Comments on: Jim Rice Makes It In

By: roguepatriot

roguepatriot — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:11:31 +0000

Despite being a Yankee fan living in New England, born and raised, I’ve saw plenty of Jim Rice during my youth. Based on the albeit sketchy memory of my youth, Rice was primarily a line drive hitter who had prolific power to CF. As we all know, CF in Fenway is death. Yet, I’ve never seen a player assault the CF triangle like Rice did. Therefore, playing in Fenway may have harmed Rice, rather than helped him.

By: Joe R

Joe R — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:02:58 +0000

Just bumping to remind all you nerds who don’t watch baseball that Jim Rice was hyperscrumdumfuliciousful.

/sarcasm.

Seriously, how can you consider a Hall of Fame to be correct when people like Jim Rice as in, but people like Alan Trammell, Ron Santo, Darrell Evans, and the like will never sniff it?

And for those who say Jim Rice was a borderline candidate who got some sort of intangible boost, what did he actually do? He only played in 18 postseason games, 80 PA’s, and went .225/.313/.366.

B-R says he was about a +2.5 fielder in LF per 1250 innings, so I’d say +3 per season (when he played there).

So +23 offense, +3 defense, -7 positional = +19 = 3.9 WAR player. So the average year of Jim Rice was…well, good (though this may be an overestimate). Though Derrek Lee has been at a 3.9 WAR / year pace, too, since 2002. Who’s ready to put him in the Hall?

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:58:50 +0000

“If I were Alan Trammell I would be so depressed.”

Lou Whitaker too.

By: NickP

NickP — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:07:02 +0000

And Larkin.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:45:07 +0000

Don’t forget Roberto Alomar (very likely a first ballot) and Fred McGriff (likely to be borderline, at least somewhere down the line) are also being added next year. It could be very tough for Dawson and Blyleven to gain the necessary votes, at least not until they find themselves at the end of their time on ballot and facing a weak first-year class (as was the case for Rice this year).

By: Evan

Evan — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:40:53 +0000

The greater absurdity here is that Rice was inducted while Tim Raines was not. Even a cursory glance at their numbers side-by-side shows Raines to have been a vastly superior player.

By: Matt B.

Matt B. — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:17:27 +0000

Fenway certainly has been a boon for doubles to righties, and triples to lefties, but it has only been a slightly above average environment for HRs according to some past DMB park ratings… In 2008 (obviously not a Jim Rice year!) it supressed HRs for lefties and righties by about 15-20%…

By: Kincaid

Kincaid — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:07:15 +0000

Dawson is still out there ahead of Blyleven-he’s gotten more votes every year he’s been on the ballot, including this year. A number of writers will also likely vote for first-balloters Barry Larkin and Edgar Martinez, so I don’t think Blyleven will get in just because there is no one else to vote for.

One writer voted for Jesse Orosco. I would think it’s a pretty safe bet Blyleven at least passes that guy’s standards.

By: giantsrainman

giantsrainman — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:13:56 +0000

I think RIce’s election was is part of the overreaction to steroids. Pre steriods era sluggers are being given unearned extra credit for being suposedly clean to the same extent steroids era sluggers are getting in unjustified demerits for suposedly being unclean.

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:12:05 +0000

Matt, you should use batting wins rather than batting runs. The wins are adjusted for run environment as well as park and league.