Why I Find the "Overrated Baseball Players" List Amusing

There was a whole to-do yesterday over four Yankees being named to Sports Illustrated's poll of the Most Overrated MLB players, with Alex Rodriguez, Joba Chamberlain, and Derek Jeter taking the top three spots, and Nick Swisher tying Jayson Werth and Jonathan Papelbon for fourth place.

And for once, A-Rod, the "winner" of the contest voted on by his peers, outdid Derek Jeter, No. 3 on the list, when it came to handling negative attention with a smile and a laugh. For that matter, Joba Chamberlain, who came in second, said all the right things, too. Jeter, not so much.

Here's the scoop. Erik Boland of Newsday describes the scene in the clubhouse yesterday, with Joba, who "won" the title last year, teasing A-Rod about it:

"I lost," Chamberlain proclaimed for the rest of the clubhouse to hear. "I got beat out. No. 2, though...I guess I passed the torch on to Alex."


Upon seeing Rodriguez enter the clubhouse, Chamberlain, surrounded by reporters, yelled at the third baseman.


"You’re next Al, you’re next!"

Here's how A-Rod reacted:

Rodriguez smiled for almost the entirety of the time he spent talking about the anonymous poll.


"I’ve been on this list before," A-Rod said before pausing and taking note of 3/5 of the list comprising Yankees. "So it’s three Yankees? So I’ll see you guys next summer again."


Rodriguez also poked fun at his past reasons for making headlines.


Players vote?


"I’m sure I’ll be on it next summer so I’ll try to come up with some better material for you guys," he said.   "But, I will say this. If this is the only thing we’re talking about, fellas, we’re doing good."

 Here was Jeter's reaction, which wasn't quite so jovial:

Jeter was not close to being amused.


"We're doing this again?" he said. "I have no comment on anonymous polls. I've never understood those anonymous polls."


He added: "It's the same thing they do every year, right? I'm focused on more positive things. How about that? There's your quote."


Discussing his chase of 3,000 hits later on, Jeter amended that.


"Consistency is underrated," he said, putting emphasis on "underrated." "That's the quote."

Jeter usually has the right thing to say, as in saying nothing while saying something, but I thought he came off as really cranky here. This poll, voted on by 185 MLB players, is the quintessential example of the "you're just jealous" sentiment. Yankees win every year (Jeter was just as perturbed when he "won" the honor a few years back), because players are jealous of the attention and money they get.

Jayson Werth is on the list this year because he's making a ton of money with the Washington Nationals, and others are envious of his money. Nick Swisher is on the list because of his fame, endorsements, and probably jealousy about his TV-star wife. I would like to think that Jonathan Papelbon is on the list for being annoying, but his inclusion is most likely about jealousy, too. Any player who is on this list ought to consider it a badge of honor, quite frankly. A-Rod and Chamberlain took it in that spirit, while Jeter was peeved.

At any rate, Jeter's talk of his "consistency" is no longer applicable to his career, unless you consider consistently hitting .257 over the past year, with just seven homers, as a good thing. From the start of his career, until May 31, 2010, he put up the following stats:

.317 BA .387 OBP .458 Slug .845 OPS

Here are his stats from June 1, 2010 through yesterday:

.257 BA .333 OBP .336 Slug .670 OPS

Yikes!

Are the Boston Red Sox overrated?

Hope all of our readers had a happy Thanksgiving. I enjoyed seeing my Texas Longhorns hold on to beat Texas A & M, and continue their undefeated season.

Not much going on in the baseball world right now, other than the retirement of Yankee announcer Bob Sheppard. And this tidbit: New York Post sports columnist Kevin Kernan stirred up a hornet's nest when he included the Boston Red Sox in his list of the most overrated teams in sports (Hat tip: Baseball Think Factory and Can't Stop the Bleeding for alerting me to this story.) Kernan ranked the Sox at No. 10, writing:

Model franchise for stat geeks, but seems they can’t win a World Series without Manny.

Red Sox Nation wasn't exactly pleased with their team being on this list. So, when called on it, Kernan explained himself further in his "Where's Kernan" blog:

They have only two championships over the last billion years, and both came with Manny on the team. They’ve gone nowhere since he left, yet through the ages, trillions of books and postings and articles and twitters and Bill James’ ravings have been written about the brilliance of the Red Sox. It was a beefed up Manny that made the difference for that team that finally enabled them to win some championships. Without Manny they would have missed out. That's all I'm saying.

Yuck. I'm going to have to defend the Red Sox here, even though it's painful to do so. Somebody pass me some Tums, please. Here I go:

* Boston didn't win "only two championships over the last billion years"; they've won seven championships, which ranks them fourth in MLB after the Yankees, Cardinals, and Athletics. That number is nothing to sneeze at, especially given that they went 86 years without winning it all.

* You can't say that a team that has won two of the last six World Series played, with the last title coming just two years ago, is overrated. Annoying and insufferable, yes. Overrated, no.

* And you can't say that a team that made the playoffs twice since trading Manny Ramirez in July 2008 has "gone nowhere since he left." While they stumbled a lot this year and got swept by the Angels in the playoffs, they still won 95 games in the toughest division in baseball without Ramirez. Calling them "a model franchise for stat geeks" for doing so doesn't even make any sense.

* "Without Manny they would have missed out," Kernan writes. "That's all I'm saying." I agree. Without Ramirez, Boston would never have won in 2004 and 2007. But you could say the same thing about Mickey Mantle with the 1950s Yankees, Reggie Jackson with the 1977-78 Yanks, Mariano Rivera or Derek Jeter with the late '90s Bombers, and Alex Rodriguez with the 2009 Yankees. What's the point, exactly, of noting this?

* If Kernan is implying, with the "beefed up Manny" description, that steroids were the reason the Sox won those years, then he should just come out and say it. It's a fair point. But Kernan ought to be prepared for people to note that the Yankees had nine players from the 2000 Yankees listed in the Mitchell Report.

* The rest of Kernan's list also leaves something to be desired. He did the list twice, moving up Notre Dame and adding the New York Rangers, and ended up with eleven teams:

1. Dallas Cowboys
2. Notre Dame Football
3. New York Knicks
4. New York Mets
5. Cleveland Indians
6. LA Clippers
7. Montreal Canadiens
8. Detroit Lions
9. Oakland Raiders
10. Boston Red Sox
11. New York Rangers

After reading this list, I have to wonder how Kernan defines the word "overrated." Because who the heck is overrating the likes of the LA Clippers and the Detroit Lions, to name just two examples? Or the Knicks? Those are all really bad teams that nobody expects anything out of. They're not overrated; just awful.

Okay, I'm done arguing this. I have to go take some Pepto-Bismol, as I'm sick to my stomach after defending the Red Sox on something.  Then I'm going to lie down and think happy thoughts!

What do you think? Tell us about it!