Most undervalued HOFers

John1941 · #1 10-25-2024, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by molenick

I once tried to work out who was the best player not to be in any of the classic T and E sets, and also to miss all the 1930s sets, and Alexander was who I came up with. In some measurements, one of the top five pitchers ever, but probably under-collected because of not being in these sets.

However, he did make it into both Cracker Jacks sets, which are technically E cards (even though they are not usually referred to as E145-1 and E145-2) while Heilmann did not.

If you want to limit it to T206 and 1933 Goudey, I imagine there are other HOFers sandwiched between these two...but I have not tried to look for those. Maybe a fun project after work. Some of the "lesser" 1920s HOFers, like "Highpockets" Kelly and Chick Hafey would qualify.

I'd definitely agree Alexander is underrated - he was better than Mathewson but nowhere near as appreciated.

packs · #2 10-25-2024, 12:44 PM

I would say Tris Speaker is probably undervalued too. Tough to find many players of his caliber but I feel like his name is probably unknown to most casual fans who aren't collecting baseball cards. Despite being hugely popular in his own time it didn't seem to carryover to future fans.

He does have some pricey cards but I find him to be one of the more affordable HOFers in many of the sets he's in.

jchcollins · #3 10-27-2024, 05:36 PM

My underrated player that is either forgotten or nobody has heard of to begin with is Addie Joss.

Deadball era pitcher, died at age 31 from tubercular meningitis before the 1911 season began. Cleveland Naps, along with Lajoie, Elmer Flick and Cy Young, for a time. Joss's first MLB start was a one-hit shutout in 1902, and then in 1908 he pitched the 2nd perfect game of the modern era against the White Sox. He pitched another no-hitter in 1910. 160-97 on his career, 45 of those wins were shutouts. Won 20 games or more 4x. 2nd lowest career ERA (behind Ed Walsh) at 1.89 - and his career WHIP - the measure of how difficult a pitcher is to get on base off of - is the lowest of all-time at 0.968. (There are only three pitchers all-time with more than 1k innings with a career WHIP under 1 - Joss, Ed Walsh, and Jacob deGrom...) In this respect compared to Nolan Ryan - famously in addition to the no-no's and K's - the most difficult pitcher to get a base hit off of percentage-wise - Ryan's career WHIP is not in the top 300 all-time. When I see fanatic Facebook posts about how Nolan Ryan is apparently the greatest pitcher of all time - I sometimes ask people if they've ever heard of Addie Joss...

You read in multiple places where Joss was comparable to Mathewson or Johnson, he just gets forgotten because he died so young.

I don't know, obviously I wasn't around 120 years ago - but I like the story and the idea of Joss as kind of this mythical, obscure HOF'er. He's got both a portrait and a pitching pose T206, and then what must be the first ever "In Memorium" card that was issued after he died in the T205 set.

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