Jim Rice in the Hall?

[clutchcargo]

Does Rice make it into the Baseball Hall of Fame on his 15th and final try? Any voters out there are invited to weigh in. Yeah, he didn't hit 500 HRs or get 3,000 hits, but for about 12 years he was arguably and consistently one of the top 2 or 3 hitters in MLB. And not too shabby an OF when he played there.

 

[mb]

How about instead we put this post in the Hall of Ridiculous?

 

[buckweaver]

Jim Rice in the Hall?

<a href="http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2008/12/17/kids-in-the-hall-part-i/">No</a> and <a href="http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2008/12/jim_rice_the_ha.php">no</a>.

But I'm pretty sure we've had a dozen threads on this, and not sure what this has to do with journalism.

 

[BYH]

Not a voter, but he'll get in b/c so many voters who rightfully have not voted for him will vote for him to disprove the foolish "the big mean HOF voters aren't voting for him b/c he was a jerk" theory.

Fourteen years and he's not in. It's not b/c he was a jerk. It's b/c he wasn't a HOFer.

 

[Joe Williams]

I'm a voter, and I have never voted for Rice. Don't see him as a HOFer, though I did see him as a pain in the ass to deal with. My vote is based on the former, not the latter.

 

[BYH]

Liar! :D

 

[Joe Williams]

Liar! :D

OK, ya got me. ;)

 

[henryhenry]

he was vicious toward media - now he's a media analyst.
if i had a vote i'd pass on him - not only because of his marginal stats - but because he's a phony.

 

[Dickens Cider]

if i had a vote i'd pass on him - not only because of his marginal stats - but because he's a phony.

Which is why I'm thankful you don't have a vote. It shouldn't at all be based on personality. It's what a player did (or didn't do) on the field. Period.

(Excepting, of course, those who were banned for gambling, etc.)

 

[da man]

My two cents worth probably isn't worth that considering I don't have a vote and I'm not even a baseball guy, but I've noted several times that I grew up in that era rooting for the Yankees and Rice always seemed like a no-brainer for the Hall of fame at the time. He was clearly recognized as one of the game's dominant players and was one of those guys who defined a franchise, someone even casual fans knew all about. Frankly, I'm shocked he still isn't in after all this time and I'm amazed at the intensity of the opposition to him. At the time, it always seemed obvious he'd be in the Hall someday.

 

[buckweaver]

My two cents worth probably isn't worth that considering I don't have a vote and I'm not even a baseball guy, but I've noted several times that I grew up in that era rooting for the Yankees and Rice always seemed like a no-brainer for the Hall of fame at the time. He was clearly recognized as one of the game's dominant players and was one of those guys who defined a franchise, someone even casual fans knew all about. Frankly, I'm shocked he still isn't in after all this time and I'm amazed at the intensity of the opposition to him. At the time, it always seemed obvious he'd be in the Hall someday.

Two years ago, I thought Andruw Jones would one day be a no-brainer. Then he fell off the face of the earth.

 

[da man]

Rice>Andruw Jones, no?

 

[da man]

Just looked up Rice on Baseball Reference. It says similar players include HOFers Orlando Cepeda, Duke Snider, Billy Williams and Willie Stargell. No HOFers come up as similar to Andruw Jones.

 

[buckweaver]

Rice>Andruw Jones, no?

Depends on how much you value fielding. Rice was average in LF, at best. Jones was one of the top three CFs of all time.

Rice's hitting > Jones's hitting, sure. But Jones's fielding >>> Rice's fielding. (Baserunning seems about equal -- Jones was faster, but lazier. Intangibles? Clutch? Don't really think either was much better than the other in those subjective categories, but I suppose that's why it's all subjective.)


EDIT: B-R's similarity scores for position players completely ignore fielding. That's only comparing them as hitters. Explanation here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/similarity.shtml. And I agree, Andruw Jones would never be considered a Hall of Famer just based on his hitting.

 

[da man]

Again, I'm not a baseball guy by any stretch, so correct me if I'm wrong, but there have to more than a few guys in the Hall who were average or even below-average fielders but got in as one of the most feared hitters of their era. And that's what Rice was.

 

[Shaggy]

Albert Belle > Jim Rice

 

[buckweaver]

Again, I'm not a baseball guy by any stretch, so correct me if I'm wrong, but there have to more than a few guys in the Hall who were average or even below-average fielders but got in as one of the most feared hitters of their era. And that's what Rice was.

OK, but what does fear mean? Does it mean pitchers/managers walked him a lot, intentionally or otherwise? Not really. He never walked more than 62 times in a season, and never once led the league in IBB. Does that mean the guys ahead of or behind him in the lineup got better pitches to hit? Not really. In his very best season, 1978, Remy and Yaz were pretty average in the 2nd and 4th spots, respectively. But forget the stats -- how do you measure fear, without being completely subjective about it?

Well, one way is MVP voting. Rice was considered very valuable -- finishing in the top-5 six times -- and only Dave Parker got a higher share of the MVP voting all-time without being voted into the Hall of Fame, among all eligible players.

So the perception was that he was a dominant, valuable, feared player. But was he? Well, the numbers don't back up that perception as much as some would like to think. He was no more dominant over his league in his time than Hall of Famers Goose Goslin or Mickey Cochrane -- or non-HOFers Joe Torre, Jimmy Wynn, Keith Hernandez and Moises Alou, at least according to OPS+. In fact, there are 127 other players who were more dominant than Rice over their own peers when you measure it by that number.

What kind of impact did that fear of Big, Bad Jim Rice have, statistically or otherwise? I haven't heard a good argument for it yet. It's just kind of accepted that he was feared, and of course he was. But what does that really mean?

 

[buckweaver]

Again, I'm not a baseball guy by any stretch, so correct me if I'm wrong, but there have to more than a few guys in the Hall who were average or even below-average fielders but got in as one of the most feared hitters of their era. And that's what Rice was.

And I'm in no way picking on you or putting you on the spot for an answer here. I could talk about this stuff for hours, that's all. All in good fun. ;)

 

[The Big Ragu]

The Hall is more of the Hall of Longevity than a Hall of Fame and that works to Rice's detriment. Rice essentially only played until he was 35--and had declined a bit before then--so he didn't stick around to compile any of the Hall of Fame milestones that got in, for example, Willie Stargell (earlier era, and he doesn't even really have the milestones, just the longevity!) and Robin Yount (same era, and not nearly the hitter, as good as he was and even if he did have half a career as a shortstop). No one was sitting with a slide ruler figuring out Rice's OPS+ when he came to bat. They just knew they didn't want to pitch to him because he was a monster at the plate.

For 12 to 14 years, Rice wasn't just an All-Star type of player, he was among the small handful of the best of the best you could count on one hand. Tack 5 years onto Rice's career and he's Reggie Jackson, except with a 35 point higher batting average and much more consistency as a guy who drove in runs (and Rice was a better fielder than Jackson). Different positions, but when Tony Perez is a Hall of Famer and Jim Rice isn't, there is just something wrong with the process of selecting people. Perez was an incredibly solid hitter with longevity. Rice was a dominant hitter for a shorter career.

For more than a decade, Rice was one of the five most feared run producers in the American League, year after year. You could pencil in .300, 30 HRs, 100+ RBIs, in an era during which those 30 HR and 100 RBI seasons meant a lot more than they did during Albert Belle's era (how stupid). Rice finished in the top 5 in MVP voting 6 times, which is the thing that makes a statement about how he compared to his era. Those votes were cast by people watching these guys play at the time.

Longevity does matter. It's why Don Mattingly isn't a Hall of Famer. But Rice had a long enough career to warrant a place. You shouldn't have to play until you are 42 and compile stats to be in. A 15 or so year career in which you were among the best of the best should be enough. That is what Rice was.

 

[Drip]

he was vicious toward media - now he's a media analyst.
if i had a vote i'd pass on him - not only because of his marginal stats - but because he's a phony.

Rice>Andruw Jones, no?

Albert Belle > Jim Rice

Jim Rice should have been in long before this. He will get my vote.