40 Most Overrated Players In Baseball Right Now

Players can gain their reputation throughout their career or by having a few good seasons. However, many of these players keep that reputation even when they begin to decline, so MLB has a number of overrated players.

Other times, players garner more attention and praise than they deserve because of the media. The New York City media is certainly guilty of making a number of players seem better than they are. As a result, it should come as no surprise that there are quite a few New York Yankees on this list.

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Comments

[akrazyrunner]

05:39 PM on 02/15/2012

Every year since Jeter came up I've heard over and over again from the sabermetrics people about how little Jeter is worth, yet he is going to the hall of fame isn't he? .313 LIFETIME batting average .383 LIFETIME on base percentage and averages 150 games per year. How is this over-rated? If he wore just about any other uniform there would not be as many critics

The worst stat has to be WAR (Wins Above Replacement). Absolutely meaningless. It doesn't take match-ups or placement in the batting order into account

[FirstGame72]

04:48 PM on 02/16/2012

Uh, you forgot about Jeter's 3000 career hits or the fact that he's a 5 time World Series winner.
Jeter can't be overrated because he's the greatest shortstop in MLB baseball history.
His inclusion on any overrated list is purely Yankee hate, nothing more.

[plzchuteme]

07:53 AM on 02/17/2012

You prove the point. Jeter has been a fantastic player during his HOF career, but by proclaiming him as the best in MLB history, you are, in fact, overrating him.

[NevadaLib]

05:12 PM on 02/15/2012

forgot Matt Kemp. Dude got paid, he no longer cares.

[FirstGame72]

04:49 PM on 02/16/2012

His numbers weren't too bad last year though.

[NevadaLib]

12:21 PM on 02/17/2012

he had a phenomenal year in 2011. my concern is that it was a massive outlier.

[dpcemker]

10:20 AM on 02/15/2012

Most overrated sport writer who happen to be one that never played anything in his life even when he was the one who own the ball? Robert KNapel!

[FirstGame72]

04:50 PM on 02/16/2012

You could be right. But the competition for the award you named is extremely crowded with many, many deserving "writers."

[paddy523]

05:59 AM on 02/15/2012

Most overrated sports writer: Robert Knapel!!!

[jhNY]

07:29 PM on 02/14/2012

I recall a survey of players done a couple of years ago. The majority concluded Jeter was overrated. And in another part of the same survey, they picked Jeter second overall as a guy who could lead a team to the World Series.

Jeter is the model athlete of New York, who can play, who can lead, and who can comport himself before a camera in a way that never makes news, but always advances the message of the team. I'll take him as long as he wants to play-- and I've been a Yankee fan for decades.

[TommyMcCarthy]

02:15 AM on 02/15/2012

Hi Jh....

I'm a baseball fan...and even a cursory glance at the calander (and the sports page) bears out the fact that it's a "sellers market" for baseball stories right now.

Ancient societies referred to this period (between the Super Bowl and opening day)...
as "The Time of the Long Darkness".

Much as the free-ranging Masai Warriors did when they were imprisioned.....many anchient fans......faced with day after day of NO BASEBALL....assumed they were dead and in hell.

I mention that by way of backround to say there isn't much I won't read right now on the topic.

But ...upon opening the article above...I spotted what has become a cliche for sportswriters looking for a "hook" for their piece...
To wit: the boilerplate "Who's overrated...who's "past their prime"...who's "washed up"
Which is, of course, much easier to write than it is to read.

Happily...I quickly noticed that the writer says that BOTH Jeter and Robinson Cano are over-rated...thus saving me some time by alerting me to the fact that he simply doesn't know what he's talking about.

As I said: I'm hungry for Baseball prose right now....But I DO have STANDARDS.
They may be LOW this time of year...but by God I've GOT 'em....:>)

Mostly an excuse to say "Hello"
Regards
tm

[jhNY]

12:08 PM on 02/15/2012

So nice to hear from you, as always, Mr. McCarthy. I like that Masai ref, and see it as a tale of broader application...

Cano is the kind of underrated player that merely everybody in the game would kill to have on their team, and Jeter has that unnameable something that makes him a champion-- other than that they're both dogs.

Meanwhile--- pitchers and catchers, pitchers and catchers and SOON.

[jl4141]

06:46 PM on 02/14/2012

It's too easy to write something like this. How about an article about the top 40 underrated players in MLB?

[AbeMartin]

06:18 PM on 02/14/2012

Where does Mr. Knapel stack up among the great sports reporters?  Doesn't exactly seem to be in contention for the MLB Hall of Fame, does he?  I wonder how long his frail, pasty body would last over the 36 games of Spring Training, 162 regular season, and up to nearly 20 games in the post-season?  The great players get punished between 200 and 220 games a year.  They have to spend hundreds of hours in the air.  They have to make the practices.  Mr. Knapel, being a high school towel or water boy doesn't qualify you as an authority.

[mnwildfan]

05:41 PM on 02/14/2012

I was happy to see only one Twin on there. Then I realized that most people don't rank any of the Twins high.

[plzchuteme]

07:45 AM on 02/17/2012

I kept expecting to see Joe Mauer on the list. He certainly deserved to be.

[Forester]

05:40 PM on 02/14/2012

Aroid.

[biglog]

05:35 PM on 02/14/2012

Adam Dunn?!?

"Overrated" implies that you are even *rated* to begin with. After last year's disastrous and painful-to-watch season, his stock is probably about as low as it can possibly get. Vernon Wells is another head-scratcher. He was already being written off back when the Angels acquired him. That trade was pretty generally denounced at the time (although the exorbitant price-tag probably had a lot to do with that). Who exactly is "overrating" these guys in the first place?

[jhNY]

07:30 PM on 02/14/2012

butterknifemetrics.

[headly67]

05:33 PM on 02/14/2012

Every year the Yankee haters cry about Jeter and every year he proves them wrong.

[AbeMartin]

06:19 PM on 02/14/2012

He did put up amazing numbers, last year didn't he?

[dvglass3]

07:03 PM on 02/14/2012

Yes he did the second half of the season. Every team would love to have Jeter.

[headly67]

10:14 AM on 02/18/2012

Yes he did, 3000 of them.

[henrypapillon]

05:27 PM on 02/14/2012

Derek Jeter--any team would be glad to have him---and I'm a Yankee hater.

[AbeMartin]

06:28 PM on 02/14/2012

Magnificent player.

[AliveInNYC]

05:22 PM on 02/14/2012

How can Mike Pelfrey be "overrated"? Nobody thinks that highly of him.

I wasn't impressed with this article at all, I'm guessing the author really doesn't know much about baseball.

[fds]

02:42 PM on 02/15/2012

It's a shítty article. I think most here will agree.

[Frank51]

05:19 PM on 02/14/2012

Jeter's certainly the poster boy for overrated players.

If he played in KC or Seattle, he'd be highly regarded, and a HOF guy, with his 3000 hits. He'd be just about as highly regarded as Paul Molitor, whose numbers he'll just about match when all is said and done.

And don't EVER mention him in the same breath with Babe, Lou, Joe, Mickey and Yogi.

[AbeMartin]

06:25 PM on 02/14/2012

Different era, Dude.  When the five Yanks you site were playing, the average size of players was about 5'9 and 175 lbs, playing less than 175 games a year, and crossing the Mississippi only to play the Browns or the Cards.  Today, the average player could easily play in the NFL, and sustains a bruising transcontinental schedule of 200+ games, from March through the end of October.  Jeter would have relegated Phil Rizzuto to bench duty as a pinch hitter specializing in drag bunts.

[Frank51]

10:24 AM on 02/15/2012

OK, Dude, but what does that have to do with my comment? Rizzuto? I never mentioned him, did I? But he was overrated too, if that's your point.

Those 5 guys are all-time greats. Dominant. Jeter? Not.

[fds]

02:45 PM on 02/15/2012

Only Yankees player to get 3,000 hits, and he is one of the most productive post-season batters in baseball history.

But you say don't mention him in the same sentence with those five. Why not?

[Frank51]

04:42 PM on 02/17/2012

He's not in their league, just as Paul Molitor, whose numbers will be just about a perfect match for Jeter, wouldn't be in their league.

HOF-- and I said he's a HOFer--doesn't equal all-time great.Again, if he'd gotten the same numbers in KC or Pittsburgh, he'd not be thought of with nearly the awe he now receives. Wouldn't have gotten the GGs, either. What a joke those were. A very good player, a HOF guy. Not remotely an all-time great. Not remotely on a par with the five Yankee all-timer greats i mentioned. Let him win even ONE MVP ( or 2, or 3). Then we;ll talk about the big 6 instead of the big 5.

[liberalking37]

04:43 PM on 02/14/2012

He benefits from a smaller Citi Field,but David Wright has been slightly overrated the past couple of years.

[AliveInNYC]

05:23 PM on 02/14/2012

the fact that david wright has won multiple gold gloves shows the whole system is flawed.

[fds]

02:46 PM on 02/15/2012

Brett Gardner didn't win a gold glove last year, and that is why the system is flawed.