Stark's 10 Most Overrated

[missionhockey21]

I never set out to be The Ultimate Czar of Overratedness and Underratedness.

It just happened.

One minute, I was merely an ordinary guy, typing his Rumblings and Grumblings. The next, I was pounding on a keyboard, bound for authorhood.

Overrated-underrated authorhood.

Now, 60,000 words of pounding later, I'm the official author of "The Stark Truth: The Most Overrated and Underrated Players in Baseball History."

And along the way, I came to understand a lot more about the concepts of overratedness and underratedness than I used to. I understand they're not as clear-cut as they seem on the radio, anyway.

So before I kick off my list of the 10 most overrated active players, I need to explain what I mean when I call somebody overrated.

It doesn't mean he stinks. It doesn't mean he should be clearing tables at Pizza Hut. It doesn't mean his current team should release him. It doesn't mean his former teams should sue him to try to recover all the money they once paid him.

It doesn't mean any of that, at least to me.

Overratedness -- like underratedness -- is all relative, remember. It's about perception. It's about illusion. It's about myths. It's about assumptions we tend to make about all kinds of players -- assumptions that sometimes turn out not to match up real well with a condition best described as "reality."

So the question I kept aspiring to answer as I wrote my book -- and as I wrote this companion column -- was this:

How does the perception of this player match up with the kind of player he really is (or was)?

That's all I was interested in. Really. Just because I call a guy overrated, it doesn't mean I hate him. Or I'm out to get him. Or I've been seeking revenge for precisely 12 years, 2 months and 17 days -- ever since he blew me off when I was waiting around to ask him how come he dropped a popup one night.

I don't operate like that.

In fact, if the players on this overrated list really think it all through, they'll realize that, in a way, it's almost a compliment to be called overrated. You can't be overrated unless millions of people are walking the streets of America, thinking you're good, right?

So because of that theory of relativity, you can be a great player and still be overrated. You can be a Hall of Famer and still be overrated. Maybe it doesn't work that way in everybody's book. But it works that way in my book. Remember now, I'm an illusion-versus-reality kind of guy. Kinda like David Copperfield.

Oh. And one more thing we need to get straight before you start typing those "are-you-some-kind-of-knucklehead" e-mails: I'm really not the Ultimate Czar of Overratedness and Underratedness. I'm just the guy who wrote the book.

Your opinion is as good as mine. Maybe not as exhaustively researched. But you sure have a right to it. So I don't pretend to settle these debates. I just start them. Simply providing a valuable public service by allowing you, the American sports fan, to do what you enjoy most about sports:

Argue.

OK, here they come -- the 10 most overrated active players in baseball. Some of these players made it into my book. Some didn't. On the other hand, some guys who were in the book didn't make this list. The difference? The book was mostly about assessing careers. This column is more about where these players stand on the illusion/reality meter right now. Got that? All righty then, here we go:

Top Ten List (Details on Each If You Go To The Link)
1. Barry Zito
2. JD Drew
3. Andruw Jones
4. Juan Pierre
5. Bobby Abreu
6. Brian Giles
7. Alfonzo Soriano
8. Richie Sexson
9. Bob Wickman
10. Jeff Suppan

Click below for the whole article (I'll have my comments later on hopefully.)
ESPN.com: Stark: Top 10 overrated players

[HollywoodLeo]

No surprise Brian Giles makes the list. He's been on a steady decline ever since he came to San Diego.

[McKain]

I continue to be amazed at the fact that Jason Stark is no longer an ignorant tool. Remember when this guy thought Shannon Stewart was the MVP? And now he's suddenly intelligent. What the hell, Jason.

[realmofotalk]

It's so easy to now say that Brian Giles and Richie Sexson are overrated. Get back to me when there is actually a writer out there who can reason that a specific player is overrated or underrated despite what the stats say.

[GiantsFanatic]

Ofcourse Starks is the biggest Jeter homer, he will never say Jeter is overated, despite the fact that his own peers in a poll on SI voted him as being overated.

[browntown653]

Ofcourse Starks is the biggest Jeter homer, he will never say Jeter is overated, despite the fact that his own peers in a poll on SI voted him as being overated.

You're right, it's not like he's first in the AL on on-base percentage or he's hitting .500 with runners in scoring position...oh wait...

[Porter]

Sexson should be higher on this list right now. And about Stark and his love for Jeter. He has him as underrated when he was talking about it on ESPNews the other day. He also had Koufax as overrated. But with an interesting twist, Look at his 1st 6 years then his last 6 years and you could see his point.

[Fishercat]

Jeter suddenly went from double overrated (media/fans), to overrated (media), to even underrated now, he's only gotten better as his hype has died down.

But that's a pretty horrid list IMO. There's a difference between overrated and overpaid. Just because J.D. Drew is paid like an all-star doesn't mean anyone logical thinks of him that way.

Does anyone really think of Brian Giles as an all-star player anymore? No. They see him for what he is: a light hitting OF with good OBP ability. He was underrated for a long time, now he's probably "rated", if anything. Jeff Suppan? Are you kidding me? No one smart values Juan Pierre. Is Bob Wickman even relevent anymore?

Abreu is probably the most legitimate choice on the list, as his description defines overrated: his stats tell a story the experience doesn't match. Same with Drew to an extent, but he didn't really produce like Abreu.

[Dry1313]

Fisher nailed it on all accounts.

Stark has a skewed value of overrated. Monetarily, about 60% of the MLB is overrated. I want how their play is overrated.