been doing for decades. None of these players are terrible, or their fans wrong for liking them. One can like and even admire a person but recognize their statistical measure is not quite in accord with their fame and reputation.