for the most part, prices seem tied to player stats. beyond that, scarcity also plays a role. that said, there are a few players whose items have always struck me as notably overpriced and others as underpriced without any rhyme or reason. what players do you feel are inexplicably, oddly overpriced and/or underpriced? my list:
overpriced
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1) bo jackson. a solid KC Royals game-used jersey would fetch around $2k (even more if there's provenance). $2k+ for a guy who had a total of 4 good seasons and racked up these completely mediocre career stats:
141 career HRs
598 career hits
.250 career BA
never a single season with more than 32 HRs and 1 all-star game. his stats are on par with ron kittle and i don't see ron kittle jerseys going for $2k+. no doubt bo was very exciting but it was for a very, very brief amount of time.
2) mark mcgwire. i recently read about solid bats of his going for upwards of $2k. i imagine jerseys would be around $4k? what would prices be if he hadn't, you know, juiced it his entire career? $5k bats? the steroid fiasco decimated prices for canseco, sosa, and clemens items. it also deeply affected bonds' items. at least bonds racked up some impressive stats cleanly before he started juicing it in the latter half of his career. if canseco is to be believed, and he's been right on the money so far, mcgwire began juicing it early on in oakland. one big juiced career and his bats are still upwards of $2k? why did canseco and sosa take such a massive hit from it and not mcgwire? canseco bats can be had for peanuts. sosa's got more career HRs than mcgwire.
3) any rookie who's had a 1-2 yrs so far. eg: pedroia. jtbats is currently selling an ellsbury for $499. sure ellsbury's 2008 season with a thundering 9 HRs and a couldn't-quite-get-to-300 .280 BA is astounding
and has probably been replicated by only 8000 other major leaguers, but it makes me wonder why jtbats is charging much less for bats of frank thomas, gary sheffield, jim thome, etc.
underpriced
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1) rickey henderson. one of the greatest ballplayers of all time, first ballot HOFer, over 3000 hits, holds the SB record, and yet his bats seem to go for around $500. compare that to ripken's bats that often go well over $1k.
2) frank thomas. thomas bats go for 1/3 to 1/2 of griffey bats. what is the big disparity between the two? neither have ever been implicated in the steroids mess. thomas has a clean 521 HRs and griffey has 611, but thomas has a .301 career BA compared to griffey's .288. sure griffey was a great outfielder for a while. i'm not knocking junior but was he really twice or three times the player thomas was? as for supply, griffey was a bat factory for his entire career, pumping stuff out to mill creek and coast to coast. certainly no scarcity for his bats. the price of thomas bats seem to be on par with sosa bats which is really confusing considering thomas' HRs are clean and sosas' aren't.
what other pricing oddities are out there?
rudy.
overpriced
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1) bo jackson. a solid KC Royals game-used jersey would fetch around $2k (even more if there's provenance). $2k+ for a guy who had a total of 4 good seasons and racked up these completely mediocre career stats:
141 career HRs
598 career hits
.250 career BA
never a single season with more than 32 HRs and 1 all-star game. his stats are on par with ron kittle and i don't see ron kittle jerseys going for $2k+. no doubt bo was very exciting but it was for a very, very brief amount of time.
2) mark mcgwire. i recently read about solid bats of his going for upwards of $2k. i imagine jerseys would be around $4k? what would prices be if he hadn't, you know, juiced it his entire career? $5k bats? the steroid fiasco decimated prices for canseco, sosa, and clemens items. it also deeply affected bonds' items. at least bonds racked up some impressive stats cleanly before he started juicing it in the latter half of his career. if canseco is to be believed, and he's been right on the money so far, mcgwire began juicing it early on in oakland. one big juiced career and his bats are still upwards of $2k? why did canseco and sosa take such a massive hit from it and not mcgwire? canseco bats can be had for peanuts. sosa's got more career HRs than mcgwire.
3) any rookie who's had a 1-2 yrs so far. eg: pedroia. jtbats is currently selling an ellsbury for $499. sure ellsbury's 2008 season with a thundering 9 HRs and a couldn't-quite-get-to-300 .280 BA is astounding
and has probably been replicated by only 8000 other major leaguers, but it makes me wonder why jtbats is charging much less for bats of frank thomas, gary sheffield, jim thome, etc.
underpriced
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1) rickey henderson. one of the greatest ballplayers of all time, first ballot HOFer, over 3000 hits, holds the SB record, and yet his bats seem to go for around $500. compare that to ripken's bats that often go well over $1k.
2) frank thomas. thomas bats go for 1/3 to 1/2 of griffey bats. what is the big disparity between the two? neither have ever been implicated in the steroids mess. thomas has a clean 521 HRs and griffey has 611, but thomas has a .301 career BA compared to griffey's .288. sure griffey was a great outfielder for a while. i'm not knocking junior but was he really twice or three times the player thomas was? as for supply, griffey was a bat factory for his entire career, pumping stuff out to mill creek and coast to coast. certainly no scarcity for his bats. the price of thomas bats seem to be on par with sosa bats which is really confusing considering thomas' HRs are clean and sosas' aren't.
what other pricing oddities are out there?
rudy.
Comment