Just my two cents, but I think part of the reason for the pricing gaps goes beyond on-field performance. People love a great story. Cobb was the mean, nasty fight-the-world terror. Babe Ruth was larger than life in every way. Jackie Robinson transcended baseball and became a symbol of America's racial divide. Mickey Mantle was the good looking golden boy living everyone else's dream of being the biggest star on the biggest team, all while battling his demons. Clemente met an untimely end serving a noble cause. In addition to being great players, there's a certain extra appeal that comes from the peel behind the curtain to see what these players were like off the field.
With all due respect to the players, nobody has any stories about Eddie Collins or Lajoie. Lou Gehrig was as vanilla as they come off the field. Stan Musial was by all accounts a wonderful man, but there's no character arc to his life story.
In my opinion, if a player didn't overwhelm statistically (a la Cy Young), and doesn't have something interesting in their life story, they fade into the ether with everybody else.
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