[lists] fifty most overrated baseball players, Nolan at the top of this guys list

Sorry guys, for all the typos, I did it really quick.

17. Bucky Dent

I still think it's a travesty McGwire and Sosa are rated so low baseball reference, I don't think I could even find 50 greater (maybe even 25) offensive players than either one.

 

Every overrated baseball player list needs to have Derek Jeter as number 1 or in the top five. The love he gets is ridiculous.

 

Have to say the same thing for Pete Rose. He got a lot of hits, but was barely a .300 hitter. He got on base to the tune of .375 OBP, but didn't have a lot of pop, even when correcting for the aforementioned pitcher's era. Like Ryan, he's a Hall of Famer, but he's not one of the greatest of all-time.

 

I also disagree with the writer on Roger Maris, he had more than one memorable season. He wasn't Mickey Mantle, but he did have what I would call 6 all-star worthy seasons, most of which he didn't even play the full season (he was often injured player as well).

If you hit 39 home runs in 136 games; 23 in 90 games; 28 in 150 in his second year; and etc, you're not an everyday player. His career slugging numbers are better than Johnny Bench; Eddie Murray; Roberto Clemente; Dave Winfield; and Honus Wagner.

On overrated list had Barry Bonds (not this one), which I thought was also travesty. It's not even funny how freakishly good old, possibly HGH Bonds was as an offensive player (hitter for average/power - BB magnet), while the young Barry was a quadruple threat (great base runner; great hitter; outstanding power hitter; and good fielder).

 

One of the best offensive shortstops of all time, career OPS+ of 118, going to have well over 3000 hits, 5 world series rings, 3 top 5 MVP finishes, 7 top 10 finishes...

Career line of .313/.384/.452

For comparison, Craig Biggio's career line .281/.363/.433

Derek Jeter is overrated defensively (extremely) but offensively he has never been overrated.

Edit: Where he projects to finish on the career hits list there will likely be one player from the modern era who was a full time middle infielder, Cal Ripken, Jr. , and his career line was .276/.340/.447.

 

I would never argue that Ryan was the greatest pitcher ever, just the greatest strikeout pitcher. I have issues with him being overrated.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/scomp_pitch.cgi?I=ryanno01:Nolan Ryan&st=career&compage=&age=

If you look at the bottom of the page, it will compare the HOF pitchers similar to Ryan's stats.

The list is impressive but he still has superior numbers in most categories.

Is Ryan the greatest pitcher ever, not hardly but overrated? just does not meet that definition IMO

 

I think that list actually proves the point that Ryan is overrated. Ryan compares far more closely to Don Sutton & Bert Blyleven than he does Tom Seaver or Roger Clemens, or Randy Johnson for that matter. Yet Sutton & Blyleven struggled to get into the Hall, while Ryan went in on a record-breaking ballot.

 

Personally, I don't think Nolan Ryan is overrated, I've never seen him rated among top 5 pitchers and sometimes even top 10 or 15, and I think he had more impact on alot of games more so than Blyleven and Sutton, who were both really good pitchers. But, couldn't not dominant a game the way Nolan did. His lower ERA and his legendary strikeout totals are something that are just jaw-dropping, while not having too many teams that were big on run support.

 

Let me try to list the guys who at 44 years old had just finished leading their league in WHIP for the 2nd consecutive year.

 

Blyleven was on the cusp for years. Besides, I never considered Blyleven was able to put fear in hitters when he faced them. Ryan did that. He may not have been a lights out pitcher when it came to glory stats, but he was one of the most dominate pitchers of his era. HOF worthy and hardly overrated. How many Cy youngs did he win compared to Clemens and others? That is more of popularity contest.

 

Baseball awards (with the exception of a gold glove or all-star game) are actually very prestigious and treated with a lot of a respect. Sure, they make mistakes (overvaluing wins and giving Bartolo Colon a Cy Young!) but for the most part, winning a Cy Young/MVP is a significant achievement.

 

You are a sports moron. The name of the game for pitchers is ERA period. Nolan had a 27 year 3.19 ERA which is just remarkable. In the 2 seasons that Nolan lead the league in ERA he had an ERA of 1.69 but only finished 11 wins and 5 losses and the other year his ERA was 2.76 and he finished with 8 wins and 16 losses. To bad he had some of the worst run support through out his career for any pitcher ever. On top of that he has the most No Hitters by a large margin. He lead the league 12 times allowing the least number of hits per 9 innings. Over-hyped? really?

 

Actually, statistics such as ERA+, WAR, FIP and xFIP do a better job at indicated how well a pitcher pitched in a given year, especially relative to his competition.

Example: If the league average era is 3.5 and you pitch to a 3.0 era, is that better than a guy who pitched to a 3.3 era in a year where the average was 4.8?

Anyway, in ERA+ Nolan doesn't look so hot with an ERA+ of 112 for his career. (100 is average) However, in WAR, Ryan is the 16th greatest pitcher of all time. WAR represents "Wins Above Replacement," basically calculating how much better a player was than a replacement level player at his position. Ryan was pretty damn good in that category.

Anyway, to summarize my own personal position, it is possible that some people might overrated Ryan here in Texas, but I think for the most part he is rightfully revered.