Let's Talk About Who's Actually the Most Overrated Player in MLB

As Cody Christie covered here last week, Carlos Correa's name appeared among the top three for "most overrated player" in a spring player poll conducted by The Athletic. It should be noted that relatively few players opted to answer this question, and Correa came in third with a mere four total votes. Still, his connection with this label does seem to hint at a wider perception gap.

In the first round of MLB All-Star voting, released a few days ago, Correa ranked 10th among MLB shortstops. Tenth! For a name with that recognition level, who was having a good season even before the current torrid streak got underway, that is simply wild. 

Star Tribune columnist LaVelle E. Neal III tweeted last week that "standards haven't been met" by the high-salaried shortstop, demanding more offense from a player who'd been well above average by virtually any metric. As Correa's current rampage got underway, Neal doubled down, even as his own newspaper ran a glowing piece full of clubhouse quotes marveling at Correa's exceptional leadership and culture-shaping impact. 

It's very weird to see. When healthy, Correa is one of the most well-rounded players in baseball. A defensive whiz at shortstop; a disciplined and consistent offensive threat at the plate. He's among the slower middle infielders you'll come across, but that is literally the only significant mark against him in terms of player profile. He does everything well, on and off the field. Yet so many scribes and fans seem to undervalue him while waxing poetic and reminiscing for the days of a bygone singles hitter, who legitimately does only one thing well.

That's right. I'm here to say that Luis Arráez is in fact the most overrated player in baseball, and I continue to believe that the Twins front office executed a master stroke by taking advantage of his inflated valuation to acquire Pablo López.

Let's be clear: I'm not saying Arráez is a bad player, by any means. He's won two straight batting titles, and looks to be on his way to a third. He's just a very one-dimensional player. There's obviously value in making contact and hitting singles at an unparalleled rate, but the name of the game is overall production. In this regard, Arráez amounts to a pretty average player.

Consider this: while Arráez is hitting a robust .318, his OPS (.733) is 13 points lower than that of Carlos Santana (.746), whose batting average is just .239. Minnesota's 38-year-old scrap-heap free agent signee has a significantly higher fWAR (1.1) than Arráez (0.7), who would rank 10th among Twins position players in that metric.

You might feel WAR is overrated. You might feel Arráez's contact-oriented production is preferable to more of a walk-driven OBP and power-fueled OPS. I can buy into those beliefs, to some extent. But production is production, and there's really no argument for Arráez being vastly more productive than Santana (as one example), especially when you account for the chasm in defense. Your mileage may vary when it comes to fielding stats, but it's plain to the eye test that Santana is a good defender and Arráez is a very poor one, who costs his team runs. That has to be factored in. But seemingly, it's not.

Arráez is currently the leader in All-Star votes at second base for the National League, edging Ketel Marte -- who's been immensely better through any lens other than batting average --  by 7,000 votes. I'm sorry, but that's the definition of overrated. And Correa ranking 10th among AL shortstops, behind Zach Neto and J.P. Crawford, is the definition of underrated.

While I'm sure many will interpret it as one, this is not intended as a hit piece on Luis Arráez. I love Arráez! He's one of the most likable players around, and his style of play is enjoyable to me. It was awesome that Correa recently credited conversations with Arráez for helping enable his success this year. The point here is more about the continually exaggerated perception of batting average as a standalone measure of value, or strikeouts as some supreme detriment, and Arráez (who leads the league in GIDP) happens to be the poster child this year.

Arráez's Padres lead the major leagues in batting average (.259). But they rank 10th in OPS, and 10th in runs scored. The Twins rank 15th out of 30 teams in average, but eighth in OPS, and they've scored three more runs than San Diego in four fewer games. That's a perfect reflection of the point at hand here.

Production is production. No team in baseball is using batting average as the primary evaluator of it. The gap between production and perception is the clearest way to objectively characterize a player as overrated or underrated. From this perspective, the narratives around Correa and Arráez are astoundingly twisted up, even on the home front.