'Stark Truth' chat: Hamels isn't overrated! Neither was Pete Rose

Jayson Stark: Hi, I'm ready to talk overrated and underrated Phillies -- and everything else -- any time you are. Thanks for inviting me.

Peter Mucha: Give us a little background on the book. What made you decide to do it?

Jayson Stark: Well, I've been aspiring to write a book for years, but never found the right match of idea and publisher. The people at Triumph Books are fans of mine. And they actually proposed this to me. They said, "We think you're the perfect writer in America to do this book." It's a topic we've all spent way too many hours of our lives debating, but nobody had ever written a book on it. So I volunteered. Pretty courageous of me, wasn't it?

Peter Mucha: It's a well-worn road. How is your take different?

Jayson Stark: Well, as much as we debate this stuff on talk radio, I don't know if anyone has ever delved into it quite as feverishly as I did. I think most of our debates in sports boil down to, "He's great." . . . "Nah, he stinks." But this is a different kind of debate. It's about perception -- how do we perceive these players, and how does that mesh with what was actually going on out there? It's not a book designed to make people mad. It's a book designed to make them think and smile -- and argue. It's also not designed to settle any of those arguments. It's designed to start about 100,000 of them.

Peter Mucha: Here's a Phillie favorite who I think was overrated:Allen Iver .. no, I mean Pete Rose. No power. No speed. Baseball's all-time leader in outs. Did his intangibles really mean that much?

Jayson Stark: Heck, yeah they did. They did in this town, anyway. Pete's a guy who could have been all over this book -- overrated, underrated, so overrated he's underrated, so underrated he's overrated, etc. But I wanted to include him somewhere (right field, ast it turned out) as underrated, because I saw what happened in Philadelphia after he showed up. And I'm convinced -- like everyone else in this town -- that that team never would have won a World Series if he hadn't been part of it. That ability to make players around you better is one you can't find on a stat sheet. But it's massively underrated.

Peter Mucha: I can't disagree with the winning part. Really makes these discussions difficult. So who's the most overrated Phillie ever? You obviously covered the team here for a lot of years.

Jayson Stark: I ranked them in the book 1-2-3 as Chuck Klein, Von Hayes and Lance Parrish. There aren't many old-timers in the book. But Chuck Klein deserves special mention, because he piled up insane numbers for five years thanks to Baker Bowl and its 281-foot right-field home-run distance, then did zilch for the next 12 years and somehow got into the Hall of Fame. Von Hayes was traded for five guys 25 years ago -- and one of them is still playing (Julio Franco)! Not too good. And Lance Parrish was such a dramatic signing at the time, Bill Giles had to blow the whole collusion cover to sign him. And the guy hit .230 here, slugged under (gulp) .400 and led the league in boos.

Peter Mucha: But their reps didn't last. Any icons we value too much?

Jayson Stark: We haven't been much of an icon kind of town, and the Phillies especially haven't been much of an icon kind of franchise. Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn -- none of them were overrated. Did I miss somebody? Mostly, we underappreciate great players around here. Dick Allen comes to mind.

Christopher:Overrated? I live in Boston, and the hype for Dice-K was like the second coming of Christ. He is not another Rocket, and I doubt he will be worth the $50 million posting fee in the long run.

Jayson Stark: I disagree. I think he's just settling in. And one of these days, he's going to be unbelievable. He's practically leading the league in strikeouts right now. So it's obvious his stuff is great. Most of his troubles have come in big innings that steamroll on him. It wouldn't shock me if he wins a Cy Young before that contract is up.

Johnny Goodtimes:Barajas, Helms, and Garcia. Is Pat Gillick overrated? Rich:Pat Gillick - most overrated GM?

Jayson Stark: I hear this question all the time. Pat Gillick's CAREER is not overrated. You think it's an accident he won everywhere he'd ever been? I don't. I'd use the word "disappointing." He's clearly missed on the guys you mentioned. And he hasn't been able to address an area (the bullpen) where the entire planet knew they had major issues. Yeah, it's been a tough year to try to fix your bullpen. But they knew that could potentially sabotage the whole season, and still couldn't find a way to get it done.

Jim:think it is clear the phils don't have all th pieces to make a real strong playoff run, despite their latest run they have been inconsistent. Is there any move they can make before the trade deadline to either strengthen their bullpen or allow them to hit left handed pitching any better? Do they need to go all out and make a move for a starter?

Jayson Stark: I think they need to spend any chips they have on the bullpen. Right now, there isn't anything of worth to go get. But in a few weeks, as the trading deadline approaches, that's going to change. Houston could shop Brad Lidge or Chad Qualls. The Nationals have Jon Rauch ready to move. Texas is going to trade Eric Gagne if anybody offers anything decent. They'll have options then. They just have to find a way to survive between now and then.

CS Summers:i Jayson - thanks for hanging out with us. I'm wondering if you have an opinion on the most underrated single season team to not have won the title that year? I would have to think that one of the Atlanta teams of the late 90's would have to be there ... or could it be a team like Seattle with The Big Unit/A-Rod years

Peter Mucha: Or the Phillies one of those seasons just before the 1980 team won it.

Jayson Stark: Well, that Seattle team that won 116 games would be a good start. Pat Gillick was the GM of that team, by the way. Then I'd go '88 Mets, with most of the same cast that won in '86. And then the '96 Braves. John Smoltz has told me many times he thinks that if Jim Leyritz had never hit that homer, the Braves would have been the Yankees, winning year after year. I'm not sure he's wrong. Let me think about the Phillies. We've got about a dozen of those teams to choose from.

Jayson Stark: I guess the '76-77 teams would rank 1-2 in some order, since they won 101 games apiece and won a total of one postseason game. After that, I'd say the '81 team that got derailed by the strike.

Alex E:Jason, you had Abreu on your all-overrated list, and at the beginning of the season it sure looked that way. Now that he's .326/.448/.500 over the last four weeks and looks like he might be back to the consistent numbers he put up in Philly, does that change your opinion at all?

Jayson Stark: On Abreu, nope. I'm still on board with that one. Bobby will always have great numbers. But I still say he lacks that voice in his head that says, "This ball's gotta be caught." Or "this is one situation where I can't take a walk." He's one of those guys who is less than the sum of his numbers. And that's almost a walking definition of overrated.

Peter Mucha: What about Pat Burrell? Numbers look good ... but in the clutch, well, he's no Eddie Murray.

Jayson Stark: It all depends how you define overrated in his case. Obviously, this guy hasn't had a first-pick-in-the-draft kind of career. And guys who don't live up to their hype fit the overrated model more than just about anybody else. But when you think about the way Pat Burrell is treated in this town, I don't think you can say he's overrated anymore. People seem as if they're shocked when he does ANYTHING good.

Phil G: Would you say that joe Torre is overrated? he is a good manager. But how can anyone fail with the talent he is given?

Jayson Stark: Man, it isn't as easy as he makes that job look. Yeah, he's had a lot of talent, but in some ways it's harder to manage one of those $200-million fantasy teams than it is to manage a team like last year's Tigers, where all the pieces seem to fit. And the biggest thing he's done is maintain a sense of calm around that team that never existed before he got there. The owner wants them to go 162-0. The whole metropolitan area has decided that if they don't win the World Series EVERY STINKING YEAR the season is a disaster. And the media crunch is insane. So his ability to maintain some semblance of sanity in that clubhouse is UNDERRATED.

Justin:Is Hammels overrated at this point or is he the real deal? I like his stuff and his composure for a 23 year old, but are we reading too much into his great pitching over his past 30 starts?

Jayson Stark: How the heck can he be overrated? He's been the real deal from the day he was drafted. He has more strikeouts at this stage of his career than any lefthander in the last three decades. He's been pretty close to the best pitcher in the league since last year's all-star break. And he's leading the league in wins and strikeouts. If he pulls that off, he'd be the youngest pitcher to do it since Dwight Gooden. The only question with Cole Hamels is health. Period.

Flip: Jason I have been a Phillies fan for 50 years now and for the last 10 years or so they have not had the killer instinct that you need to put teams away. Why? And where is it? Thanks

Jayson Stark: I know where you're coming from, Flip. But the one thing I think Pat Gillick deserves more credit for is the way he's changed the chemistry of this nucleus for the better. He saw the same thing you've been seeing, and he set out to build this team around guys like Chase Utley, who clearly has that instinct. What they don't have enough of now, in my mind, is relief pitching. This team has shown more life late in games, when it has a chance to win, than any Phillies team in a long time.

Bob: Being a numbers guy, what's your opinion on 10,000 losses?

Jayson Stark: Well, we haven't had anything else to celebrate around here. Why not that? Maybe it will make Philadelphia a whole different place -- kind of like Boston was before the curse-busting. We'll become the nation's darlings. The fans will soften. And maybe we'll never hear another boo. . . . OK, maybe not.

Peter Mucha: Can you take a few more questions?

Jayson Stark: I have another interview in five minutes or so. But I'm cool till then.

Peter Mucha: What in the book has raised the biggest fuss?

Jayson Stark: It's been two guys above everyone else -- Sandy Koufax and Andruw Jones. I understand the furor over Koufax. I'm not crazy enough to say that the second half of his career was overrated. Heck, he was the best pitcher alive, maybe the best lefthander ever for those four or five or six years. But people don't seem to acknowledge the first half of his career -- that's HALF of his career, remember -- when he had the second-worst ERA in the whole sport. And they don't take off points for only 165 wins. That's about half as many as Steve Carlton, the most dominating lefthander I've ever seen. I think we romanticize Koufax because he walked away at 31 when he was the best there was. ... I'm not trying to wreck anybody's dreams or tarnish anybody's heroes. I'm just trying to raise questions that should cause us to think about issues that never even get contemplated in any other context.

Jayson Stark: And with Andruw, Scott Boras is out there trying to mischaracterize what I wrote about him and what I've been saying about him on the air. No matter how Scott tries to spin it, the Andruw of the last couple of years was down 100 putouts a year from his peak. Which means there are four balls a week he used to catch that he wasn't catching anymore. Just pointing that out while saying Andruw is still a tremendous player -- and I'm pretty sure he'll be employable.

Johnny Goodtimes:Aaron Rowand is having a career year. Do you trade him for bullpen help while he's got a lot of value or do you keep him here and see how long he stays hot?

Jayson Stark: I wouldn't trade Aaron Rowand for any relief pitcher alive, except maybe Mariano Rivera. Isn't that exactly the kind of deal Ed Wade used to get crushed around here for making? They don't have a lot of upper-level prospects to deal. But I think they need to find some other way to improve their bullpen. That guy is too important in the clubhouse, and having a heck of a year on the field.

Sue Me:Did you ever dream of being an overrated player yourself?

Jayson Stark: On that note . . . I'm going to have to run. But this has been major fun to do this. Come stop by my book signing at Citizens Bank Park on Saturday from 5:30-7, and at the Borders in Montgomeryville next Tuesday night at 7. Thanks again for inviting me.

Peter Mucha: Thanks, Jayson. It's been fun. Not at all overrated.