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Posted By: Misunderestimated

Actually my understanding is that Chase was dirty virtually from the moment he arrived in the majors. He did not merely throw games he enticed his teammates to throw games. This was hardly common knowledge and at least with respect to Chase's conduct the early voters knew a lot less than we do now.

Bill James pointed out the most glaring statistic about Chase. When he joined a team it almost uniformly lost more games than the year before. Conversely, when he left a team it almost always did better the next season. No matter how flashy he could be in the field that means he was not a particularly good player. Would you want that kind of a player on your team?