Baseball’s Most Overpaid Players

Tom Van Riper of Forbes.com recently wrote a piece listing out Major League Baseball’s most overpaid players. The methodology behind this list is that it takes the average salary/stats of every Major Leaguer that plays the position in which the overpaid player plays and compares those stats against the player in question. An example of this methodology from the article:

Jeter definitely earned his slot at the All-Star game, but with a salary of $21.6 million, he’s also pro baseball’s most overpaid player by a wide margin. Consider: The average 2009 salary for a starting shortstop in the American League is $2.7 million. The second highest paid after Jeter, Oakland’s Orlando Cabrera, makes $4 million. That Jeter rakes in eight times what an average starting shortstop does, while putting up only marginally better numbers, is the biggest disparity between a player and his positional peers in major league baseball.

Granted, a majority of the players in this list are definitely overpaid, I have decided to list a few of the players below that I feel are in a gray area due to the fact that the numbers behind this list do not tell the whole story behind the players salary. Offensive stats definitely play a huge role in a players salary; however, when looking at the full picture (defensive performance; leadership; community service), a few of the players do indeed deserve the salary they make. All stats below are as of 7/10/2009.  The numbers in parenthesis are the MLB averages for the position played by the player.

Derek Jeter - Yankees (SS)
Home runs: 10 (4)
Runs batted in: 34 (26)
Batting average: 0.316 (0.27)
On-base plus slugging: 0.850 (0.703)
Salary: $21.6 million ($2.7 million)
- I’m sorry, but Jeter is worth every penny. He is hitting 40 points higher than the Major League average, and the leadership he bring to the New York Yankees outweigh all the numbers he already puts up. Being on a team full of superstars, Jeter stand as the leader, and go-to guy in a city with a reputation for expecting more than mediocrity. Jeter has won 4 World Series rings, started his own foundation, The Turn2 Foundation (helping children and teens avoid drug and alcohol addiction), and is a career .316 hitter.

Chipper Jones - Braves (3B)
Home runs: 9 (8)
Runs batted in: 40 (35)
Batting average: 0.291 (0.266)
On-base plus slugging: 0.88 (0.755)
Salary: $10 million ($3.2 million)
- Chipper is very similar to Derek Jeter. Granted, he hasn’t had quite the success of Jeter off the field, and in the post-season, but Jones was a critical part of a team that made 14 straight post-season appearances. Since he came up, he has been a catalyst to a team that breeds winners. His career stats are borderline Hall of Fame material, and he deserves the $10 million he is making this year.

Torii Hunter - Angels (CF)
Home runs: 17 (8)
Runs batted in: 63 (31)
Batting average: 0.304 (0.265)
On-base plus slugging: 0.946 (0.754)
Salary: $18 million ($3.1 million)
- If I had to build a team strictly around a centerfielder, I would want that centerfielder to be Torii Hunter. The guy is a threat at the plate, on the bases, and is one heck of an outfielder. His OBP is almost 200 points higher than the league average for centerfielders, and his batting average is almost 40 points higher. He has about 10 more home runs than the average. He has a 1.000 fielding percentage as well. An all-around great athlete.

To view the complete list, click on the following link: The Most Overpaid Players.