Overrated and underrated
dallasactuary
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As promised, a discussion of what makes a player overrated or underrated. Bill James laid out 10 factors:
- Players with batting averages higher than their secondary averages will be overrated; secondary average > batting average = underrated.
- Players who play in hitter's parks will be overrated, pitcher's parks underrated
- Players from high scoring eras will be overrated, low scoring eras underrated
- Players who are great at one or two things will be overrated, players great at everything will be underrated
- RBIs are overrated, runs scored are underrated
- Players on good teams will be overrated, bad teams underrated
- Players who stay with one team throughout their careers, or at least until they are recognized as great, will be overrated
- Players who play in NY or LA will be overrated
- Players who are personable will be overrated
- Players with "other" skills (leadership, hustle) will be underrated
Some of these are intuitive, others are not. If you want to read James' full discussion of why they apply, it's in his New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract in his discussion of Darrell Evans.
I've listed them in order of their importance. Hitter's parks, for example, are enough to get a player like Jim Rice in the HOF - enormous impact on fans' perception. Playing in NY or LA helps, but it doesn't help much (else Mattingly - who was MUCH better than Rice - would be in the HOF, too.
I combined them all with as much math as I could, but there's still a fair amount of subjectivity involved; for that reason I'm not going to spell out how I did it, so nobody should even consider taking these too seriously. I think they are directionally accurate - I have not categorized anyone as overrated who is underrated or vice versa - and I think the relative levels are at least in the right ballpark. Also, everyone I calculated this stat for was at least very good; I don't think it's meaningful at all for bad or even mediocre players. As for who I did calculate the stat for, they were people who popped into my head, nothing more than that. A few of them popped into my head because they always do when I think about overrated and underrated players, some are just great players. I'm sure I'll add more as they pop into my head, or if anyone asks.
In order from most overrated to most underrated (stressing again - the rank is just among the players listed here - there may be many more overrated or underrated players that I just didn't do):
Gil Hodges
George Sisler
Tony Gwynn
Jim Rice
Ryan Howard
Ichiro
{line between overrated and underrated}
Willie Stargell
Babe Ruth
Hank Aaron
Joe Morgan
Ted Williams
Willie McCovey
Willie Mays
Mickey Mantle
Darrell Evans
Gene Tenace
Jimmy Wynn
You would have to go back to the deadball era to find a player who spent his career in an environment in which it was more difficult to hit than Jimmy Wynn did, except maybe Gene Tenace. Conversely, you shouldn't even bother looking for a player who played in an environment in which it was easier to hit than George Sisler; there is nobody, except maybe Gil Hodges. Give me the choice in a hypothetical draft where every player in history was available as a rookie, and I'd take Gene Who? before I'd take HOFer Sisler. Looking only at "back of baseball card" stats and ignoring park and era create misperceptions THAT extreme.
One last note: I am calling these players "overrated" or "underrated" based on the factors listed at the top. But that's really just shorthand for players "who face certain advantages or disadvantages that tend to lead fans to overrate or underrate most players' performance". You can see why I didn't want to keep writing that out. My point here is that, for example, Ted Williams faces a disadvantage for playing on a team that never won a World Series, but I think there are very few fans who actually hold that against him. He's probably not underrated by that much, let alone more underrated than Joe Morgan. Most any superstar (every superstar I checked) will probably come out as underrated, but with the all-time greats I think fans to some degree can see past the biases that cloud their judgment of lesser players.
Comments
Always thought that discussions about overrated or underrated athletes were well, overrated. Debate is no longer about the quality of the athlete but the quality of the interpretation by the fan.
Other than forking over their money what are fans good for?
It pains me to see Hodges at the top of
the over rated list. It may well be accurate from an advanced stats view and compared to players that came after, but I can't help but feel he was jobbed a bit, and feel Ted Williams was an a-hole for the part he played in Gil's ouster. Furthermore, when the Golden Era Committe had an opportunity to consider BOTH his playing and managing days, they fumbled the ball IMO.
This article has stuck with me for years.
https://www.si.com/mlb/2014/11/25/gil-hodges-hall-fame-brooklyn-dodgers
Is it his Avg. that hurts him? He has a pretty stout resume in my eyes.
But you can't really separate the two, can you? When a debate occurs regarding the quality of an athlete, what is being said is the interpretation of the debate participants. So to call into question what is said regarding the quality of the player is to call into question the quality of the interpretation of the fan who said it. In any event, it is impossible to have a meaningful debate about the quality of a player with someone whose interpretation of the quality of the player is based on bad information. That's mostly what I try to do here, and I think the same is true of skin: point out what the best information is, and why, so that others will use it. I think most people still ignore everything that wasn't on the back of the baseball cards they collected, and a lot of people isolate what their favorite player was really good at and rationalize that whatever that was must be really important.
Nolan Ryan was my favorite player, and for years I argued that strikeouts were the most important thing to look at when ranking pitchers. I was wrong. Nolan Ryan is still my favorite player ever, I just recognize that he wasn't actually as good as I thought he was. Mike Schmidt was my favorite player who didn't pitch, and I argued for years that home runs and RBIs were what made a hitter great. I was wrong. But, in Schmidt's case, learning what really mattered made me appreciate that Schmidt was actually much better than even I ever thought he was; not just the greatest player of his time, but one of the greatest player's of all time. If your favorite player is Ichiro, or Jim Rice or anyone at all, that's great and I will never argue that you shouldn't be a fan (unless your favorite player was a cheater). But your favorite player doesn't have to be the greatest, or even great.
Anyway, with respect to overrated and underrated, I think the way I'd most like people to think about my OP in this thread is not as a stat or a ranking. I left out the numbers I came up with on purpose to avoid that. Instead, take a fresh look at player's you think are or were great. Are you looking only at batting average or RBI and ignoring or minimizing everything else? Are you taking into account where and when he played? Are you giving him credit for things his teammates did? Gil Hodges damn near made the HOF despite there not being a dime's worth of difference between him, Cecil Cooper or Bob Watson. And that travesty almost happened because nobody bothered to really look at Gil Hodges, separated from Ebbets field, separated from Snider and Campanella, or that the only things he ever led the league in involved making outs (Ks and SFs). Take a look, then we can have a great debate about whether he was better than Cecil Cooper; but if you don't look, and you want to debate that he was better than Will Clark or Don Mattingly or Norm Cash and deserves to be in the HOF, that debate would just be silly.
DA...I was a Nolan Ryan fan mostly from the influence of a friend who worshipped the guy.
Strikeouts and no hitters were epic. There was always the "but" regarding his win loss record (324 -292). Friend would respond that he always played on horrible teams. Even if true, a solid pitcher should be able to win half his starts on a poor team.
Great hurler but still mortal.
What separates the legend of Ryan from the actual Ryan is mostly that he spent his entire career in pither's parks.
Great article, I have read it before and agree with it completely. Even IF you can reduce his accomplishments during his playing days, his managing skills and his integrity should put him in the Hall of Fame.
The HOF as it was originally intended was not only for the statistically superior, but character and contribution to the game were equally important.
I feel that the HOF would be much improved by his enshrinement.
Hodges may be underrated or undervalued because he played with so many star players his accomplishments didn't stand out as much as it would if he played on a mediocre team. I say he belongs in the HOF.
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Ralph
I am not sure any MLB player and whether they belong in the HOF has been discussed more than Gil Hodges. And there comes a point when it is just not worth rehashing over and over. As much as I believe he belongs in the HOF, nothing more can be added to make the case for his induction which is unfortunate. So I will just agree to disagree on this and move on.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Tony Gwynn shouldn't be on the overrated list.
And in what way is Babe Ruth underrated? Ask even the most casual fans who the greatest player in history was, after Jack Morris, they will likely mention Babe Ruth's name.
Obviously, whether any player is in fact overrated or underrated depends on how people actually rate him. As I mentioned with Ted Williams, if a player is truly great, and people are very familiar with that player over a long career, I think fans work it out. With Williams, I don't think many people really blame Williams for not single-handedly beating DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, etc. Fans may have rated Gwynn correctly, too. If you can look at Gwynn and Joe Morgan and say "of course Gwynn wasn't THAT good", then you've got batting average and secondary average in perspective and you'll probably rate Gwynn about right. If you say anything else then you're either overrating Gwynn, badly underrating Morgan, or both.
James' observation, which I tried to apply to a sample of players, is that players who have a high batting average (.338) and a low secondary average (.230) are generally overrated. Gwynn hit singles exceptionally well; he didn't do much else exceptionally well. But one thing Gwynn did do very well, and that James doesn't include in his list (and therefore I didn't) was hit well with men on base. His OPS was .814 with the bases empty and .923 with runners in scoring position. If I added a metric for that (and I think it's probably true that players who hit better with RISP are underrated), I think Gwynn would show up as pretty neutral on the over/under rated scale.
Where does my man "Stan the Man" fit into all these analytical discussions? As I am not adept at the studying of these statistical studies.
Musial shows up as overrated on this scale, but just barely, entirely because his park/era were more favorable to hitters than average. I think Musial is in that class of players who were so great and so well-known that everybody pretty much knows how good they were. James ranks Musial behind Williams and ahead of Aaron and I think the names that come up as comparisons for Musial most often are those two, mostly Williams. So my perception is that Musial is rated about where he should be. That is, one of the 10 greatest players of all time.
So good to hear. Thanks for that.
but hes overrated lol
IT CAN'T BE A TRUE PLAYOFF UNLESS THE BIG TEN CHAMPIONS ARE INCLUDED
Ruth should be in the overrated list....he hit in a park built just for him (a right field anyone could hit it out) and the pitching wasn't near as good then as now.
And Superman was overrated because of that damn Kryptonite.
Ruth shows up as barely underrated, and he does get overrated points for his park and era (and playing in NY, and playing on a good team, ...). But Ruth is the all-time leader in secondary average, and he gets more underrated points for his BA-SA gap than he gets overrated points for everything else. Ruth was also great at hitting for power, hitting for average, taking walks, and pitching. To the casual fan, and lots more people here than you'd think, Ruth was a big fat blob who couldn't do anything but hit HR to the short porch in RF at Yankee Stadium.
And I've posted this before but it doesn't seem to take. There is a pervasive myth that Ruth gained an enormous advantage from playing in Yankee Stadium and it simply isn't true. Ruth hit more HR on the road than he did at home, and more doubles. What he got more of at home were singles, triples and walks. And in none of these was the gap large at all. Add it all up and his OPS was about 3% higher at home, and every good measurement recognizes that tiny difference.
As for the pitching not being as good then as now, we'll never know but it's probably true. What is also true is that Ruth faced spitballs, scuffed balls, balls that had been in play for three or four innings and were caked in dirt, and he played as the sun went down in stadiums with no lights. And he did all that in a stadium that, other than the right field fence, was more difficult to hit in than most stadiums.
He's Babe Ruth, and everyone knows him and that he was great, And I still think it is correct that he is underrated.
Well said!
How is Babe Ruth underrated if he is ranked #1 All-Time?
He is overrated based on the accolades he gets for being able to out-homer every team in the league, because players in subsequent era's simply did not have the same advantages that allowed Ruth to do that.
In their primes, Mantle was better than Ruth.
Hodges is actually more overrated if viewing him via traditional stats. He only has 1,921 hits. Based on the those who boast Ichiro so highly, those same fans should view Hodges as garbage with only 1,921 hits.
370 Home Runs. Nice, but nowhere near the 500 club.
1,274 RBI. Again, nice, but the elite guys are 1,500+.
Basically, Hodges is no better than Foster in the traditional view. Foster, 1,925 hits, 348 HR, 1,239 RBI. One MVP, two WS titles. Dale Murphy had 2,111 hits, 398 home runs, 1,266 RBI, two MVP's.
How does Hodges get elevated over those two players via the use of traditional stat view, or modern stat view? There really is no way to say Hodges was better than either of them.
I agree that he's not underrated much, like a Bobby Grich or Gene Tenace, but you've seen the posts here describing him as a fat man who gets too much credit because he hit all his home runs to right field in Yankee Stadium (and apparently all of them just barely cleared the fence). To say he wasn't quite as good as Mickey Mantle in his prime is one thing - I think you're underrating him a tad right there, but we've already had that debate - but Ruth, it was once said here, couldn't play today's game and that's underrating him to a ridiculous degree. As in your example - with the HR > entire other teams - people who don't know much about baseball will rate Ruth incorrectly. But the one's you're talking about will still just rate him first; maybe for the wrong reasons, but they got it right. But the one's who get it wrong the other way will underrate him, so in total he's underrated.
You could also note Hodges OPS was the same as Reggie Jackson's. I guess Gil should have been more of a dbag.
Ruth is NOT the #1 player of all time......that would go to Mantle or Mays.....and both are better than Ruth as total players.
Playing in Ebbets Field in the 1950s, in order to be the equal of Reggie Hodges OPS would have to be 147 points higher. No, I am not exaggerating. 147 points. I know you had to have been on baseball-reference to find their OPS, and literally right next to it is OPS+, a stat with meaning. If you have to choose between looking either at OPS+ or at every other stat in the Standard Batting section, pick OPS+. Then, if you want a more complete picture, click on Advanced Stats and page down to Win Probability; you'll find Reggie with Win Probability Added of 50.7 (39th highest figure of all time) and Hodges at 27.9 (131st). Only two stats, but you'll have a pretty good understanding of the chasm that exists between a great player like Jackson and a good player like Hodges.
Except where Larry Walker is concerned, then OPS+ is WAY off.
I'm not saying Hodges is equal to Reggie although I would MUCH rather have him on my team or in the HOF.
Both players had nearly identical 162 game averages, means a lot more to me than an educated guess as to how they would have performed in different eras and parks.
Have you seen Mickey Mantles numbers when he played in Oakland his final season? He could have played another 5 years.....in a wheelchair even! ;-)
OPS+ has some merit, but it is not what some of you think it is.
The problem is that I know what OPS+ is, and your "educated guess" comment tells me that you don't.
OPS+ isn't a guess, it's a statistic that measures how all players (cumulatively) perform in each park. In brief, in Ebbets Field in the 1950's it took (I'm just making up numbers) 5 runs to win a game, and in Oakland in the late 60's/early 70's it took 4 runs to win a game. Producing a run in Oakland was worth 1/4 of a win; in Brooklyn, 1/5 of a win. Producing 100 runs in Oakland is 25% more valuable than producing 100 runs in Brooklyn. All of which is true because it was simply easier - not just for Hodges and Jackson, but for everyone - to produce runs in Ebbets Field than it was in Oakland.
Imagine an era/park combination where every game eventually ended 1-0; that is, it took 1 run to win a game. Is it an educated guess that Hodges or Jackson's stats, just like everyone else's, would be much less impressive in that park, or is it an absurdly uneducated guess that their stats would stay the same? Or how about a park where the average score was 112-104? Would Hodges have been the worst player ever by putting up the same puny stats that he did in Ebbets, or could we assume that his stats would go through the roof just like everyone else's did? You're saying that it's just a guess that he wouldn't be the worst player ever; I disagree. He'd still be Gil Hodges, he'd still be just as good, and he'd also hit hundreds of home runs.
Well stated and in clear, concise terms, too.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Kinda makes sense. Brooklyn had several HOFers but only won one world series. Perhaps some of these guys were vastly overrated. How easy is it to hit in Fenway? Not once did Ted Williams lead the Red Sox to a title. Perhaps he is actually only a marginal HOFer.
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Ralph
Hodges may not have been one of the top 200 statistical achievers of all time.
Hodges example and achievements as a team mate and manager elevate him to where baseball fans (not numbers crunchers) should all agree he is a wonderful example of a man who belongs in our Hall of Fame.
Educated guess, NOT PROOF, as is all comparisons of eras. But well stated, nothing wrong with the theory.
So you are now liking Larry Walker for HOF? Adjusted OPS+ of 141 just ahead of Reggie Jackson at 139. WPA puts Walker above Jackson as well.
Your numbers are gospel in one debate and ignored in another.
That is what's called PROOF that your numbers are flawed.
How good of managers were Foster and Murphy?
I really like BOTH of those guys, but why aren't you taking ALL of Hodges' numbers into consideration? I have yet to see ANY response to the fact that Gil made some very nice contributions to baseball after he was done playing.
As far as Home Runs and RBI are concerned, try looking at them per at bat, that should elevate Gil's value. ;-)
Can't understand the argument against Murphy btw. I would put him in. Can't see much of an argument against Foster either, looks like they were both great defensive players as well as hitters. Foster had only 7000 at bats, but that should be enough?
Take it easy Mr Seinfeld
Mr. Seinfeld? Me?
As far as I know, people are considered for the HOF as either players or as managers, but never both. Joe Torre - who was a far better player than Hodges, was a borderline HOFer as a player (I thought he deserved it), but when he was elected it was solely as a manager. Hodges isn't even in the ballpark of the HOF as a player, and had his "miracle" happened anywhere but NY I don't think many folks would even remember that he ever was a manager.
As for Larry Walker, I've been accused of hypocrisy or inconsistency for my relative positions on him and Reggie. The odd thing is, I don't recall ever offering an opinion on Walker so there is some creepy mind-reading thing going on here apparently. I'll do so now, though.
If Walker made the HOF it wouldn't bother me a great deal, but I wouldn't vote for him. He was injured constantly, meeting the minimum plate appearances requirement for BA leader only 10 times (Jackson 20), and never more than three seasons in a row. Had Jackson retired after the same number of games Walker played, his OPS+ would have been 150; that he played six more seasons with an OPS+ of 111 adds to that value, although it lowers his career OPS+. Looked at a little differently, Jackson had a career as long as Walker's (not all consecutive years) with an OPS+ of 152, plus a career of 800+ games with an OPS+ of 102. Jackson played in a far more competitive era than Walker (making high absolute OPS+ values harder to achieve), and still led the league in OPS+ four times, Walker never. Beyond that, they're pretty similar. Larry Walker was a great player, when he was healthy enough to play, and his case for being in the HOF is a decent one; but I'm a hardass on who deserves to be in the HOF and Walker falls a little short for me.
I apologize for my confusion on Walker, I thought you spoke out strongly against him. He did miss a lot of games. For what it's worth he won 6 Gold Gloves and had more assists in 1800 games than Reggie had in 2100. Better base stealer too.
I don't agree that Walkers OPS is 120 points higher and OPS+ is only 2 higher.
As far as separating a person's records as a player and manager, that makes no sense to me.
We'll have to agree to disagree on Hodges...........and Reggie.
No problem; it's even possible I did opine on Walker at some point, but I know I wasn't "strongly" against his being in the HOF. What I have probably said is something similar to what skin has said about Ruth: yes, he was very good, but he's not as good as his "baseball card stats" make him out to be. And while I do recognize that Walker was a better RF than Jackson, I don't think he actually deserved any of his Gold Gloves - which are given to the wrong people more than any other award - and, come on, it's right field, it just doesn't matter that much who you put out there.
As for Walker's OPS being 120 points higher but OPS+ being only two points higher, you can't really disagree with that because it's just a fact. And I don't think you can simply disagree with the concept of OPS+, as I hope my extreme examples proved. What you can disagree with is that, for some reason, the stats don't support such a wide gap between the easiest park in which to score in history (Coors) and one of the hardest (Oakland). If you want to explain how they got it wrong I'm all ears, but I don't think they did.
Agree that it makes no sense to separate playing and managing for HOF purposes. It strikes me as similar to keeping Rod Carew out of the HOF because he didn't have a HOF career at second base or at first base.