Dr. Giganto

This is inspired by Slim's "Best of..." post, and a recent article I read on espn.com about overrated players. Basically in this thread, I'd like people to name one player at each position that is not good, but for some reason fans and the media like to think is good, and one player that fans and the media tend to undervalue. And away we go...

Overrated Catcher - This is the toughest positon to find an overrated player, for a few reasons. First of all, it's a position whose players are generally not very highly rated, so those that are highly rated usually deserve it. Secondly, it's such an important defensive position, it's tough to discount the contributions these guys make to the team. And lastly, it's very tough to find runners thrown out stats. So, taking all this into account, I'll have to go with AJ Pierzinski. His offensive numbers are pedestrian, at best (.286/.329/.436 for his career), and he's one of the worst at throwing at potential base-stealers (19% last year...only 6% so far this year. Only Brad Ausmus and Victor Martinez were worse last year). Also, only 5 catchers had more wild pitches/passed balls per 9 innings than him. So, he's not very good offensively, not very good defensively, he's generally disliked throughout baseball, but he still has a reputation as a decent catcher

Underrated Catcher - Ramon Hernandez. After starting out slow early in his career, he's developed into a pretty good hitter. His OPS+ (which measures a player's OPS relative to others at his position, taking home ballpark into account) has been above-average each of the last 4 years. In fact, he was 4th among major league catchers in OPS last year, behind only Joe Mauer, Jorge Posada, and Victor Martinez. As for his defense, he threw out runners at a blistering 39% clip kast year (only Pudge and Yadier Molina were better), although he was second-worst at allowing wild pitches and passed balls. Some of that may be attributed to the youth and wildness of the pitchers he was catching, but blocking the plate is obviously a problem in an otherwise fine collection of talents.

Overrated First-baseman - This is another tough position to find an overrated player, because these guys are generally all big mashers that put up monster numbers. The best person I can come up with is Adam LaRoche. People were very high on him coming off a great year last year, but his numbers in his first two years were pretty poor. Also, he ranked among the worst in the league in Zone Rating last year, an imperfect defensive statistic that should be taken with a grain of salt, but is an indicator that he is perhaps a poor fielder.

Underrated First-baseman - Lyle Overbay - This was actually pretty easy. Overbay gets overlooked, maybe because he doesn't have the gaudy HR/RBI numbers of his counterparts, but he is a very solid all-around player. His OBP has exceeded .365 each of the last 4 years, and he has batted over .300 two of the last three years. As for his defense, he was 5th in the majors in zone rating last year, and only Pujols and Konerko turned more double plays than he did last year.

Overrated Second-baseman - It pains me to say this, but Robinson Cano gets the nod here. He was on fire in the second half of last year, but he has two glaring weaknesses. First, he'll swing at anything, as evidenced by his 18 walks in 482 at-bats last year. As a result, pitchers have realized there is no reason to throw him a strike, since he'll chase balls out ofthe zone. He's also a pretty awful in the field.

Underrated Second-baseman - The second Oriole on the all-underrated team, Brian Roberts, is a surprisingly good, all-around player. He led all MLB second-basemen in zone rating last year, and he draws enough walks to give him a decent OBP year-after-year. He's also averaged 29 stolen bases and only 9 caught stealings the last 4 years, and he's 19/22 on stolen base attempts this year. His overall offensive numbers aren't great, especially his power numbers, but second base is a historically light-hitting position.

Overrated Shortstop - David Eckstein. Easily. His career slugging percentage of .358 is absolutely awful. But does he make up for it by getting on base a lot? Ummm...not really. His career OBP is a decent, but not great .350. He's a decent fielder, but not amazing by any stretch. He's a somewhat passable major leaguer that gets much more props than he deserves, mainly because he's small and looks funny.

Underrated Shortstop - Carlos Guillen. Last year's MLB SS leader in OPS. Had a stellar .400 OBP, trailing only Derek Jeter at the position. His .519 slugging percentage trailed onl Bill Hall, and was significantly better than Miguel Tejada's. He's an OK defender with a propensity for errors (28 last year, 10 already this year). However, many people don't realize how great a hitter he is.

Overrated Third-baseman - Joe Crede. In his 4 full seasons, crede's OPS+ has only been above average once. His career OBP is an absolutely awful .306. He gets some slack for being a good defensive 3rd baseman (4th in zone rating, only 10 errors last season), but his hitting is positively atrocious, especially for a corner infielder

Underrated Third-baseman - Aramis Ramirez. I don't think people realize just how good he really is. Since coming to the Cubs, he's been simply amazing, with OPSs in the .900-.950 range every year, and 30+ HRs every year.

Overrated Leftfielder - Left field is actually a surprisingly solid group of guys. There's only one guy who really stands out to me, and that's Scott Podsednik. On offense, he's a one-trick pony that isn't even that good at his one trick. His career OBP is .342, which is just about league average for that time, so he doesn't bring much to the table in that department. He has absolutely no power whatsoever, as evidenced by his career .379 slugging percentage. His one strong point is his speed, and he hasn't even been utilizing that efficiently since coming to the White Sox. In 2+ years in Chicago, he is stealing bases at a less than 70% clip, which is pretty bad. Some of his ineptitude is made up for with solid defense, but corner outfield is not a very demanding defensive position, and his contributions with the glove do not make up for his lack of contributions on offense.

Underrated Leftfielder - Matt Holliday. Playing in relative obscurity in Colorado, many people don't realize how good he really is. His line of .326/.387/.586 last year is fantastic. He's got power (34 home runs last year)and somewhat decent speed (73% stealng bases for his career). Plus, he's young (27) and just hitting the prime of his career. If he didnt play on an awful team in an awful division, for an expansion team that gets little media coverage, more people would know just how great he is.

Overrated Centerfielder - You could make a very very compelling argument for Chone Figgins, but my vote goes to Juan Pierre. If you're like me, and you think the goal of any major league baseball player should be to simply not make outs, then you'll understand why I think Pierre is so terrible. He has finished either first or second in the national league in outs made each of the last 5 years. As for his base-stealing acumen, he steals at slightly less than 74% for his career. Many progressive baseball minds believe that you need to be successful on at least 75% of your stoeln base attempts to positively impact your team. In that case, Pierre's 73.9% success suggests that his activity on the basepaths has a break-even to marginally-negative effect on his team;s offensive performance. Baseball-reference has a stat called RC27, which estimates how many runs per game a team of 9 Juan Pierre's would score: 4.58. By comparison: Johnny Damon: 5.52, Carlos Beltran: 6.28, Andruw Jones: 5.93, Vernon Wells: 5.87

Underrated Centerfielder - This is really really tough. Most of the guys who are legitimately good get the credit they deserve, and there's plenty of guys who aren;t nearly as good as their reputations. Best I can xome up with is Kenny Lofton, mainly because people don;t realize that he is still a very effective major league player. Last year fr the Dodgers, he put up a line of .301/.360/.403, which isnot bad for a 39-yar old playing a premium defensive position. The year before in Philly, he went .335/.392/.420, which is pretty damn good. He's also gone 64-for-72 in stolen base attempts the last two years (89%).

Overrated Rightfielder - This was a tough choice, but I'll have to go with Jermaine Dye. If you take away his career year last year (which, at age 32, seems a little fluky), his overall numbers are pretty average for a right fielder. His career OBP of .338 is pretty measly, and his career OPS of .823 is pretty low for a corner outfielder. By comparison, Gary Sheffield, Bobby Abreu, Brian Giles, and Vlad Guerrero are all above .900, and Magglio Ordonez is at .885 for his career. Excluding last year's career year, Dye averages 19 HR, 70 RBI per season. Even taking injuries into account, his 162 game average is 29 HR, 99 RBI (Including last year's 44 and 120). Vlad is 37, 117; Sheffield is 33, 109; Magglio is 29, 113. So, he's definitely the worst of the veteran "star" right fielders. Plus, he annually falls near the bottom of the Zone Rating rankings for defensive range.

Underrated Rightfielder - Brian Giles. People have kind of forgot about him now that he's playing for San Diego and he's lost some power, but he's still a very effective hitter. His career OPS of .927 is fantastic, especially his stellar OBP of .407. His OBP has exceeded .370 p consecutive years, and has exceeded .400 6 of the last 8 years, including a .423 mark two years ago. In his prime (ages 28-31) he had 4 consecutive years of 35+ home runs. Also of note is that despite his recent loss of power, he has 25 more career home runs and 109 more career RBI than Jermaine Dye. It's also worth noting that he's spent the last 3+years playing in one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in the game.

Overrated Starting Pitchers - For the pitchers, I'm going to do a full rotation of 5 pitchers. The ace of our overrated staff is Bartolo Colon. His career ERA of 4.03 and WHIP of 1.32 are ok, but nothing too exciting. His excellent win-loss record (145-89) is helped out by being a part of some good hitting teams (the late 90's Cleveland Indians) and teams with excellent bullpens that don't blow leads for him (his current Angels team). His Cy Young Award in 2005 was a fraud (Johan Santana had him beat in basically every pitching statistic except wins). At age 34, his best years are behind him. He's a good pitcher, but no the ace many people believe him to be.

Next up is Ben Sheets. His first three years in the league were pretty awful (33-36 record, high ERA and WHP), and then he put together a monster season in 2004, with an ERA of 2.70 and a WHIP below 1.00. Then in 2005, he missed 12 starts due to injury, and missed 17 starts last year. He's pitching well this year, but I still think he's a little too highly regarded for a pitcher who's only had one good full season in the majors.

A guy I fell for (maybe because he looks like the Rock) is Freddy Garcia. His career numbers are similar to Colon's, and they won't be helped playing in a bandbox in Philly.

(Note: Barry Zito does not make the list simply because it's become fashionable to call him overrated, and thus he is no longer "overrated". He's just "rated" now.)