Jayson Stark's Most Over-rated/Under-rated list

More evidence that Ryan was overrated: His 2,795 walks are the most all-time, some 52 percent more than the runner-up, Steve Carlton (1,833). Ryan's 5,714 strikeouts are just 19 percent more than Roger Clemens and Steve Carlton, and that number is decreasing each year.

 

No way. But I might take Koufax.

 

Our society loves extremes. If you attempt to show critical analysis, you must take up an extreme position, even if there's no evidence for it in the data. If you say someone's overrated, you're saying they suck. If you say someone's underrated, you're blowing them. If you say good things about them, you're showing them "love." If you criticize them about anything, you're "a hater."

Often, we trip over the debris we create with our own language, and with our need for everything to be clear cut.

 

Nice reference.

 

As a Braves fan, it pains me to say he is dead-on about Andruw. He does not have nearly the step he used to have. He has plenty of highlights of him making diving catches because he can't get to the ball as fast.

 

Actually, all those diving highlights that Andruw had from, say, 1996-2002? It's because a) he played so shallow, dangerously so; b) he got to balls that nobody but a select few (Torii, Ichiro, Edmonds) could even think about catching, let alone making a play on.

Had nothing to do with him losing a step, which, I will admit, he has done lately. That's why he's not diving for balls nearly as much as he did in his "heyday."

But he's still getting to more balls than almost every outfielder in the league (and hey, without Millwood on the staff to serve up all those flyballs. ) Andruw slimmed down this year (contract year, of course) and he's leading the league in putouts again, on pace for well over 400, although it's very noticeable that he's not the same fielder that he was when he was 25. It happens.

(Neato stat: Only Willie Mays, in the last 50 years, had 400+ outfield putouts in five straight years like Jones did from 1998-2002. Nobody else was even fucking close. Put it this way: Jones could have sat out the entire 2003 season and half of the '04 season and still had more putouts than any other MLB outfielder in that span.)

 

No doubt Jones is still one of the premiere CF in the majors and I'd love to see him come back to the Braves. But I think the price won't be close to anything the Braves can pay. If I had my pick, like Terence Moore suggested, I'd take Torii Hunter over him.

 

I hope someone says the same thing about Derek Jeter 60 years from now.

 

Yea, Spnited at the ripe old age of 215.



I keed. Sort of.

 

Interesting that with Starks' two overrated pitchers, one, Ryan, pitched forever (27 god damned years!) and the other not so long, although in total he DID pitch 12 years. Not quite a flash in the pan but not 30 years, either.
I'd take Koufax over anyone.
How he's overrated is odd. If a player quits playing to avoid injury, he becomes overrated, but if he hangs on too long, he becomes a washed-up has been.
You can't win either way it seems.

 

Babe Ruth pitched in 10 seasons, but in fewer than 5 games in 5 of those seasons.

Ruth's W-L percentage and ERA compared to league are quite similar to Koufax.

Of course Koufax's strikeout rates are much much higher than Ruth's, as strikeout totals in MLB overall zoomed over the moon from the 1910s to the 1960s.

 

Yeah.
Ryan's the exception.
His number is retired by three different teams and he was Roger Clemens before Clemens was Clemens. Definitely wasn't washed up.