Welcome to Snyder’s Soapbox! Here, I pontificate about matters related to Major League Baseball on a weekly basis. Some of the topics will be pressing matters, some might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will be somewhere in between. The good thing about this website is that it’s free, and you are allowed to click away. If you stay, you’ll get smarter, though. That’s a money-back guarantee. Let’s get to it.
As an Indiana Pacers fan, I’ve watched “overrated” become a monster buzzword during the playoffs regarding star point guard Tyrese Haliburton. I’m not going to weigh in on that, specifically, as I deem myself unqualified there. I do want to get a little pedantic on the meaning of the word, however, especially the strong feelings it elicits and how often I feel like it gets misconstrued.
The dictionary definition of “overrated?”
too highly rated or praised
In judging from the reactions you see surrounding the word “overrated” being used in sports, one would think that it means “is atrocious.” Let’s strive to be better moving forward and remember that being overrated doesn’t necessarily mean a player or team is bad.
Now, here’s your first test. Let’s see how well you pass it, internally. Just read the sentence and if you have a visceral “no, he was a great player” reaction, you failed the test.
Pete Rose is the single most overrated player in baseball history.
No, this isn’t intellectually dishonest. I truly believe this.
How many people do you hear calling him the best hitter ever? He isn’t close to that. You’ll even hear people call him the best player ever. He isn’t close to that either.
He’s an all-time great player, but he has become incredibly overrated the past several decades due to lots of things that don’t have much to do with actual, on-field baseball.
Now, the argument that will be hurled in my direction from the Rose Cult cavalry:
- He was actually an amazing player.
- He got the most hits ever!
- He’s a winner.
On the first point, no argument. Again, keep in mind what “overrated” actually means. Rose won an MVP and was a great player for a long time. His on-field case as a Hall of Famer is open-and-shut and I’ve said as much.
The argument that the player who recorded the most hits ever has to be the best hitter is always a funny one to me. We all know (or should know) that’s not an intellectually honest argument. “Welp, the person with the most hits has to be the best hitter because he got the most hits!”
The player with the most field goals in NBA history is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Was Kareem the best shooter of all-time?
C’mon. What are we doing here?
Rose was an excellent batsmith who stuck around and compiled the most games, plate appearances and at-bats in MLB history. Did you know he has 1,898 more plate appearances than the next player? Did you know he has 1,689 more at-bats than the player in second place?
Of course he has the most hits.
His career batting average was .303. That ranks 180th all-time. His career on-base percentage of .375 ranks 228th ever. His slugging percentage of .409 isn’t in the top 1,000.
That’s your greatest hitter ever?
As for the “he was a winner” thing, yes, I agree that he played on a lot of winning teams and was a great help to them. He won three World Series rings and played in six Fall Classics. That does not actually separate him from a lot of other great players, though.
Let’s take another one who was called “overrated” many times in his illustrious career. Derek Jeter won five World Series and played in seven. If you’re going to give Rose extra credit for being such a winner, Jeter gets more.
While we’re here, Jeter slashed .310/.377/.440 in his career, giving him a 115 OPS+ compared to Rose’s 118 OPS+ and .303/.375/.409 line. It might be fun to debate who was a better player, but we aren’t doing that here. I will say this, though: If we did a ranking of the 25 greatest players ever, neither would make the list and there would be major uproar about us not including Rose.
I’ll reiterate it until I’m blue in the face, but I’m not saying Pete Rose wasn’t a great player. He was. He was one of the all-time greats and had one hell of a career as a player.
He is also a perfect example of how out of control the public sentiment incorrectly surrounding the word “overrated” has gotten.
Remember, “overrated” doesn’t necessarily mean “is bad.”
On a team level, I’ll use the Dodgers heading into the 2025 season as a nice example. They entered the year as the best team. I ranked them No. 1. They were the betting favorites to win the World Series. They were also pretty overrated. Think about it. There were earnest discussions about whether or not they were so good that the game was unfair and the entire system of how Major League Baseball operates should be changed. If a team is so good that it’s bad for the game, they would be lapping the field all season, right? I’m talking about a team winning something like 120 or even 125 regular season games before barely being challenged in the playoffs.
Instead, the Dodgers don’t even have the best record in baseball right now. They were just swept at home by the last-place Angels.
This means the Dodgers were overrated by the masses. Even if only slightly, they were overrated. They aren’t so good that we should be worried about the state of Major League Baseball.
All I ask is we try to remember what words actually mean.
So, yeah, Pete Rose was a great, great player. He’s also become incredibly overrated.
We can do this together, gang. Repeat after me: Overrated doesn’t necessarily mean bad.
