"My mission is to be the ray of hope, the guy who stands out there on that beautiful field and owns up to his mistakes and lets people know it's never completely hopeless, no matter how bad it seems at the time. I have a platform and a message, and now I go to bed at night, sober and happy, praying I can be a good messenger." -Josh Hamilton
"My mission is to be the ray of hope, the guy who stands out there on that beautiful field and owns up to his mistakes and lets people know it's never completely hopeless, no matter how bad it seems at the time. I have a platform and a message, and now I go to bed at night, sober and happy, praying I can be a good messenger." -Josh Hamilton
This seems to be turning into a problem of what folks mean by overrated. It seems that if one is a legitimate HOFer, while that is not the ultimate measure of individual standing for comparative purposes, it seems ludicrous to say they were overrated. In other words, it is some hair splitting over superlatives, and disagreement over whether a guy was indeed super duper great or just super great, or maybe just great. Putting Clemente and Ryan on "overrated" and Seaver as "underrated" as Cyclone did certainly begs the question of what rating system one is using.
I put Piazza on the underrated list because people oftentimes don't understand the magnitude of how much greater as a hitter he was than any other catcher. Bench (and many others) blow him away defensively, and I'd take Bench overall over Piazza because of that, but Piazza was quite easily the greatest hitting catcher ever. Piazza probably is a top two or three catcher of all-time, but I'm thinking history won't put him that high, hence being underrated.
I put Seaver on that list because, IMO, he was likely the greatest pitcher the game had seen from the time Lefty Grove retired until the time Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux came up (and depending on how you rank Clemens now due to his "other" circumstances opens up another can of worms). That's a period of 40-50 years right there; that's impressive, yet few people likely realize it. Unfortunately, guys like Koufax, Gibson, Ryan, etc. seem to get more recognition than Seaver, yet Seaver was simply a greater pitcher than those guys. Spahn may have an argument over Seaver, but I'd still take Seaver.
The Lost Decade Average Season: 74-88
2014-22 Average Season: 71-91
I actually don't dislike any part of Suzuki's game. He does many things well and has one super-freaky skill set.
Yet others have noted, I do dislike the idea that Suzuki can do absolutely anything he wants to offensively. He can't. He won't walk and basically feels that doing so is a waste of his time. And yet, it's really not his choice. He just can't do it, which is another pretty severe limitation for someone who's supposed to be able to do anything he wants.
I have absolutely no complaints about his glove or baserunning however.
Let's see...what else...
Oh, he churned an international hype machine into an MVP award over at least one more deserving teammate in 2001. Then there's my own pet peeve..."Ichiro" on the back of the jersey. If any other MLB player did that he'd get fined. It's not a cultural item. He uses his first name to get more attention. Regardless of what he got away with in Japan, I've always felt that taking the field for his first MLB game with his first name on the back of his jersey demonstrated a profound lack of respect for the game. It annoys me to no end and I refuse to use only Suzuki's first name in any discussion.
Suzuki is an excellent player and he's fun to watch. It's just that he hasn't, for me, ever lived up to his hype.
"The problem with strikeouts isn't that they hurt your team, it's that they hurt your feelings..." --Rob Neyer
"The single most important thing for a hitter is to get a good pitch to hit. A good hitter can hit a pitch that’s over the plate three times better than a great hitter with a ball in a tough spot.”
--Ted Williams
Overrated - 50's baseball History - NYC centric to the core, even to today, Costas, Crystal.... YAWN.... I'm tired of the press that still comes out of that era, one big love fest of a bygone era.
Underrated - 70's Baseball History - Bullpen carts with hats, ugly uniforms, plastic grass and the San Diego Chicken... and that's just touching the items not playing the game.
I guess it depends on the frame of the discussion. Nolan Ryan, for example, is a legitimate Hall of Famer. But I don't think he's a viable contender when people debate Best Pitcher Ever, so to the extent he's brought up in those conversations more than he should be (IMO), that would bring to mind the dreaded "overrated." But like you said, it's just parsing superlatives.
Reading comprehension is not just an ability, it's a choice
Scarily enough, I think Albert Pujols may be underrated, even though he's acknowledged as the best player in the NL. Let's put it this way: He's at least 95% of the player A-Rod is; is he 95% as well-known?
"In baseball, you don't know nothin'"...Yogi Berra
"Reality tells us there are no guarantees. Except that some day Jon Lester will be on that list of 100-game winners." - Peter Gammons
I disagree. Best player in the NL is accurate, but fails to capture the degree of his performance to date. Here are his top 5 career comps through age 27 courtesy of Baseball Referene.
1. Joe DiMaggio (878) *
2. Jimmie Foxx (875) *
3. Ken Griffey (874)
4. Frank Robinson (871) *
5. Hank Aaron (864) *
There's "best guy in the league right now" and then there's "on pace for one of the greatest careers of all-time". Those are hardly the same thing.
I haven't seen anybody mention Ron Santo yet. He's there with Blyleven in my book as the biggest HoF snubs.
Another guy who simply doesn't get the props he deserves is Frank Thomas. Yes, I know he has zero defensive value, but wow, was he an amazing hitter. Take a look at his 1994 season: .353/.487/.729. For his career, .300+ BA, 500+ HR, and more BBs than Ks. Just wow.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
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