Win a Free Copy of THT 2017!

Have you heard? The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2017 is now available for sale. You can check out the table of contents and read some excerpts from the book here. When you finish that you can purchase it Amazon in either print or Kindle form.

But wait, there’s more! Because we’re giving folk, and since it’s the beginning of the holiday season and all, we want to give you a chance to win yourself a free copy of the book. So today, tomorrow and Friday, I’ll be running a trivia contest based on one of the articles in the book. The first person to post the correct answer in the comments will win a free physical copy of the book (sorry, no free Kindle version). It’s just that simple!

Today’s question comes from Patrick Dubuque’s article entitled, “Baseball Cards and the Value of Value.” In it, Patrick devises a system to figure out which baseball cards have been historically under- and over-priced based on the player’s career WAR totals. He describes his quest as such:

Long before the modern measurement of man—the wins above replacement—long even before Bill James’ ragged and thought-provoking Win Shares, Dr. James Beckett provided the first true measure of baseball players. Living in a remote corner of the American League, baseball cards were often the sole means for seeing their faces. Their histories were rarely more than their statistics. And the invisible hand, as recorded by those lines of numbers next to lines of names, dictated which players were worth plastic sleeves and pages.

The question: how closely does this monetary value align with more modern statistical evaluations, like Wins Above Replacement?

In this study, I selected an assortment of rookie cards between the eras of 1954 and 1980 and tracked them from the first Beckett magazine in November of 1984 to today. This selection was based on my own capricious nature, as well as several factors: Hall of Famers, players famous for a single moment or season, and players whose legacy may have shifted for some reason over time. The goal: to measure exactly how well the forces of capitalism align with our modern sabermetric assessment of ballplayers, and to see which names are actually the biggest bargains.

Ultimately, Patrick breaks out some lists for us, including “most underpriced Hall of Famer rookie cards.” So the question before you, dear reader, is this:

Can you name three of the seven players on the “most underpriced Hall of Famer rookie card” list, complete with their rookie card year?

Note: If you name more than three players, your entry will be automatically invalid.

Good luck!