Who is the most overrated MLB player? There’s a new wave of young talent in Major League Baseball with more stars in the game than in years past. However, it’s also not hard to look around and find some of the most overrated MLB players who have more name value than on-field production.
When putting together our list, we’re highlighting players whose reputation don’t match their national reputations. The die-hard fans who watch their favorite teams might certainly know these players haven’t performed up to their name value, but our focus is on highlighting players for a national audience.
Let’s dive into our list of the most overrated MLB players right now.
Luis Arraez, infielder, San Diego Padres
An All-Star selection, Silver Slugger Award winner and batting champion in each of the last two seasons, Luis Arraez is viewed by plenty of fans as one of the best hitters in baseball. However, he’s also one of the most overrated MLB players today. After posting a .383/.434/.471 slash line before the All-Star Break in 2023, Arraez owns a .313/.342/.45 slash line and .777 OPS from July 15, 2023 – May 5, 2024. Those aren’t bad numbers by any means, but Arraez is also a negative defensively (-9.7 Def Rating, 80th in MLB) over the last three seasons. If you’re going to hurt your team defensively, you need to make up for it with elite-run production. Arraez’s batting average is nice but considering 78 percent of his hits from 2022-’23 were singles, he is not even bringing that match offensively.
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Vladimir Guerrero Jr, first baseman, Toronto Blue Jays
Once the highest-rated prospect in baseball, Vladimir Guerero Jr. was viewed as the future face of MLB. He seemed to be on that trajectory early, leading the league in home runs and earning All-MLB First Team in 2021 with a 1.002 OPS, 48 home runs, 111 RBI and a .601 SLG. Guerrero’s OPS plummeted to .818 in 2022 and over the last two seasons (2023-’24), he sports just a .260/.343/.431 slash line with a .774 OPS and 30 home runs in 736 at-bats. Sadly, he only seems to be getting worse at the plate. There’s still time for a career turnaround, as he’s only 25 years old, but Guerero Jr. is arguably the poster child for the most overrated MLB players.
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Matt Chapman, third baseman, San Francisco Giants
Matt Chapman was electrifying to start his major-league career, posting a .278/.356/.508 slash line with 24 homers and 100 runs scores in his second season. The following year, Chapman crushed 36 home runs, earned his first All-Star selection and recorded a .800 OPS for the second consecutive season. It’s been years since we’ve seen that player. Across 1,182 at-bats from 2022-’24, Chapman has struck out 27.7 percent of the time with a .232/.320/.420 line and just 48 home runs. What makes it even worse, Chapman is no longer one of the league’s best defensive players, in fact, he’s just above-average defensively at the hot corner these days.
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Paul Goldschmidt, first baseman, St. Louis Cardinals
Father Time came for Paul Goldschmidt quickly. Back in 2022, he won National League MVP with the St. Louis Cardinals thanks to a .317/.404/.578 line with 36 homers, 115 RBI and a 177 OPS+. Goldschmidt’s OBP (.363) and OPS+ (120) plummeted in 2023 and in his age-36 season, he’s been even worse through his first 125 at-bats (.208/.298/.280). He’s also hurting the Cardinals defensively now and with a 0.1 FanGraphs’ Wins Above Replacement through his first 35 games, St. Louis should just be thankful it can move on from his contract after this season.
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Pete Alonso, first baseman, New York Mets
Like a few other players on our list of most overrated MLB players in 2024, Pete ALonso’s career got off to a scorching-hot start. He had one of the greatest rookie seasons ever with a record-setting 53 homers by a rookie in 2019. In 2021, he posted a .863 OPS with 37 homers then followed it up with consecutive seasons of 40-plus home runs. However, Alonso’s three-outcome approach has led to some worrying numbers as of late. Since the 2023 All-Star Break, the New York Mets slugger has a .218/.316/.481 slash line. Putting that in perspective, 48 qualified hitters have a higher OPS than Alonso (.797) since the second half of the 2023 season. In a contract year and amid a career-worst season, Alonso is costing himself plenty in potential contract earnings before free agency.
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J.T. Realmuto, catcher, Philadelphia Phillies
J.T. Realmuto is another example of Father Time catching up to a player. He last earned an All-Star selection in 2021, but the Philadelphia Phillies catcher was still named All-MLB First Team and nabbed a Gold Glove Award in 2022. No one has seen that player since. Across his last 605 at-bats since the start of the 2023 season, Realmuto only has a .253/.311/.448 slash line. Just as troubling, Realmuto is now graded as one of the worst catchers in baseball defensively.
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Aaron Nola, starting pitcher, Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies re-signed Aaron Nola this offseason to a seven-year deal worth $172 million, hoping their former ace would rebound after posting a 4.46 ERA in 2023. Unfortunately for Philadelphia, the deal seemed like an overpay then and it’s no different now. Nola is still responsible for a pedestrian 4.03 WHIP since 2021 and his strikeout rate hasn’t cracked 26 percent in the last two seasons. With a 1.15 WHIP over the past two seasons and a K-BB rate down below 16 percent, this certainly feels like a contract the Phillies will regret for a while.
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Craig Kimbrel, closer, Baltimore Orioles
Craig Kimbrel is one of the best closers of his era. He is one of just eight players with 400-plus career saves and he’ll certainly retire at least fourth on the all-time saves leaderboard. With that acknowledged, the version of Kimbrel who had a 1.91 ERA and 0.92 WHIP from 2010-’18 then a 2.26 ERA and 0.905 WHIP in 2021 is long gone. Kimbrel is still a fairly effective closer (sub-4.00 ERA over the last three seasons), but his WHIP is now hovering over 1.3 during that stretch with his command worsening. All of this is to say he’s no longer the lights-out lock he used to be.
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Jazz Chisholm Jr, outfielder, Miami Marlins
Jazz Chisholm Jr. is the classic example of a player whose style and personality overshadowed his production. He earned an All-Star selection in 2022 with 14 home runs, 12 steals and a .860 OPS in 213 at-bats. In the last two years, however, Chisholm has produced just a .246/.308/.438 line with a 102 OPS+ which makes him league average. It’s perfectly fine to be a league-average starter, but Chisholm is not anything even close to an All-Star talent or even a top-12 player at his position.
Alex Bregman, third baseman, Houston Astros
Movin further down our list of the most overrated MLB players is a name any non-Astros fans will love to see. Alex Bregman looked like an emerging superstar just a few years ago, winning the Silver Slugger Award and being named All-MLB Second Team behind a 1.015 OPS with a league-high 119 walks. In the five seasons since Bregman has cleared a .270 average just once and he’s only produced a .787 OPS since the 2020 season. He’s an above-average third baseman, but Bregman shouldn’t be mistaken for a star at this point.
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Kris Bryant, Colorado Rockies
The Colorado Rockies’ decision to sign Kris Bryant in the winter of 2022 always seemed. odd. He technically justified it in his first season, with a .306/.376/.475 slash line, but with just 5 home runs and a 0.6 fWAR, he wasn’t actually that valuable as a player. In the two seasons since, Bryant has a -1.3 FanGraphs’ Wins Above Replacement with 11 home runs, 37 RBI and a .222/.308/.353 slash line in 93 games over the last two seasons. Not only has Bryant been one of the worst players in MLB over that span, he’s still owed $108 million over the next four seasons.
Marcus Stroman, starting pitcher, New York Yankees
Because Marcus Stroman wanted to pitch for the New York Yankees so badly, they didn’t really have to make much of a financial commitment to him ($37 million over 2 years). While he has been healthy, Stroman’s first 8 starts are much worse than his 3.80 ERA would indicate. He ranks 69th in WHIP (1.50), has the third-lowest fWAR among qualified starting pitchers (0.0) and he ranks 69th in K-BB rate (9.6 percent). Meanwhile, his 80.1 percent Left-on-base rate is well above his career norms, likely meaning that ERA will rise soon. He is so far removed from being an All-Star pitcher, even with that last trip coming in 2023.
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