That is why I say Mantle is by far the most over rated player. I have never said Mantle wasn't great. It is just that his cards are valued insanely compared to better players than him.

Well even by WAR, Mantle is 21st. If you remove the one 19th century player, he is 20th. Remove the 3 steroid users 17th. That is not close to being a top 10 player even before addressing the problems with WAR that skew Mantle's numbers higher than they should be. Bill James and Nate Silver have been critical of WAR. I am not drinking the koolaid. In the end WAR is just one (or two) person's opinion of players value. I do not agree it does even an adequate job of representing a players value. It skews some players like Mantle too high. It skews catchers like Johnny Bench way too low. A stat that thinks Phil Niekro and Bert Blyleven were better than Bob Gibson and Pedro Martinez can't be taken seriously.

You're just looking at the basic cumulative career WAR totals. Mantle, Pedro, and Gibson had much shorter careers then Niekro and Blyleven. That's why the chart above looked at it per games played. It's the sensible measure of who was "better" for players who lasted long enough for HOF consideration.

And as mentioned above somewhere, Mantle led the league in on-base percentage, walks, and especially OPS a bunch of times. So even if you forget throw out the WAR stats, those Bill James type numbers are well in his favor too.

The only objective argument for Mantle not being a top 10 all-timer is if you punish him a lot for not having a really long career. Which is the same thing you don't want to do to Pedro or Bob Gibson (who are in the same boat).

Overrated superstars, these are the ones that come to my mind. Most of them have some emotional pull for a great many fans that seems to supersede math when rating them.


Cal Ripken, Jr. Deserving Hall of Famer and his game streak is one heck of an accomplishment, but overrated performance on the whole.


Nolan Ryan - Big points for longevity, but he wasn't particularly good at not giving up runs (112 ERA+), which is all that really matters at the end of the day for a pitcher. His extreme walk totals are as impressive as the K's that everyone talks about. 20+ seasons of effective pitching gets you a HOF ticket in my book, but many mediocre pitchers were better at not giving up runs than Nolan was. Probably the most overrated pitcher of all time.


Derek Jeter? - Torn on this. He is now so famous for being overrated that he is underrated by WAR lovers and still massively overrated by casual fans. His defense was not actually as bad as is often stated now.


Roberto Clemente - Value wise, he is pretty much the same as Al Kaline, a great Hall of Famer RF. He does not belong ranked with Mays and Mantle; perhaps the prime example of emotional attachment affecting rationality.


Bryce Harper - His hype train is still trucking and seems like it's not going to ever meet reality at this point. A talented man, whose numbers do not support the press clippings.


Pete Rose - Writing yourself into the lineup for several years after you have stopped being even a league average bat sure helps break records. Too much is made of his hits, and not his batting average and all-time plate appearances and at-bats records. I value longevity more than most, but Rose is still not the top 15-20 player he is usually made out to be by the public.

Carl Yastrzemski - A HOFer, a truly great player from 1967-1970, but the press clippings pretend he played at that level his whole career. He wasn't much special outside of a 4 year peak, just an effective, reliable bat.


Thurman Munson - Catcher stats are the hardest to evaluate I think, but he seems the primary example of the big market bias + tragedy = hagiography equation.


Hal Chase - Anecdotes aside, his numbers are not that impressive and a player rigging games against you almost certainly causes more losses than wins. a replacement player was probably more valuable to his teams winning percentage than Chase was.


There are many others that are overrated by certain fan groups (geographic/ team or ethnic usually) but these are the ones where I can't get the math to ever meet the broadly accepted narratives. As for Mantle, I think he is overrated in that he was probably the 2nd greatest player of his time and not the 1st, but this seems to me a rather pedantic and technical point that misses the forrest for a tree.




For the opposite end of the coin, Underrated:
Minnie Minoso, Frank Robinson, Ralph Kiner come to mind. I think Lefty Grove was severely underrated until Bill James.

Most players that played just a big below a Hall of Fame level, particularly in small or mid markets. Guys like Will Clark, Tori Hunter level players.

Most players who made the Hall of Fame but weren't really Hall of fame level players, and whose claim to fame is now being undeserving. They were almost all actually excellent players, and their accomplishments are no longer remembered, only that Frisch or someone else shoved them through to the Hall.


Most 19th century players. A huge portion of the baseball fan base speaks as if 1899 doesn't count, and 1900 is when the first good players came around.


Players elected to the Hall of Fame primarily for their defense, who are popularly attacked as underserving because they have mediocre hitting stats. HOF voters were well aware that Rabbit Maranville was not a titan at the plate, but the narrative has become that these players were mediocre or even worse.


Players who excelled by the stats of their day, but WAR doesn't like have become underrated as nuance is lost. George Sisler, Pie Traynor, etc.


Players who excelled in stats and areas of the game not known or fully realized in their own time. High on-base low-average guys through the 60's, for example.

How are the Angels doing with Trout (and Pujols)?


Also someone mentioned the Nats winning the WS after losing Harper. How about the 2001 Mariners? They got rid of Griffey, Randy Johnson, Arod then went on to win more games than anyone ever.

Most overrated player?
 

I am one of the someone who mentioned the Nats getting rid of Harper, then winning the WS immediately after. Yes, Seattle let loose of Aroid, Griffey, and Johnson- over a 3 year stretch though, not one. And, unless I am delinquent on my WS knowledge, Seattle did NOT follow up with a WS win. ( I am sure someone will correct me if wrong:)
In an effort to extend an olive branch, however, I'd be happy to include Griffey on the overrated list ( his career was a tale of two wildly different halves- one phenomenal and the other forgettable) and of course ARod (no explanation offered or, one would hope, needed).

I really wish people used analogies correctly. The Angels have gotten 3 MVPs out of Trout. They didn't pay him to stay because they thought he was the difference maker in a tight window to win a title. They paid him to stay because he's maybe the greatest individual player in history and they're getting what they paid for in terms of his production.

If the Phillies signed Harper to put them over the top (which I don't think anyone can argue against), his play made him irrelevant which makes him overrated. It's that simple to me.

I think its probably too early to say that Trout's the greatest player ever (at least in my estimation). I do agree that he's been pretty phenomenal thus far.
And he certainly puts people in the seats and causes them to buy his stuff. So long as he's making the Angels money, I imagine the ownership will be happy.

Statistically, Rogers Hornsby is on the short list of the greatest players ever. During his lifetime he was rated as the greatest second baseman of all time and his stats are eye-popping. But, I wonder if we get past that, what do we have? Could you imagine a guy with these kinds of numbers getting traded so many times in such a short time? And, after the Frankie Frisch trade, he was getting traded for nobodies. Multiple teams felt that they were better off with "The Rajah" gone than to have him on the roster. I've heard other players say nice things about Ty Cobb. I've never heard anyone say anything positive about Hornsby's personality.

So, as far as overrated goes, could a guy be such a cancer in the clubhouse that he could actually be overrated despite putting up such gaudy numbers?