If you go by WAR, Freddie Lindstrom was Babe Ruth when compared to Tommy McCarthy. In his career, McCarthy put up a 16.1 WAR, which would rank only eighth on the single season leaderboard.
His numbers are also skewed by playing in the American Association in 1890 when all the good players were in the Player's League or NL, and also putting up big years in 1893-94 when everyone else in baseball did too. So McCarthy has three seasons that look good on their own, but they were really nothing special when put into context.
If they did a ballot of 19th century players now and put 100 names on it, I highly doubt he would make the list. He isn't even in the top 1000 all-time for offensive WAR. That's a list that includes 845 non-HOF players
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