Most underappreciated/undercollected players

[phikappapsi]

Hey fellas - this is probably a topic that's been hashed out on these boards a few times; but who doesn't like circling back on old conversations?

Just curious if anyone has strong feelings about guys they think are just massively undervalued, under-collected, or underappreciated in the hobby relative to their contribution to the game.

For me; I've always found it curious just how small the premium is for Rogers Hornsby. Maybe just the era he played in was that gap period that seems to exist between the Tobacco and Gum card waves? Or maybe he's just not a name that gets enough play in the history of the game? But one of the greatest pure hitters in the history of the game, right there in the conversation with Cobb and Teddy, but seems to get very little love.

[rainier2004]

Pre was - WaJo. I know, he is collected by a bunch of guys but still... He is arguably the best pitcher in history, was always a class act and riddled with misfortune throughout his life. IMO he isn't collected near as much as the other 4 in the inaugural HOF class and his cards seem to be worth the least of those.

Post war - Al Kaline, Mr. Tiger, as solid as they get. His lifetime stats aren't quite as impressive as some but he is as big of art of an organization as player can get. Does anyone remember he refused his bonus one year b/c he said he didn't play well enough to deserve it?

[Throttlesteer]

Harry Heilmann. Overshadowed by Cobb, but quietly lethal at the plate.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by rainier2004

Pre was - WaJo. I know, he is collected by a bunch of guys but still... He is arguably the best pitcher in history, was always a class act and riddled with misfortune throughout his life. IMO he isn't collected near as much as the other 4 in the inaugural HOF class and his cards seem to be worth the least of those.

Post war - Al Kaline, Mr. Tiger, as solid as they get. His lifetime stats aren't quite as impressive as some but he is as big of art of an organization as player can get. Does anyone remember he refused his bonus one year b/c he said he didn't play well enough to deserve it?

Walter did suffer several devastating tragedies, beginning with the death of his young daughter in 1921 and especially his wife's passing suddenly in 1930 at the age of 36. He never really got over that one. But "riddled with misfortune all his life" overstates the case, in fact he had the kind of charmed life most people could only dream about until he was in his mid-30s.

[stutor]

Grover Cleveland Alexander

[luciobar1980]

Eddie Collins

[WahooSam]

Larry Doby, Hank Thompson, Willard Brown and Dan Bankhead. Jackie, Campy and Satchel get all the attention.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Frank Robinson.
To some extent, Stan Musial.

[Fred]

Indian Bob Johnson

[tmw2ward]

Mickey Charles Mantel

[Bram99]

Harold Baines?

Just kidding.

Early 1900’s: Hornsby, Alexander.Chase
1930’s: Dean, Gehringer and Greenberg
Golden age 40’s-50’s: Doby, Allie Reynolds,
1980’s: Golden and Fernando
1990’s: Visquel
All Martinez team: Edgar, Pedro
All Morris team: Jack
Flashes in the pan: Karl Spooner and Herb Score (due to injury)

[rats60]

Originally Posted by tmw2ward

Mickey Charles Mantel

I have a 1955 Armour coin of him.

[aloondilana]

For a 6 year period Hornsby was better than anyone in the game.
He put up Cobb numbers but with power.

Jimmie Foxx to me, is by far the most undervalued in the hobby.
Just take a good look at his career stats.
He deserves so much better than this hobby gives demand for his cards.

[mechanicalman]

Lefty Grove, Bill Terry, Al Simmons

[The Nasty Nati]

Jimmie Foxx.

You could argue he was the greatest player of the 1930s. And yes, possibly better than Lou Gehrig during that era.

[riggs336]

Kid Nichols.

[Bigdaddy]

Post-War - Joe Morgan

[BearBailey]

Jim Palmer

[kdixon]

Lefty O’Doul 4th highest batting average all time.

[Rare Stuff]

King Kelly

[CobbSpikedMe]

Originally Posted by Rare Stuff

King Kelly

I love King Kelly stuff. Is he really underappreciated? I would this with 19th century collectors he's pretty popular.

[bigred1]

Jimmie Foxx has my vote

[GregZakwin]

Zack Wheat

[conor912]

I hear the hobby is just now coming around to God given gifts of Harold Baines.

[darwinbulldog]

Kid Nichols, Eddie Collins, Rogers Hornsby, and Warren Spahn.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by The Nasty Nati

Jimmie Foxx.

You could argue he was the greatest player of the 1930s. And yes, possibly better than Lou Gehrig during that era.

Not really WAR from 1930-1938

Gehrig 73.3
Foxx 65.9
Ott 63.0
Gehringer 56.2
Arky Vaughan 48.0

Now if you want to add in Foxx's 39 season, it looks closer because Gehrig was fighting ASK, but it is Gehrig and it isn't close.

I will throw out Arky Vaughan. He comes in at #5 and he wasn't in the majors in 1930 & 1931 (age 18-19). Bill James has him as the #2 SS all time with a 136 OPS + which is unreal for the position. However, he is collected as a low level Hofer.

Eddie Collins and GC Alexander for the pre- Goudey era. For Post WAR Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Tom Seaver and Johnny Bench are underappreciated to me.

[KCRfan1]

rats, that's a great observation about Seaver. Aside from his rookie card, Seaver is affordable and almost never mentioned among greats of the game.

[oldjudge]

From my perspective it is John Ward. If you ask me to name the most important people in 19th century baseball I would say Al Spalding, John Ward, Harry Wright and Henry Chadwick, in that order. Ward was a great pitcher who threw the second perfect game in NL history. After he threw out his arm he became an all star shortstop, batting third for the power laden N Y Giant lineup that also had Ewing, Connor and O’Rourke. He married Helen Dauvray who donated the trophy, The Dauvray Cup, that was awarded to the champion of baseball from 1887-1893. He organized and was President of the player’s union, and orchestrated the formation of the Player’s League. While a player with the Giants he received his law degree at Columbia. After his baseball career was over he provided legal advice to players and, in his spare time, managed to become a champion golfer.

[Tao_Moko]

Eddie Collins pre-war and Rickey Henderson post war.

[mrvster]

Maris and Duffy

[skil55voy]

Hank Greenberg and Curt Flood

[Marchillo]

My first thought was Frank Robinson but how about Hank Aaron.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Lots of good candidates on the Negro League side but I'll go with Oscar Charleston, great 5 tool player.

[ejharrington]

Generally, stars who fall short of HOF, especially if there's still a shot they can get in later.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by KCRfan1

rats, that's a great observation about Seaver. Aside from his rookie card, Seaver is affordable and almost never mentioned among greats of the game.

I agree. One could call him the greatest pitcher of all time and while one would certainly get arguments, it would not be an indefensible claim. To me it's absurd that Ryan has so much more glamour among collectors. Ryan did not hold a candle to Seaver as a pitcher.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by skil55voy

Hank Greenberg and Curt Flood

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

Lots of good candidates on the Negro League side but I'll go with Oscar Charleston, great 5 tool player.

and Tom Seaver - I modeled my 'drop-n-drive' delivery on his. Enjoyed watching Huddy do it too.

[Paul S]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I agree. One could call him the greatest pitcher of all time and while one would certainly get arguments, it would not be an indefensible claim. To me it's absurd that Ryan has so much more glamour among collectors. Ryan did not hold a candle to Seaver as a pitcher.

Agreed. But he did hold a great headlock to Ventura

[Prince Hal]

Allie Reynolds - Lifetime 182/107 and 48 saves. He was even better in the post season at 7/2 with a 2.79 ERA. His first 5 years were with the Indians too. He was a 6 time all-star. He threw two no hitters in one year.

[Buythatcard]

Roger Maris and Willie Mays

[Touch'EmAll]

I respectfully disagree about Ryan "not being able to hold a candle to Tom Seaver." Yes, Seaver was great. But c'mon folks, we're not talking Ted Williams vs. Harold Baines here. Seaver garnered 98.84 HOF voting percentage (#2 all time), Ryan was at 98.79% (#3 all time) - pretty close. I won't get into any records. Jeesh.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by 100backstroke

I respectfully disagree about Ryan "not being able to hold a candle to Tom Seaver." Yes, Seaver was great. But c'mon folks, we're not talking Ted Williams vs. Harold Baines here. Seaver garnered 98.84 HOF voting percentage (#2 all time), Ryan was at 98.79% (#3 all time) - pretty close. I won't get into any records. Jeesh.

I will

Career WAR
Seaver 110.1
Ryan 81.8

162 game averages
Seaver. Ryan
W/L 16-11. 14-13
% .603. .526
ERA. 2.86. 3.19
K. 190. 246
WHIP 1.121. 1.247
FIP. 3.04. 2.97
ERA+ 127. 112

Ryan has the advantage in strike outs and no hitters. Seaver has the advantage in everything else, most importantly in run prevention and value that leads to team wins. The idea that the Seaver RC PSA pop 2456 sells for less than the Ryan RC PSA pop 8531 is a joke.

[nat]

The answer is probably, like someone said upthread, a great player who isn't in the hall (yet). Or maybe a great player who played between the tobacco era and the gum era.

Under the former heading I'll nominate Bill Dahlen and Lou Whitaker. (Although Whitaker playing from the 70s to the early 90s really limits his collectability in terms of baseball cards anyone might actually want.) Under the latter heading I'll second (or third?) the nomination of Grover Cleveland Alexander. He's basically a half step ahead of Matty in terms of career production,* but not held in nearly as high regard by collectors.

*
Pete: 135 ERA+, 5190 innings, 120 WAR
Matty: 136 ERA+, 4788 innings, 104 WAR
That's a dead heat in performance and a small edge to Alexander in durability.

(I imagine that the fact that Pete's WAR advantage is larger than his IP advantage is due to better defensive players on the Giants, but I'm not going to dig into the calculations to verify that.)

[HistoricNewspapers]

I don't think it is preposterous to view Ryan in the same circle as Seaver. Seaver had the better career, but not by a ton.

If one uses a new metic such as WAR, then Ryan checks in at 20th all-time for pitchers.

If using traditional methods, Ryan is a 300 game winner and the all-time leader in strikeouts.

A big part of Ryan's drawing power is that he was still a star in his 40's. At age 40,41,42,and 43 he lead the league in strikeouts each of those years. At age 43 and age 44 he led the league in WHIP and K/IP.

In other words, Ryan was a marvel to a generation of kids that watched in in the 1960's/70's and the kids that watched him in the 1980's/90's. Most older pitchers are no longer a spectacle at the end such as Ryan was.

Add that Ryan became the poster boy for pitching mechanics at the end of his career...you have a generational icon.

And again, for the newer measurement methods he still is ranked 20th all time in WAR.

Ryan has a resume worthy of his card collecting popularity.

[fairport4]

If anyone in the vintage collecting community can identify a Jim Shaw autograph (signed cut, government card, album page) of the Senators ("Grunting" Jim Shaw" 1913-1921) out there it would be appreciated.. they seem to be almost non-existent although Shaw lived to 1962.. let me know if you have one in your collection..thank you

Billy Hamilton (sliding Billy Hamilton) is obviously a rare Hall of Fame autograph and was part of dead ball era (he died in 1940) but given his involvement in business and real estate in Mass. there must be some autographs out there or a signed letter or official document..

[olecow]

Eddie Mathews and Warren Spahn

[bbcard1]

Prewar: Billy Sunday
Postwar: Bill White / Curt Flood

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by olecow

Eddie Mathews and Warren Spahn

I agree with Eddie Mathews. Being a Mathews collector I like it though. Now if his rookie wasn't a hi # 52 Topps.

[packs]

Joe Wood. His Cracker Jack and T207 are expensive but most of his other cards are treated like they're commons.

[Golfcollector]

Top 26 all time WAR list that seem underappreciated ( I had to include #26 because my initial thought was WTF? 26th in career WAR?
#9 Rogers Hornsby
#10 Eddie Colins
#16 Mel Ott
#18 Frank Robinson
#20 Joe Morgan
#23 Carl Yastrzemski
#26 Adrian Beltre


My favorite Crawford comes in at 47 on the top 50...but no one pay attention so I can get some of his stuff on the cheap

[jchcollins]

Frank Robinson I have always felt was underappreciated given his stats in a post-war hobby that sometimes seems to drool on Mantle, Mays, Williams, Aaron, and Clemente as if they were the only marquee names.

Another just for me personally is Roy Campanella. When I first started collecting old cards as a kid in the 1980's, you heard a lot more about him. He still routinely turns up along with Hartnett, Cochrane, Dickey, Berra, Bench, Fisk, Piazza et al. in the GOAT debates for catcher - but it doesn't seem like a ton of folks out there collect him. If you consider a career that was cut short on both ends - it was actually cut shorter by his delay into the majors on the front side of his career than it was the accident at the end of it, I believe - then I think he really does qualify as one of the greatest players - even though his stats don't necessarily show it. I guess there is also the factor of Jackie Robinson - if you are going after the historical aspect of trailblazing Brooklyn Dodgers - you are probably going to lean towards Robinson over Campy.