Underpriced / Overpriced Oddities

[kingjammy24]

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
----------

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
-----------

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.

[Yankwood]

I put Thome in the same category as Frank Thomas. For many different reasons, accomplishments and popularity do not go hand in hand. Nobody will argue that Paul O'Neill is a better hitter than Chipper Jones, but O'Neill's stuff holds it's value and he is immensely popular among fans. Fred McGriff's stuff is also easily attainable at very fair prices. Maybe one of the reasons is the home run became cheapened in this era. Why else would Craig Biggio's bats be sought after far more than, say, Dave Winfield. Winfield had more hits than Biggio, and did it with power, yet for some reason he is not very popular with collectors. Especially when you factor in that he spent a good part of his career with the Yankees. Sellers always seek $500 to $750 for his bats but almost never seem to get that much. They're on eball all the time with very little interest.

On the other hand, it's hard to find another player from the 1970s and more recent era who played as many years as Bobby Murcer who did not have a HOF type career, yet whose bats bring about so much interest. And of even more recent vintage, Don Mattingly's bats, as witnessed on collector sites like this, are untouchable, that is, if you can even find them.

[treasurechest collectibles]

overpriced: japanese ball players. supply and demand. more demand from international collectors who are willing to pay whatever it takes.

[emann]

Good thread.

Quick address of your picks and I'll add mine.

2) I think Sosa did further damage to his prices/legacy with the corked bat incident. Add the steroids and he's cheated on multiple levels. Similar to Palmerio... I think the majority of collectors just don't like him. McGwire at least was the first one to break the HR record, I think that over inflated his value. Why his bats have not dropped back down is beyond me. I wouldn't pay anywhere near 2K for one. Currently, you could have buy a Puckett, Boggs, Eddie Murray & Rickey Henderson for that... Crazy, his bats should be like $400 tops.

3) Totally agree on the prices of all the rookies. The $500+ prices are totally driven by speculation... See last sentence above...

Overpriced-
1) The majority of the GU items on MLB Auctions.
2) The majority of Steiner's GU product.
3) Relatively marginal players whose value is based on being on the Yankees or Red Sox: Cano, Damon, Posada, Varitek, Lowell, etc.

Underpriced-
1) HOF bats of Boggs, Puckett, Molitor, Henderson, Winfield, Carew & Morgan. All 1st ballot HOFers, all around $500 for solid examples (and WAY lower if you want a Winfield Cooper for example). Gwynn & Ripken's values seem where most of these players should be...

2) Possible HOFers: Thomas, Ivan Rodriguez, Jeff Kent, Sheffield... All hover around $150-200.

[Rboitano]

Don Mattingly is way overpriced.
Paul O'Neill is definately not a better hitter than Chipper Jones.
O'Neill career BA .288 281 homers
Jones career BA .310 408 homers

[Yankwood]

Also in the marginal HOFer category: Tim Raines. I have auctioned several of his bats -and I mean very nice ones with tons of use-and you're lucky to get 75 bucks.

[Rboitano]

I wish legit Mcgwire bats with legit autographs were $400, they are worth that kind of money cause people will still pay that for him. In the last year their has been a ton of Pudge and Sheffield bats out for sale, most could be had for 150-200 signed.

[Yankwood]

Don Mattingly is way overpriced.
Paul O'Neill is definately not a better hitter than Chipper Jones.
O'Neill career BA .288 281 homers
Jones career BA .310 408 homers

That's what I said. But in spite of that O'Neill will bring more in an auction...It's a popularity issue.

[Rboitano]

Ya I guess because collectors putting together championship team bats, and O'Neill was on a number of them. jones bats still bring good money. I really think Griffey is underpriced, may be one of the only clean players of the last twenty years.
George Brett bats are also way overpriced. Wade Boggs was better, and his bats dont bring near to what Bretts does.
Bretts career BA .305
Boggs career BA .328

[Yankwood]

Even before the steroid issue, Palmeiro's bats were not really all that popular. Also, high on the All time hit list with no interest is Harold Baines. The other night my mother called me because her house was cold and she had run out of firewood. I drove over to her house with 3 Baines bats and they kept her warm for the night. I couldn't get rid of them any other way so at least they went for a good cause.