There’s something to be said about being called overrated. You’ve got to be regarded fairly well for someone to think you are overrated to begin with. The guitarist playing the local bar on Monday night is never the most overrated guitarist – it’s the one in the band that’s sold 20 million records that gets labeled as the most overrated guitarist.
If you’ve ever watched The Office – and if you haven’t, what are you even doing with your life? – then you probably remember the exchange between Michael Scott and Jan Levinson:
Jan: Well Michael, I underestimated you.
Michael: Yeah, well, maybe next time you will estimate me.
When it comes to over, or underrating someone – we need to know who is doing the rating in the first place. We don’t know the answer to that question. But Jonathan Mayo of MLB Pipeline asked general managers, scouting directors, and executives for all 30 teams some questions for a series they are doing. And one of the questions that was asked was who is the most overrated prospect. Three players are tied at the top of the list with 13% of the vote. Hunter Greene is tied there with Taylor Trammell and Bobby Witt Jr.
Remember the part above where I said you’ve got to be highly regarded in order to get tabbed as overrated? Well, that certainly holds up well here. Hunter Greene and Bobby Witt Jr. were both the #2 overall draft pick – in 2017 and in 2019. In total there were 15 players who received votes in this category. Let’s take a look at where those players rank in the most recent prospect rankings from both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline:
Every player, except Adonis Medina, is rated inside the top 50 prospects in the entire game. It certainly seems that there’s plenty of guys on that list that are thought very well of, huh? Jo Adell got multiple votes and he’s the #2 prospect in baseball. Luis Robert just signed a contract extension that could be worth $88M and he’s rated as the #3 prospect in the game. Yet, someone voted that he was the most overrated prospect in all of baseball.
Hunter Greene was the recipient of votes in other categories. In the best fastball category he was among the “also received votes” list. Blue Jays Nate Pearson got half of the total votes on that one. Greene was also listed in the “also received votes” section of the best future closer category. As noted in the article – only one of the 15 pitchers that got a vote here is actually a reliever currently.
Only one other Reds prospect got votes in any category. That category was Most Underrated Prospect. And while I can tell you that I completely agree with the player receiving the vote he got, that I was not consulted for the vote. Shortstop Jose Garcia got the nod from at least one person in the voting pool. But to also put it into perspective, the player who got the most votes, Drew Waters, also got votes in the most overrated category.