apparently MBL players recently engaged in their own snark

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/1106/mlb-players-poll-most-overrated-player/content.1.html

According to a poll of 185 Major League players, the top 3 most overrated players are all Yankees. Alex Rodriguez, Joba Chamberlain, and Derek Jeter. Add in Nick Swisher and 4 of the top 6 are Yankees. Toss in AJ Burnett and 5 of the 16 players in the article are Yankees.

That says one of two things (or maybe both)

1) Yankees players get overhyped because they play for the largest media market in the country and the most legendary franchise in baseball, if not all of sports.

2) There were a lot of Boston Red Sox and/or AL East players polled.

But the top three are worth commenting on.

1) Alex Rodriguez. I don't know that he's overrated. The guy has had a huge career and is still putting up highly productive numbers. There are probably a dozen guys in the league putting up better numbers that you don't hear about every day, a couple of them on his own team. A-Rod has been tainted a bit by his steroid admission and has a reputation as a diva. Neither of those helped in the voting by his peers I'm sure.

2) Joba Chamberlain. This one I WHOLE HEARTEDLY agree with. I'd have put him at #1 on my list. I'm tired of hearing about him. He's supposed to be the second coming of whatever. But at this point he's a middle reliever with a 3.88 ERA. Average. Hitters hit .248 off of him. Average. He's blown more saves than he's earned in the limited opportunities he's received. He's only 26 so he has time. But he's not going to be replacing Mariano Rivera as Yankees closer for probably a couple years. I think Rivera comes back next season barring injury as he's still his productive self. He'll retire when Jeter does. Chamberlain is no better than either Jose Valverde or Joaquin Benoit for the Tigers. Probably not even as good. But he has a ton of hype and has for years. Some people whisper that the velocity on his fastball is already in decline. That is what he's been most known for.

3) Speaking of Derek Jeter, he's number 3. I agree with this placement just in the sense that Jeter generates the same hype that he did 4 or 5 years ago. He's not the same player that he was 4 or 5 years ago. Still decent. Still clutch. He's a great leader. He'll go down, quite legitimately, as one of the great shortstops in baseball history and one of the all-time great Yankees. He'll have 3000 hits. The first Yankee to ever reach 3000 hits while in their uniform, and he earned all of them while in their uniform. 5 World Series rings. Enough said. But he's not the superstar in terms of the day to day production that he once was. He earned the reputation from years of being that guy, much like Cal Ripken and some other guys who became more average late in their career then their "buzz" indicated. I can respect that. But I can also see how he earned #3 on this list.

Before Red Sox Nation snickers too loudly, Jonathon Papelbon, David Ortiz, and JD Drew are all on the 16 player list. Papelbon and Ortiz both suffer to a degree of not being the players they were in their prime, just like Jeter. Though neither was in the class that Jeter was in their prime.