Let's have a general discussion thread for baseball history fanatics. I'll start off with a broad question: Who are the most overrated/underrated players in baseball history (including non-MLB players)?
I'm a firm believer Nolan Ryan is/was overrated. Him being tied for the highest HOF voting percentage is crazy to me.
This day in baseball history: August 3, 1948 Negro League legend Satchel Paige makes his first major league start, hurling seven innings to lead the Indians over the Senators, 5-3. Prior to today's game, the future Hall of Famer made eight appearances in relief, compiling a 1-1 record for the Tribe.
One of the most underrated recently is Brian Giles. Overrated is easily Nolan Ryan. I love him but he's nowhere close to the best ever.
Oscar Charleston probably wasn't fast enough to flip the light switch and tuck himself into bed before the room became dark.
The longevity is really impressive but it just seemed he never really had that dominant untouchable feeling about him over the course of a full season like some other guys like Maddux or Pedro. Didn't he never win a Cy?
I hate to say this but I think you can throw Johnny Bench on the overrated list. Probably Ozzie Smith, too.
That's an average of 204 k's per year for 28 years. Think about that for a second. The guy pitched longer than most MLB players have been alive and he averaged more ko's per year than most pitchers will ever get in a single year. He probably wasn't as dominant as some of the other pitchers in the HOF, but he deserves his spot.
it seems like every week at trivia they ask a question where the answer is goldschmidt but my team is the only one that gets it dude is a stud but completely unknown to most casual fans
no one is saying he shouldn't be in the hof just that him having such a high percentage of the ballot is indicative of him being overrated
Overrated: Hank Aaron, Mike Schmidt Underrated: Rogers Hornsby This is probably due to my bias toward peak over longevity (the Aaron inclusion). An all-time great, obviously, though I think he's a bit overrated.
If everyone agrees he should be in the HOF, shouldn't the percentage be high? That shit is all about how big of a douche baseball writers want to be that day anyways
underrated (as a human being): ty cobb his name has been slandered and drug through the mud as some over the top racist asshole but it's just simply not true this book came out this year and it's a great read into ty cobb's actual persona. highly recommend it to any basebal fans http://www.amazon.com/Ty-Cobb-A-Terrible-Beauty/dp/1451645767
He finished top 5 in voting 6 times, but never won one. He was as effective in the early nineties as the early seventies. But, you're right that he was never that dominant. He did play on some shitty teams, though. Still, I think the strikeout leader and the home run leader are pretty much shoe-ins before any other statistic.
they are such douches and it's absurd that no one is unanimous. but knowing that no one is unanimous, the highest percentage should be someone better if we're using that metric to evaluate their career (which is admittedly flawed)
Nothing wrong with it, I just think that of I asked the casual MLB fan how many times they think Aaron won the MVP, they'd probably guess he won it more than once. Hence why I think he's overrated.
Read a bio of his a while back. Was great. Shoeless Joe batted ~.400 two years in a row and couldn't win the damn batting title
Nolan Ryan was selected to the All Star game just 8 times. He never won a Cy Young, and finished top-3 in the voting just twice. If I put a blind set of stats and omitted strikeouts, who can tell me which one of these players is Nolan Ryan, Phil Neikro, or Gaylord Perry? Seasons 24 Wins 318 Losses 274 ERA 3.35 Seasons 27 Wins 324 Losses 292 ERA 3.19 Seasons 22 Wins 314 Losses 265 ERA 3.11
Best pitchers of the steroid era: Randy Johnson Pedro Clemens Maddux All of them have a case to be in the top 10-15 of all time
the previous bio's used questionable material and seemingly created/exaggerate anecdotes. cobb was preparing to sue one of them for defamation of character before he died
His high percentage of votes doesn't mean he's overrated. It just means that a lot (almost all) of the writers agreed that he should be in the HOF. George Brett was in the same year as Ryan and got 98.19% of the vote. That doesn't make him overrated. Tom Seaver was elected into the HOF with a higher percentage of than Ryan. The % doesn't mean shit.
Hank Aaron is widely considered one of the top 5 greatest right handed hitters of all time, I fail to see how he is overrated
Tony Gywnn and Ted Williams are the only players in the top-20 all time for batting average who played the majority of their careers after WWII. Williams is acknowledged as one of the greatest hitters to have ever played. Gywnn batted is relatively obscurity. In 20 seasons, the only time Gywnn failed to hit .300 was his rookie year at .289.
Also, I may be off, but I feel like Bill Mazeroski is in the HOF solely forthe World Series winning HR.
Sandy Koufax is such an interesting case study for me. You wonder how many more years he could have played had he not pitched in an era where guys threw until their arms fell off. >300 innings in 3/4 years. Wow.
Random guy...Graig Nettles. 390 home runs mostly just before the steroids era, shitty batting average, but elite defense at 3B edit: found this
Bolded is wrong. 1973 (2nd), 1974 (3rd) and 1977 (3rd). And "omitting strikeouts" is pretty egregious when he's the career record holder by close to 20% and led the league 11 times.
I missed the 1977, but point remains, he finished top-3 in just three of his twenty-eight seasons. I absolutely believe he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, and when he was on, the no hitters speak for themselves, but he is no where near the pitcher that some remember him in hindsight. I'm old enough to remember Ryan playing with the Astros in the 1980's. Everyone acknowledged that he was really good, but it was only after Pete Rose broke the all time hits record that folks started looking around to note that Ryan had so many strikeouts.