Most overrated baseball superstar ever?

[bnorth]

All time Mickey Mantle by a country mile.

To you fine gentlemen that said Jeter please name one player that tried harder. I am not a fan and don't own a single Jeter card. I did go to a lot of Yankee games and he seemed to try his absolute hardest on every play.

[philliesfan]

name 1 player that trier harder...………..Pete Rose.

[mcgwirecom]

Originally Posted by philliesfan

name 1 player that trier harder...………..Pete Rose.

I agree, Charlie Hustle! He willed himself to be the player he was. Was not blessed with as much skill as most HOFers but got there on his own.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by philliesfan

name 1 player that trier harder...………..Pete Rose.

I have had that discussion with a fellow member and long time friend a few times. We always agree they both gave it all.

[Jim65]

Nolan Ryan

[Frank A]

Originally Posted by Jim65

Nolan Ryan

I completely agree. His stats stink. Beyond over rated. I don't care how fast he could throw. I don't care that he played for some crummy teams. A lot of pitchers did and they still had great stats.
324 wins and 292 losses. Pretty close to being a 500 pitcher. I guess that would be average. 27 years in the majors.

[carlsonjok]

Going to throw out some bait: Lloyd Waner

Career WAR of 27.9 ties him for 931 on the career WAR list and is the lowest ranked HOFer in the list of top 1000 players.

[Tomi]

Originally Posted by carlsonjok

Going to throw out some bait: Lloyd Waner

Career WAR of 27.9 ties him for 931 on the career WAR list and is the lowest ranked HOFer in the list of top 1000 players.

Lifetime .316 average. Not too shabby.

[EvilKing00]

Jeter , way over hyped. no power, no speed - he stayed healthy and accumulated a lot of hits. yea hes a hof but boy, hes very over rated

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by Frank A

I completely agree. His stats stink. Beyond over rated. I don't care how fast he could throw. I don't care that he played for some crummy teams. A lot of pitchers did and they still had great stats.
324 wins and 292 losses. Pretty close to being a 500 pitcher. I guess that would be average. 27 years in the majors.

I would agree that Ryan's a bit overrated-he walked too many batters for my taste.

But please tell me that you're not using win-loss record as the basis for your comment. Nolan Ryan was, objectively, the best pitcher in the National League in 1987. Led the NL in ERA (2.76), ERA+ (142) and FIP (2.47). He struck out a league-leading 270 batters at age 40, finished 5th in the Cy Young, and finished with an 8-16 record.

He probably should have won the Cy Young. FIP shows he was the best pitcher at controlling the things only a pitcher can directly determine themselves. He outpitched teammate Mike Scott across the board, and Scott was 16-13. If Ryan had finished with that record, he wins the award. Steve Bedrosian ended up winning it with 40 saves. Rick Sutcliff, Rick Reuschel and Orel Hershiser finished ahead of him, and Dwight Gooden tied him. He outpitched them all.

By your logic, Ryan was below average because he had a .333 winning percentage.

[Tomi]

Originally Posted by bnorth

All time Mickey Mantle by a country mile.

To you fine gentlemen that said Jeter please name one player that tried harder. I am not a fan and don't own a single Jeter card. I did go to a lot of Yankee games and he seemed to try his absolute hardest on every play.

Just go to baseballreference.com and see the amont of times Jeter led the league in any category and then Mantle. Mantle on this list is absurd by a country mile

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by bnorth

All time Mickey Mantle by a country mile.

To you fine gentlemen that said Jeter please name one player that tried harder. I am not a fan and don't own a single Jeter card. I did go to a lot of Yankee games and he seemed to try his absolute hardest on every play.

LOL on both points. Mantle is 7th all-time in OPS+. I'm sorry, but when the names on an all-time list for league adjusted one base plus power are Ruth, Williams, Bonds, Gehrig, Trout and Hornsby, how, exactly, are you overrated?

And Jeter "tried harder"?

This is a joke post, right? Jeter is tied for 60th in career WAR, yet he's tenth in career plate appearances. A 5+ WAR is considered All Star level. In 18 seasons of at least 119 games (and more than 145 in all but two of those), he had a 5+ WAR 6 times. 6 all-star seasons in 18.

He was a singles hitter that hit accidentally hit an occasional extra base hit, and played subpar defense. He's in the Hall because he hit for average, played longer than Jesus was on the Earth, and was Captain of the Yankees.

If we're talking about Reggie sticking around too long to pad his stats, Jeter is guilty of the same. His last five seasons, he was a below average offensive player. This is 2010-2014. At the end of the 2009 season, he had 2,747 hits. His last five seasons, when he amassed 718 hits, his OPS+ was 94. 6 points below league average. Only a decent 2012 season saves that last five from being a complete dumpster fire. 2010-2014 he was worth a combined 3.8 bWAR. The New York Yankees paid Derek Jeter $82,239,364 to be worth, on average, about 0.7 WAR per season.

He was terrible. They paid him $21,641,947 per win above replacement.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

LOL on both points. Mantle is 7th all-time in OPS+. I'm sorry, but when the names on an all-time list for league adjusted one base plus power are Ruth, Williams, Bonds, Gehrig, Trout and Hornsby, how, exactly, are you overrated?
.

OPS+ is a worthless stat to compare different players from different eras. No one is taking .298/.421/.557/.977 over .325/.398/.579/.977. It also doesn't adjust for park even though it claims to. Proof that Mantle is overrated. He might be top 20-25, but no where close to 7th.

[cardsagain74]

Originally Posted by rats60

OPS+ is a worthless stat to compare different players from different eras. No one is taking .298/.421/.557/.977 over .325/.398/.579/.977. It also doesn't adjust for park even though it claims to. Proof that Mantle is overrated. He might be top 20-25, but no where close to 7th.

"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.

[Touch'EmAll]

Yeah, I am little bored ... waiting for the "Last Dance". Here is my ramble, right or not that's ok. Effective vs. Efficient. Ryan ranks #20 on career WAR for pitchers - just behind Steve Carlton at #19, and ahead of such notables as Bob Gibson, Carl Hubbell, Kershaw, Bob Feller and Verlander. Pretty decent if you consider WAR to be effectiveness. Now efficiency, I will admit Ryan not very efficient - he pitched sooo many pitches to get the average out and win. Strikeout pitchers do tend to be less efficient than easier throwing grounder/fly ball/control pitchers - takes more pitches to get the out - more pitches thrown has higher chance of walks, more walks tends to give up more runs.

Back to original topic, most overrated. A lot of modern-ish players listed, but going way back I might say Joe Jackson was overrated. Looking at his stats compared to contemporaries Cobb, Speaker, Hornsby & Heilman a bit later, Jackson overall not quite as good as you might expect.

[ronniehatesjazz]

Harold Baines anyone? I guess he's actually fairly rated by most except HOF voters. I definitely agree with Rose, Ryan, and Jeter.

Rose bated just over .300 for his career and while his average definitely fell off over the end of his career... he stuck around in order to be the hit king and people treat him as though it wasn't as such. Should be a HOFer based on his play but would be a middle of the road HOFer IMO and doesn't belong anywhere near the greats of the game even though most fans put him in that camp.

Ryan, like Rose, just played a long time. Also, like Rose, is a middle of the road HOFer but gets unjustifiably ranked among the best of the best by many fans.

Derek Jeter, in my mind, was seldom the best player on his team and should still be fighting to get in the HOF (albeit would eventually make it). I think his image and the fact he had a long career in the biggest market in the world is why he's ranked where he is.

Harper, also is overrated but not nearly as much as Kris Bryant. Bryant is today's Kevin Mass and thankfully people are starting to realize it. Still he is massively overrated IMO.

On the flip side it would be nice to look at the most underrated players. I would throw Dale Murphy, Lefty O'Doul, Gwynn, and Molitor in that camp to start. IMO, Murphy and O'Doul should be in the hall (even though O'Doul had a very short career). Sisler and Heilmann are also very underrated as well for batting over .400 but most casual fans have no clue who they even are (I don't care what era they played in).

[clydepepper]

The OP labeled his thread most overrated baseball superstar ever, not most overrated HOFer ever.

Harold Baines was a steady quality player, but I would never have called him a superstar.


My three all-time favorite players have been mentioned in this thread, but I do not think any of them are overrated. I would gladly pay to see any of them play at any time of their careers.
.

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by ronniehatesjazz

Harold Baines anyone? I guess he's actually fairly rated by most except HOF voters.

Actually, he was fairly rated by Hall of Fame voters, meaning the BBWAA, who never voted him anywhere close to election in 15 years. Another veteran's committee fail.

Ryan, like Rose, just played a long time.

I'm not sure these fall in the same category. Ryan as a 2 WAR season in his second to last season, and a 5.2 WAR season the year before that. Looking at Rose, you have to go back 8 seasons to get to his last 2 WAR season.

While Ryan's season wasn't going well (4.88 ERA through 13 starts), it's worth noting that he retired not because of ineffectiveness, but because of an injury.

[cardsagain74]

Originally Posted by ronniehatesjazz

On the flip side it would be nice to look at the most underrated players.

McCovey.

Still managed 521 homers and a .889 OPS despite missing plenty of games over his final 10 seasons and hitting behind Mays. What career numbers would those two have had if they'd been reversed in the lineup all those years? Many managers back then were pretty vocal about how unusually much they pitched around McCovey

As a hitter, anyway. Never saw him play, but according to the defensive WAR stats, he needed a cartoon-sized novelty glove to play first base.

[howard38]

Rollie Fingers seems overrated to me.

[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

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by rats60

OPS+ is a worthless stat to compare different players from different eras. No one is taking .298/.421/.557/.977 over .325/.398/.579/.977. It also doesn't adjust for park even though it claims to. Proof that Mantle is overrated. He might be top 20-25, but no where close to 7th.

He might be top 20-25?



You're so obtuse, it's comical.

I ran a report for all position players in the modern era (from 1919 forward), sorted by WAR. Minimum 2,000 games played. 201 players in total. Mickey Mantle is 11th all-time in WAR for modern era position players.

But hold on. I exported the workbook that Baseball Reference's index tool created, and imported it into Microsoft Excel. I then eliminated all data but WAR, and games played. I then created a simple formula to compute the rate (# of games played per WAR) for all those players.

These are the big boys. The position players that have created the most value (WAR) of all modern era players.

Mickey Mantle has the 6th-best rate of WAR of the 201 players with over 2,000 games played in the modern era. He's behind only Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig and Willie Mays.

First column ranks rate of WAR. Second column ranks total WAR


Mantle played in 2,401 games, and generated 110.2 WAR. 2,401 games is 14.82098765432099 162 game seasons. Per 162 games played, he averaged 7.44 WAR. An MVP season is 8 WAR. His average season was MVP caliber.

And his peak? His peak is ridiculous. From 1952, when he was 20 years old, through the 1962 season, when he turned 30, he played 1,579 games and amassed 89.2 bWAR. 1,579 games played is 9.746913580246914 162 game seasons. That means during his 11 year peak, he averaged 9.75 WAR per 162 games played.

So please, for the love of God--stop embarrassing yourself, man.

Mickey Mantle is inarguably one of the ten best offensive players of the modern era, and one of the truly elite players in baseball history. End of discussion.

[the 'stache]

Oh, and by the way, let's look just at the players in the game, in their primes, at the same time Mantle was. A 11 year period from 1954 to 1964.

During this period:
Mickey Mantle was between age 22-32
Willie Mays 23-33
Frank Robinson 20-28
Hank Aaron 20-30
Duke Snider 27-37
Stan Musial 33-42
Eddie Mathews 22-32
Orlando Cepeda 20-26
Rocky Colaviro 21-30
Al Kaline 19-29
Ernie Banks 23-33
Joe Adcock 26-36
Roger Maris 22-29
Jackie Jensen 27-34
Roy Sievers 27-37
Gil Hodges 30-39

Here's a link to the spreadsheet. While their ages don't perfectly line up, it's pretty close for some of the greatest hitters in the history of the game. Besides Mantle, Mays is in his prime. Aaron is in his prime. This includes several of Frank Robinson's prime years. All of Eddie Mathew's prime. Al Kaline's Prime. Ernie Banks' prime. A good chunk of Orlando Cepeda's prime. Even Stan Musial, playing into his early 40s, is still a force to be reckoned with for this decade, though his later years will have dropped his averages.

You get the point.

Look at Mantle, against some of the best the game has ever produced, at the same times of their careers. He tops them all. Nobody in the Majors combined Mantle's power and on base ability. And you'll notice, Mantle was a .312 hitter. His career average only dropped when his knees gave out, and he couldn't run anymore. In his prime, he was literally unstoppable.



Just stop with this 20-25 BS.

[earlywynnfan]

I think the 'stache just did a mike-drop, if that's still a thing!

[ClementeFanOh]

I think "the 'stache" needs to switch to decaf... If ANY of you would go out of your way to watch Bryce Harper play a game, other than the "stache"- pay just to watch Harper, that is- signify by saying aye, please...
Stache- it sounds very much like I (and others who don't much care for Bryce) struck a nerve because you "like" him as a player. That's fine, you can favor anyone you like. The question at hand is "overrated" player, however, and I stand by my comments all day long. You carried on about him at length, like he is part of the Second Coming, and my response is "meh". He could well be on the ARod track, meaning the teams he leaves somehow become better for it. Is he a "good" player? Yes, but nothing more. Time will tell...
So, since the term "overrated" clearly connotes opinion on the part of the individual, I'll stick with my original picks. In the end, anyone who is how own biggest fan is likely "overrated", yes?
Does this count as a mic drop?

[rats60]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

He might be top 20-25?



You're so obtuse, it's comical.

I ran a report for all position players in the modern era (from 1919 forward), sorted by WAR. Minimum 2,000 games played. 201 players in total. Mickey Mantle is 11th all-time in WAR for modern era position players.

But hold on. I exported the workbook that Baseball Reference's index tool created, and imported it into Microsoft Excel. I then eliminated all data but WAR, and games played. I then created a simple formula to compute the rate (# of games played per WAR) for all those players.

These are the big boys. The position players that have created the most value (WAR) of all modern era players.

Mickey Mantle has the 6th-best rate of WAR of the 201 players with over 2,000 games played in the modern era. He's behind only Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig and Willie Mays.

First column ranks rate of WAR. Second column ranks total WAR


Mantle played in 2,401 games, and generated 110.2 WAR. 2,401 games is 14.82098765432099 162 game seasons. Per 162 games played, he averaged 7.44 WAR. An MVP season is 8 WAR. His average season was MVP caliber.

And his peak? His peak is ridiculous. From 1952, when he was 20 years old, through the 1962 season, when he turned 30, he played 1,579 games and amassed 89.2 bWAR. 1,579 games played is 9.746913580246914 162 game seasons. That means during his 11 year peak, he averaged 9.75 WAR per 162 games played.

So please, for the love of God--stop embarrassing yourself, man.

Mickey Mantle is inarguably one of the ten best offensive players of the modern era, and one of the truly elite players in baseball history. End of discussion.

LOL. WAR what is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Joe DiMaggio not even included in your list proves my point.

[clydepepper]

Bill- please don't ever actually 'drop the mic' - some of us thrive on your research!


.

[brewing]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

These are the big boys. The position players that have created the most value (WAR) of all modern era players.

First column ranks rate of WAR. Second column ranks total WAR

What I have always found amazing is the the lack of popularity of the Topps baseball cards of some of these guys on this list. Specifically, Musial, Robinson, and Mathews. Clearly some of the greatest hitters in the Topps era, yet their Topps cards (other than rookies) are priced ridiculously low compared to Mantle or Clemente.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by brewing

What I have always found amazing is the the lack of popularity of the Topps baseball cards of some of these guys on this list. Specifically, Musial, Robinson, and Mathews. Clearly some of the greatest hitters in the Topps era, yet their Topps cards (other than rookies) are priced ridiculously low compared to Mantle or Clemente.

That is why I say Mantle is by far the most over rated player. I have never said Mantle wasn't great. It is just that his cards are valued insanely compared to better players than him.