Barry Bonds. He has all these great regular-season stats, but he can’t lead the Giants out of the first round of the playoffs, like Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter can for the Yankees.
Tony Gwinn, on the other hand, led his team to 2 World Series. It was unfortunate that both times they were up against all-time teams.
You know, I’ve been banging this question around in my head since the thread started.
I can’t think of ANY really overrated players in the major leagues today. There are some C-grade guys like Vinny Castilla who get jobs despite having little talent, but there are no major stars right now who don’t deserve the star treatment. Juan Gonzalez used to be that way but he’s sort of vanished from the PR map.
Take, for example, Andre Dawson. Dawson won the MVP Award in 1987. He was the worst MVP of the last thirty years, hands down. He really wasn’t all that good, at least not that year. But he was a major star - an MVP, for God’s sake.
There’s nobody like that now. The people who will be seriously contending for this year’s award are really the best players around.
The one who might qualify is the aforementioned Shawn Green, but even he seems to have vanished from the radar screen. I never hear anyone talk about him, so he can’t really be “overrated,” can he?
Not to pick on you particularly (several others have suggested the same thing), nor to argue with your nomination of Bonds as overrated (though I’m prepared to do that too), but what I find disheartening is this football mentality applied to baseball. The Hall of Fame is full of players whose postseason numbers are lower (in some cases, far lower) than their regular season stats would predict. You know what? Doesn’t matter a damn. Disagree? Then you’re prepared to say that Mark Lemke, Reggie Jackson, Gene Tenace, Pepper Martin, and Lenny Dykstra are the greatest players of all time?
There’s twice as many games in a baseball season as in basketball or hockey, and at least eight times as many as in football. Moreover, the worst baseball team in the majors may, on any given day, kick the stuffing out of the best; this rarely happens in the other sports with which I’m familiar (don’t know much about hockey). The best baseball players have individual games, and usually entire weeks, during which they play well below their usual standard. To suggest that players (like Bonds) who play so far above the standard set by most other players that it’s frightening are “overrated” because they and their teams hit slumps in October is the sort of thing one can only attribute to having watched way too much football, where you go out once a week (at most) for 16 weeks of the regular season, and where a dominant quarterback, receiver, or running back can nearly single-handedly carry his team through the season and through the playoffs.
Maybe because most of the people I talk about baseball with these days are fairly savvy, but I find it hard to think of players I’d call “overrated”. Vinny Castilla couldn’t really be expected to be the same outside of Coors, and wasn’t, but that didn’t surprise most people I’ve talked with. I’d say the most overrated players I can think of right now are some supposed phenoms that haven’t shown much so far, like Ruben Rivera, Jose Cruz, George Lombard, Robert Fick, etc. I’d have put Gabe Kapler in that group before his late surge this year; as it is I’ll defer judgement until next year on him.
Helton hit .350 on the road with consistent defense. I’ll put that up against anybody! And Walker hit pretty well in Montreal.
Brian Jordan is very much over-rated. Poor power numbers, lackluster defense, and too many injuries. Shawn Greene is a major disappointment, but the jury is still out. And lets not forget Moe Vaughn and his overpaid cousin, Greg.
I’d say Kenny Rogers
Jay Witasick is overrated. Some teams actually thought he belonged in the major leagues this season. Ditto Ricky “King of Blown Saves” Botallico.
Can you tell I’m a Royals fan?
A couple of years ago I would have said Tino Martinez, but he seems to be pretty fairly reated as an average player now.
I guess I’ll have to throw my vote behind any of the high priced sluggers the Devil Rays picked up.
Although its probably a year too late for this, I’ll go with J.D. Drew. And a good portion of Scott Borases other clients too.
Cal Ripken, no contest. Glory do I get tired of hearing about him. The man managed not to get hurt for a helluva long time. Bully for him. His numbers suck for the past five years. He was arguably hurting himself by playing every game.
Kerry Wood, that one game against the Astros notwithstanding, isn’t really that great of a pitcher.