Overratedness -- like underratedness -- is all relative, remember. It's about perception. It's about illusion. It's about myths. It's about assumptions we tend to make about all kinds of players -- assumptions that sometimes turn out not to match up real well with a condition best described as "reality."Sounds good so far; in fact, I think I’ll hold on to this part for later.
So the question I kept aspiring to answer as I wrote my book -- and as I wrote this companion column -- was this:NO! I thought you ESPN guys knew everything!
How does the perception of this player match up with the kind of player he really is (or was)?
I think there’s a difference between over/under-rating and completely misperceiving a player. For example, calling Juan Pierre a good leadoff man when he’s usually in the running for the league lead in outs understands the kind of player he is, but gives him too much credit.
Oh. And one more thing we need to get straight before you start typing those "are-you-some-kind-of-knucklehead" e-mails: I'm really not the Ultimate Czar of Overratedness and Underratedness. I'm just the guy who wrote the book.
Your opinion is as good as mine. Maybe not as exhaustively researched. But you sure have a right to it. So I don't pretend to settle these debates. I just start them. Simply providing a valuable public service by allowing you, the American sports fan, to do what you enjoy most about sports…I may not have interviewed as many scouts as you have, probably because I don’t have the media credentials you do, but you’re right, this is essentially the starting point of a debate. Not really what analysis is supposed to do, but it’s a good way to pimp your book.
OK, here they come -- the 10 most overrated active players in baseball. Some of these players made it into my book. Some didn't. On the other hand, some guys who were in the book didn't make this list. The difference? The book was mostly about assessing careers. This column is more about where these players stand on the illusion/reality meter right now. Got that? All righty then, here we go:Does this mean you’re going to make judgements based on small sample sizes? Or are you going to just say that you’re only looking at active major leaguers to see who’s overrated?
Now let’s see what he actually says:
No. 1 -- Barry Zito
As I said in the book, "overpaid" isn't always the same thing as "overrated." But it definitely works in Zito's case.Please don’t refer to your book. Try to make your article explain itself on its own.
Not that it's some kind of disgrace for any team to say it employs this guy. Never misses a start. Logs those innings. Snaps off those picturesque curveballs. Leads the league in likability. And we admire him for all of those qualities.Yes he does. Zito is a good pitcher with cool looking stuff. And the fact of the matter is that pitchers that give you 220 innings are really quite valuable, because that means fewer oppurtunities to take advantage of the bad part of your bullpen. Starters that go deep into games are important to have.
But should he really be the proud owner of the most humongous pitching contract in history (seven years, $126 million)? For all those who think that answer is yes, better peruse these facts first:Zito for $126 Million is not nearly as bad as Kevin Brown for $105 million. Zito will be 34 at the end of his deal, while Brown was 34 when he signed his deal. But as we all know, the market sets the prices for the players, and the degree to which a GM is desperate enough to possibly overpay someone will affect where he goes. That's not to say Zito isn't overpaid, but his durability does make his contract more bearable. Zambrano will get more money next year anyway.
Since his Cy Young season in 2002 (23-5, 2.75 ERA), Zito has a higher ERA than Carl Pavano, a lower strikeout rate than Mark Redman and a lousier WHIP than Odalis Perez. And his current 32-30 strikeout-walk ratio (143rd among the 155 starting pitchers with at least 20 innings this year) tells you he now does more nibbling than chef Paul Prudhomme. So why is this man making $18 million a year again?Answer this one by one.
1) This is true, but is very misleading, particularly because the two seasons where Pavano had a number of starts in double digits, he was pitching in the NATIONAL LEAGUE in Dolphin Stadium. Dolphin Stadium has always been a pitcher’s park, but the Oakland Coliseum played like a hitters park in 2004. A good way to control for this is a stat called ERA +, and there you see that Zito’s has always been over 100, which is good; during his one off-year it got up to 4.48, but the adjusted league average was 4.68. Pavano had one year with an ERA + over 100, and his poor performance with the Yankees doesn’t factor in since he’s only started 19 games for them, but his ERA was in about the 4.77 range last year, a much more useful comparison.
2) This is false. From 2003-2007, Zito has pitched 955.3 innings and struck out 653, making his K/9 6.15, while Redman struck out 443 over 748.7 innings, making for a K/9 of 5.33.
3) Now this is true and quite interesting. Perez had an all-star season in 2002 and beat Zito in WHIP that year too. Part of that is because of the league differences, but up through 2005, Odalis might have possibly looked preferable, particularly if he had run support (which he didn’t). Of course, Perez also clearly had some luck going for him, as he had a lower rate of hits in those years where he had a low ERA. Now he’s become hittable, and his WHIP has gone way up. And for what it’s worth, Zito has a much stronger mentality that Perez, and was able to get out of those jams much easier.
Overrated? I would agree he is at least to some extent, but it's only his contract that could put him at the top.
Now, we move onto:
No. 2 -- J.D. Drew
Nobody denies that Drew has massive talent oozing out of his eyebrows. You can tell because he entered this season as one of only 13 active players with a career slugging percentage over .500 and an on-base percentage over .390.Yep, he’s pretty good.
But now the bad news: Those other dozen players have made a combined 70 All-Star teams (and all have made at least two apiece). And Drew has made, well, zero.Are you retarded? If anything, All-Star appearances are a measure of perception. Fans vote for all-stars! If a player is that good, but hasn’t made an all-star team, doesn’t that suggest he’s underrated?! If the All-Star game was objective and smart, maybe, but there’s no way in hell that AJ Pierzynski is better than Pronk.
It sure is funny how all that talent has added up to just one 30-homer season, only one 100-RBI season, a .180 lifetime average in seven postseason series, no All-Star at-bats, nearly 400 games missed with a massive assortment of injuries and a $14 million a year paycheck. Let's just say this guy is realllly fortunate the Red Sox's great start has obscured his messy .169 average since April 21 -- because so far, the occupants of Fenway have been shockingly patient with him.WRONG! Lifetime .180 average in 5 division series! He’s actually a lifetime .233 hitter in 7 postseason series. That still sucks, but don’t you have an editor? But that’s a terrible point because it’s basically a month’s worth of playing. Besides, for that matter, Derek Jeter hit .168 in 108 PA in April 2004, so don’t give me small sample things.
I already told you that allstar games don’t mean anything. We know that, and the “this time it counts” thing is a bunch of bull. The lack of 30 homer seasons was due to health concerns, sure, but don’t correlate a player’s performance with RBI. Derek Jeter only had 100 RBI in one season. Drew might be overpaid, but you said overpaid doesn’t necessarily mean overrated. And we know the Red Sox are fair-weather fans, but do you really think they’d look at a date as arbitrary as April 21 to start tracking his performance? The reason you picked it was that he hit .375/.456/.479 up until that point. If you have to manipulate facts to agree with what you say, then you’re probably not a reliable source.
3) Andruw Jones
I'm not going to devote a lot of space in this column to Jones.
I’m not going to devote a lot of space to discuss what you said, because JC Bradbury said it better at Sabernomics.
No. 4 -- Juan Pierre
Speed guys aren't automatically overrated. (See Reyes, Jose for more details.) But for years now, we've been getting way too worked up about players whose mere ability to bring their legs with them to first base can make a pitcher want to call his therapist between pitches. And that brings us to Pierre, a fellow so likable, it pains me to put him on this list. How can you not like a guy who loves baseball so much, he beats the grounds crew to the ballpark?
Well, ok, I’m gonna agree with you that Pierre is overrated offensively, even though he put on a hell of a show for me when I was there.
But I've been listening to GMs (mostly American League GMs) gripe for so long that Pierre is as overrated as any player in baseball, I'm finally ready to concede.
Wait a minute, you’re going to base who’s overrated on what other people say? Can you think of why this is stupid?
It was easier to argue the other side in 2003, the year Pierre and the Marlins won the World Series. That year, Pierre walked 55 times, struck out only 35 times, got 204 hits, reached base more than any leadoff man in baseball and led the league in steals.
So every leadoff man sucked in 2003. None of the other info in that paragraph means a whole lot of anything to me.
But leadoff hitters with .303 on-base percentages, who are on pace to walk 31 times in 748 trips to the plate -- i.e., the Juan Pierre presently playing out the first season of his five-year, $44 million contract with the Dodgers -- they're overrated. When Pierre reaches first in the late innings of a close game, he's still a game-changer. But think how much more often he would reach first if he actually walked three times a week instead of once.
Don’t give me on pace, because that always changes. And of course, he needs to get on base more to be effective. He is overrated, but not because someone told you he is.
No. 5 -- Bobby Abreu
Boy, do people love arguing about this fellow. Who can blame them?
The folks who only peruse Abreu's numbers don't just wonder what he's doing on this list.
They wonder when he's getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. How multitalented is Bobby Abreu? Well, he does happen to be the only active player with a .300 career batting average, a .400 on-base percentage, 200 homers and 250 stolen bases. And his .909 career OPS tops the OPS of Sammy Sosa, Chase Utley, Derrek Lee and many, many, many other famed batsmiths out there.
Those are very good numbers.
But there sure are a lot of people who watched him in Philadelphia who think Abreu is the poster boy for an unquantifiable division of the All-Overrated Team -- players who mysteriously seem to be less than the sum of their spectacular numbers.
When people battle me on this guy, I always sum it up this way: As great as Bobby Abreu can be, he lacks that all-important Derek Jeter gene. There is no voice in his head, screaming: "This ball has to be caught." Or: "That runner on third has to be driven in." In Philadelphia, where he was the centerpiece of the franchise, that one flaw showed up way too glaringly. Now, in New York, as the Yankees flounder, they're getting aggravated over the same stuff. Funny how that happens.
No, that actually sounds more like he’s underrated, because while reliable numbers suggest he’s good, people doubt it. In fact, some idiots actually suggested the Phillies were a better team without him. Your methodology is to suggest that the true value of a player is not in his numbers, but what people think of him. You probably tell your kids to always give into peer pressure, all the time. But seriously, do you actually buy this crap? This ball has to be caught – sure, I can understand not playing hard enough to do that. But that runner on third has to be driven in? I don’t care where you are, but particularly if you’re in the middle of the lineup, a walk is much better than a sac fly, because then you didn’t lose an out, and Arod or Ryan Howard, as the case may be, can hit a 3 run bomb.
No. 6 -- Brian Giles
Remember back when Giles was a perennial 37-homer, 100-RBI, .600-slugging walk machine in Pittsburgh? What happened to that Brian Giles?
He moved from PNC park to PETCO park. PETCO is an enormous pitchers park with a park factor in the low 90s, which means it’s a very strong pitchers park. If you actually look at it, you see that there are no power alleys, and it’s farther to right-center than to center field – 400 feet is a long way for a ball to travel! If you look at PNC, though, you notice that it’s only 370 feet to right center, and the outfield doesn’t stick out funny in right like it does in PETCO. Further, NL Central pitching, even back in the early 2000s, wasn’t as good as 2004 and later NL west pitching, even if he is on Jake Peavy’s team. The Rockies have the humidor now, after all.
That one-time .600 slugging percentage didn't even make it to .400 last season --and has submerged below .350 in 2007. And that quick, 37-homer bat mostly ropes balls the other way now -- leaving us with a guy who has as many homers this year as Kip Wells (one).
Not to suggest that Brian Giles isn't still a really useful player. Still cranks out tough at-bats and walks 100 times. Still gaps 35-40 doubles a year. But there's a difference between a star player and a useful player. And it's a difference that can propel a guy right onto an overrated list just like this one.
It also makes sense that in a large ballpark, he’s not going to try to hit home runs nearly as often. And it also makes sense that he’s not as good at age 36 as he was 5 or 6 years ago. Even with that, park factors and all, it is clear that Giles has deteriorated from age and injury (only 134 games in 2003). As for overrated, maybe on account of the fact that he hits 3rd for the Padres, but other than Adrian Gonzalez, nobody else on that team should be anywhere near the 3 spot. He hasn’t been named an all-star since 2001, and he doesn’t really get that much press outside of the NL West.
No. 7 -- Alfonso Soriano
When I did a quick all-active overrated poll of my friends in the baseball business, I was amazed at how many of them nominated Soriano. But wait. Remember, back in the Barry Zito section of this extravaganza, where we kicked around the similarity between "overpaid" and "overrated"? Well, the size of Soriano's paycheck has obviously gotten some folks' attention, too.
Again, you’re doing polls to decide who’s overrated? You might not get why this is dumb, but here’s why. Polls are a measure of how people are rated. What you’re trying to do is to determine value objectively compared to subjective values tainted by biases, allegedly. What you’re actually doing, though is taking biased information and then using that as evidence. Bad bad bad.
Is he a man with a spectacular array of talents? Of course. But here's how he wound up in this group: Last season, when he was driving for those Super Lotto dollars in Washington, he was a 46-homer, 41-steal, 95-RBI, .911-OPS kind of dynamo. This season, his first in Chicago after cashing in, he's on pace for a 16-homer, 29-steal, 37-RBI, .800-OPS kind of year. And when you sign on the dotted line for eight years, $136 million, people tend to notice that. Why is that, anyhow?
Because you’re looking at a small sample size. If you want to, you can even say he was distracted by playing center field at first. Soriano is a good baseball player, and if you were going to overrate him, it would have been 2 years ago. Back then, he was a guy who didn’t get on base a whole lot and played really poorly at 2nd base, not just with errors but in general. Then they discovered that he’s got poor instincts but really good speed and a really good arm, so they moved him into the outfield, where that kind of stuff actually matters (what the hell do you need an strong arm at 2nd for anyway?). Now he’s gone from worst defensive 2B in the game to gold glove outfielder (see his Rate2), and note that he threw out 22 guys last year. The Cubs paid him too much money and he’s not going to look but so good at the end of that contract, but for the time being, he’s a very good baseball player.
No. 8 -- Richie Sexson
Sexson and Adam Dunn fit into a category of overratedness I figured I'd better get to in this column someplace: Guys We Love Because They Can Pulverize A Baseball About 900 Feet.
Yes that’s part of why we like them. Adam Dunn is awesome because he gets on base a lot and makes an absolute mockery of the statistic called batting average.
But Sexson wound up winning this not-so-coveted spot for a couple of reasons: (1) He's the 10th-highest-paid player in the whole sport this year (at $15.5 million). And (2) he's hitting only a buck-77, with more strikeouts (32) than hits and homers combined (30). At least Dunn -- while he hasn't done that Ichiro impression he was forecasting -- is at .258, with 11 homers and seven steals, in between the whiffs.
Strikeouts are not that much worse than other outs. While you lose the opportunity for advancing the runners, which doesn’t always benefit you or else people would sacrifice all the time, you also lose the chance for a double play, and you force the pitcher to throw at least 3 pitches, often many more. Strikeouts are one of the three true outcomes, and Dunn, much more than Sexson, is the Three True Outcome player. Adam Dunn strikes out a ton, but he’ll also walk a ton. And over half his hits have been for extra bases the last few years. Dunn was an all-star once, the only Red in 2002 (every team has to send someone). Sexson is overpaid, sure, but overrated seems a stretch.
No. 9 -- Bob Wickman
Whoa. Almost made it through this whole list without including a closer. Can't do that. If the save is the most overrated stat in baseball -- and it is -- then we need somebody on this team to embody that.
A good call here. Yay! Clap Clap.
A scout nominated Wickman, and I'm still not sure if he belongs. But what the heck. He, Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano have gotten massive credit for the salvation of the Braves' bullpen. But like the hitters who make all those outs against Wickman, I often ask myself: How the heck does he do it?
Good question. Lets see how you master it.
His WHIP this year is a messy 1.73 baserunners per inning. He's averaging nearly 20 pitches an inning. And he has handed out as many walks as strikeouts (10). But he has walked that tightrope and survived to tell about it. The saves (6-for-8) are there. So life seems good. But it definitely isn't as serene up close as it is from afar. Does that make him overrated? Hey, it does now. He's in this column, right?
Come on. You’re using small sample size data again! You had a Danys Baez “breaking ball” smack down the middle of the plate, and you told Olmedo Saenz to bunt. So now I have to pick a reason why what you said was awful. Does that make him overrated? What makes him overrated is that the only reason people think he’s any good is that he’s gotten saves before and he has experience. Because throughout his career he's had bad peripherals, and because people don't pay attention to the number of blown saves he has. That he has 6 out of 8 saves does not mean the saves are there; 75% is a horrible horrible save percentage for your closer, as most of the blown saves on your team show up from your 7th and 8th inning relievers.
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