Most Overrated Players of All-Time

[MarisFan61]

......Bill James absolutely adds a subjective factor into his views on players. There isn't anything wrong with that as long as people realize he doesn't make his rankings based 100% on statistics. There are players he loves that get moved up in rankings despite the lesser stats (Morgan and Biggio) and players he dislikes are constantly pushed further down (Hornsby, Cobb, Joe Jackson).

Very well said, and true.
But, in the latest edition of the "Historical Abstract," he doesn't really push HORNSBY down at all.

He has Hornsby #3 for second base. If you look at the various "Win Share" figures for the guys above and below him, it looks to me like he's right where the numbers dictate. It COULD be argued that he MIGHT deserve to be higher, but it's not at all clear from the numbers.

I think James was GENEROUS in the ranking, and I think it came about mainly because "Win Shares" OVERRATES Hornsby's fielding. Probably the main weakness of the Win Shares system is in evaluating defense. About Hornsby, although James doesn't say it flat-out, there's an essay (I think in the same book, but maybe it's in "Win Shares") where he implies that the stats overrate his defense.

[CadensDad]

Rizzuto is definitely the most overrated on that list.

I would put Bernie Williams up there as well. He was a good player but way over hyped. I think he is more overrated in CF than Jones.

Bernie was extremely clutch but I don't think he's overrated. No one really talks about him as the best player of his time or anything.

Then again how is Andruw Jones overrated? he hits bombs and is a nasty CF'er

Care to change that about jones now?

[thedude]

Rizzuto is definitely the most overrated on that list.

I would put Bernie Williams up there as well. He was a good player but way over hyped. I think he is more overrated in CF than Jones.

Bernie was extremely clutch but I don't think he's overrated. No one really talks about him as the best player of his time or anything.

Then again how is Andruw Jones overrated? he hits bombs and is a nasty CF'er

Care to change that about jones now?

His defense isn't even great anymore.

[Neato Torpedo]

David Eckstein.

[Ra Ra]

its an OK list but i dont see koufax or blomberg or piazza as that overrated definitely phil ruzzto though

[thedude]

its an OK list but i dont see koufax or blomberg or piazza as that overrated definitely phil ruzzto though

Well Koufax was pretty terrible for 6 years.


When he was dominant he was pitching in an extreme pitchers park with a raised mound during the most pitcher friendly period since the First World War.

The claim that he was one of the top pitchers of all time comes from the final four year's of his career, and by doing so you are ignoring the rest of his career. But even if you just want to focus on his peak Koufax still is probably not a top ten pitcher.

If we are talking about left handed pitchers, off the top of my head, Lefty Grove, Randy Johnson, Carl Hubbell were all more dominant at their peaks. Heck, Hal Newhouser probably had a peak that was just as dominant (though his best years came while the league's talent was fighting in WW2).

If you bring right-handers into the discussion, instead of just southpaws, you see Sandy's peak was not as great as most people made him out to be.

Yes he had a very dominant peak, but it is not enough to call him one of the best ever as many people have.

[Neato Torpedo]

Koufax in the mid '60s put up very similar stats on the surface to Pedro in the late '90s. Mid-high 1.00s ERA, WHIP under 1.00, a little over K/IP. But, again, put the eras and conditions into context. Using baseball-reference.com's handy Neutralize Stats tool, you can see that given the same conditions, Pedro blows Koufax away in just about everything. Hell, under the '68 Dodgers conditions (not too far off from '63-'66 conditions), Pedro's stats end up being 1.80/0.80 ERA/WHIP career, with 0.98/0.53 in 2000. Bob Gibson, eat your heart out. On the flip side, give Koufax average 4.63 runs of league offense, he becomes Johan for four years, who pitched in similar conditions. Sure, Johan's arguably the best pitcher now, but hardly in the discussion for best all-time. And Johan's been dominating for 3 more years already than Koufax ever did.

I know that this tool has little practical application but it's pretty neat to use anyway.