Willie McCovey -- underrated and undervalued?

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by bk400

Been looking at Willie McCovey's stats and record as a player...and trying to understand why his 1960 rookie card appears undervalued relative to his accomplishments as a player...Is it because he played in Mays's shadow? Or is there some supply side issue with his cards?

As an aside, there is so much comp data out there on cards, but none of it is organized properly...

I think a lot of it is supply. There are almost 5K graded by PSA, another 1,500 by SGC and probably another 5K raw at least (I have a raw one).

You see Yaz's rookie from the same year go for more than than McCovey's. PSA 5's of Mccovey go for ~$175 and PSA 5s for Yaz's ~$275.

But Yaz won the triple crown.

I do think McCovey is underrated, even with the large supply of his Rookie out there. He was one of the most feared hitters of all-time. Led the League in HRs 3x and was intentionally walked an absurd 45x in 1969, the most anyone had ever been walked at that point.

Part of the problem was that he was battling Cepeda for playing time early in his career. From 1959 to 1962, McCovey averaged just 88 games per season, even though he hit .283/.369/.539 over that span.

In his first full season in 1963 he led the League with 44 HRs.

But he couldn't stay healthy, and played a lot of time through agony.

Supposedly Bill James once said McCovey could have it 800 HRs if his luck was better.