Jim Rice and the Hall of Fame Voting

[Coco's Disciples]

Hall of Fame voting is currently taking place and the new entries will be announced January 12. It's a pretty slim picking this year, with Rickey Henderson being the only clear cut entry.

The other two potential candidates (and their notable stats):

Tim Raines: .294/.385/.425; 808 SB; .309 EqA; 46.8 HOFS; 89.5 HOFM
Jim Rice: .298/.352/.502; 382 HR; .293 EqA; 42.9 HOFS; 147 HOFM

Note: HOFS=Hall of Fame Standard (Average HOFer is 50); HOFM=Hall of Fame Monitor (Average HOFer is 100). Both are Bill James figures.

I'm going to focus on Jim Rice. Pretty soon, CHB (Shaughnessy) will come out with his annual column on why Rice should get into the Hall, since he was a dangerous and feared hitter. Looking past the fact that the feared Rice had as many intentional walks in his career as the immortal Geoff Jenkins, I still do not believe that he deserves Hall entry.

Rice played a ton of games in Fenway, where the Monster affected his numbers for the better. Rice posted a .320/.374/.546 at home, as opposed to a .277/.330/.459 away from the Fens. Even in 1978, his best year by far, his road numbers were .269/.325/.512/.837, as opposed to a .361/.416/.690/1.106 at Friendly Fenway.

Rice was certainly one of the better left fielders of his generation. But if you compare him to the other nine left fielders chosen by the BBWAA who are in the Hall of Fame, he would not be on the top half in any of the following categories: BA, H, HR, RBI, OBP, SLG. While he does not pull the rear in all of these categories, Rice's entry lowers the Hall of Fame standard. It dilutes the Hall of Fame to vote someone in just because he has better numbers than a select Hall of Famer in a select statistic.

For an even better comparison with these other nine left fielders, I'll use OPS+, an era and league neutral statistic. The average OPS+ is 100. An OPS+ of say, 130, means that the player is 30% better than the league average player.

Rice's top ten seasons in terms of OPS+: 158, 154, 148, 141, 137, 131, 128, 123, 123, 121.

Lou Brock: 146, 128, 124, 123, 119, 115, 114, 112, 111, 109

Ralph Kiner: 184, 184, 173, 156, 146, 140, 132, 121, 117, 116

Joe Medwick: 180, 156, 151, 142, 140, 132, 131, 128, 123, 119

Stan Musial: 200, 183, 182, 180, 176, 175, 172, 169, 167, 166

Al Simmons: 176, 176, 171, 159, 149, 145, 142, 136, 130, 129

Willie Stargell: 187, 187, 168, 164, 164, 163, 158, 147, 144, 139

Billy Williams: 170, 157, 147, 147, 139, 136, 130, 130, 127, 122

Ted Williams: 235, 233, 217, 215, 205, 201, 192, 189, 189, 178

Carl Yastrzemski: 195, 178, 171, 156, 148, 141, 139, 137, 126, 124

The point of showing this is to point out that all but one (Brock) of these HOFers have posted better, with 2/3 posting three better seasons than Rice's 1978. Rice's peak was simply not as impressive as these other players. While Rice was one of the best players in baseball from 1975-1979, almost every other Hall of Famer's peak was longer, and more productive, than Rice's. He does not deserve HOF admission.