I love the HOF debate...I could read through the rationale from all of our perspectives all night. This thread veered toward the hallowed halls pretty quickly.
The OP didn't mention that the most overrated pre-war player had to be a Hall of Famer, so I went with Chase.
But Jeff...as I assumed you might respond, the fascination w/Chase is indeed the irony that if he wanted to be among the heroes instead of villians, by most accounts he likely could have been. And while any of the banned players make good copy...they might be a better fit for the purer definition of over-rated. Chase may be rated about right...a good player and a very bad man.
Fred McMullin? Chick Gandil?
Reflecting on debatable HOFers is also a bit ironic. When discussing Maranville, Haines or Geo. Kelly for example...none of us "rate" them high at all. In fact they could be considered overrated by the HOF, but not by us, the readers of this forum!
Still, I guess they are rated higher than guys like Lou Criger, Bill Bergen or Freddy Parent...those are real bums
