Most overrated baseball player of all time

I didn't know Michael Douglas had resorted to selling insurance.

 

well put

 

Um, no, he's not. Warren Spahn is.

Scoring and/or driving in runs is an even bigger element. Maybe Killebrew didn't hit safely as often as other players did, but at least he made his hits count. In 1962 he hit .243 but drove in 126 runs. In 1969 he hit .276 but drove in 140. In 1971 he hit .254 but drove in 119. I'd rather have that in my lineup than a guy who's hitting .300 but does it when no one's on base.

He also needed only 13 full seasons to hit 500 home runs. For the era in which he played, that's pretty damned remarkable. Only Babe Ruth and Willie Mays hit as many home runs in such a short period of time.

 

Given the fact that he had 1,689 more at-bats than anybody else in the history of the game, it's really not all that surprising that Charlie "Look at me I" Hustle is the all-time leader in hits. What is interesting to me is that, despite having 2,619 at-bats more than Ty Cobb (who's No. 5 all-time on that list), Rose finished with only 67 more hits.

It kills me when I hear people call Rose the "greatest hitter ever." Most prolific? Yeah, he gets that one (barely). Greatest? Only in his own mind.

As for the ring argument, I think the other members of the Big Red Machine get at least a little bit of the credit for the 1975 and '76 titles. As I recall, some of them were pretty good too  ;D

 

Rose is a demented egomaniacal sleazeball, but it deserves mention that the one individual stat he cites most often to prove his wonderfulness is not the hit total, but that his teams won more games than anyone else in history.
I don't know if that's true, but compulsive gamblers have a nose for numbers like that. I do know that Rose was the member of the Red Machine most feared by opposing fans, and that there's no way my Phillies would have ever won their only world championship without him.
I doubt even the most ignorant fan would list Rose among the game's top 10 hitters. Winners, well, that's another story.

 

PRHack, if somebody is actually out there calling Rose "the greatest hitter ever," isn't the overrated element, then, the intelligence of the person making that statement?

 

Scoring runs is the most important element of the game (tied with "keeping the other team from scoring runs.") When you are judging players, whether the player hit doubles, triples and home runs as opposed to singles most assuredly is NOT overrated.

 

Those of you who say Ryan is overrated because of his W-L record can't be serious.
Like "wins" and "losses" are an equitable and accurate gauge of a pitcher's performance.
Ridiculous.

 

No doubt it's this guy. What a FRAUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/olympics/stories/BodeMillerPride.html?cxntnid=sprt071206e

 

Wow, I didn't know Joe Morgan was an SportsJournalists.commer. Thanks for stopping by Joe.

 

I can't argue that. Problem is, a lot of people get caught up in the hit total and really don't look at anything else. Just for fun, I took a look at the batting average of the other players among the top 10 alltime in hits. This is what I found:

Rose .303
Cobb .366
Aaron .305
Musial .331
Speaker .345
Yaz. .285
Anson .333
Wagner .327
Molitor .306
Collins .333

As you can see, Rose ranks ninth on the list between Aaron and Yaz, two guys who combined for 1,207 home runs and 4,141 RBIs (Rose had 160 and 1314, respectively).

I'm not going to argue that Rose wasn't a top-shelf player, because he was. As Michael pointed out, the guy was a winner (at least on the ballfield), and statistically speaking, he also scored 2,165 runs in his career (just nine less than Aaron). Still, I think he gets way too much credit for his "hustle," which to me was just showmanship. The fact that I think he's a slimebag probably colors my judgement a little bit as well ;D

 

Twoback:

They were two separate comments. I didn't say whether Harmon Killebrew was or wasn't better than Pete Rose.

What I did say is that if you could make a case certain that anyone was overrated, it was Pete Rose's inclusion on the All-Century team. Pete Rose played in six World Series and won three. Derek Jeter played in six World Series and won four. Gene Woodling played on five World Series champions. Pete Rose was a key factor, but there was never a point where he was the best player on any of those teams. Never. Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan were better with the Reds during the seasons they played with Rose, and Michael Jack Schmidt was better with the Phillies. I'm not saying Pete Rose wasn't a great ballplayer - anybody who plays over 20 years in the major leagues is a great player simply because they manage to stay among the best players for that long a time.

Pete Rose had the most hits, but he also made the most outs. Both of those comments are facts and both can be proven by statistics. Without context, it means nothing. And if Pete Rose is considered one of the top 30 or top 50 position players of all time, I say he's overrated.

As for Harmon Killebrew, pr hack showed how good he was. Here's my test - if you asked a pitcher from 1965 to 1971 (Killebrew was hurt later in his career) who they would rather face, I feel confident that that Killebrew would be more feared than Pete Rose.