At 2 p.m., it will be announced that Rickey Henderson, in his first year of eligibility, and Jim Rice, in his last, are the newest members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Neither will come as a surprise; Henderson’s election has been a foregone conclusion for a decade, while Rice’s became inevitable with his surge in the balloting last year.
That inevitability is why the debate over Rice’s candidacy, so fierce a year ago, has been quiet this time around. The hagiographers, the storytellers, the mythmakers…they’ve won. Those who would argue the objective standards have lost. Once Rice advanced to within a handful of votes and a spot as the leading returning vote getter, it was clear that he would cross the line this time around, making a debate over his candidacy pointless. All of the points made last year, and the year prior, and the year before that are just as valid, just as winning as they have always been. All of the comparisons of Rice to Hall members, and those left out, and his peers on the ballot still show him to fall below the line. Nevertheless, the idea that Rice was the “most feared” hitter of his era, a notion that is both unproven and unprovable, has carried the day.
Five years after he played his final game, when the idea that he was the most feared slugger of his era should have been most fresh in the minds of the electorate, Rice finished eighth in the balloting with 137 votes, just shy of 30% of the pool. He was the second-highest vote getter among corner outfielders, just behind Tony Oliva. Four years later, on an admittedly deep ballot, Rice garnered 146 votes, appearing on 29.4% of the ballots. The idea that Rice was the most feared hitter in baseball during his career, which again should have been fresh in the minds of the voters, carried little weight with more than 70% of those with ballots.
Bill James once wrote that the further removed you got from a player’s career, the more that career became about the player’s numbers. In Rice’s case, the exact opposite effect occurred. As we looked more and more at the numbers and realized that Rice had a short career, and a short peak, and didn’t hit all that well outside of Fenway Park, and his peak was more about counting stats built in a great lineup than what he did himself, and that he didn’t contribute very much outside of the batter’s box…his vote totals grew.
There’s no rationality there. As we get further from Rice’s career, the more the mythology of it is carrying the day, as opposed to the objective performance record. Rice had leveled off, for a five-year period, between 50% and 60% of the vote. Nearly 20 years after his last good season, Jim Rice had been judged 11 times as unworthy of the Hall of Fame.
Then, in 2006, he jumped, and in 2008 he jumped again, and in 2009 he’ll jump in. There’s no good reason for this, but let me proffer a bad one that makes more and more sense to me as we go through this. The leap in Rice’s vote totals is reflective of a generational change within the voting pool. You have to be a ten-year member of the BBWAA to get a vote, so new voters in the mid-2000s would have started writing in the mid-1990s, and they’d be…well, they’d be about my age. They’d have grown up watching Jim Rice, and they’d remember, even more than the people covering him, the stories about his prowess. They weren’t making the myth, they were the ones swallowing it whole.
When it came time to fill out their first Hall ballots, those writers focused on Rice as a statement of their knowledge of the game, their commitment to telling the stories as opposed to buying all that stat stuff those other guys were doing. Those writers, the ones between 35 and 45, who watched Rice as a kid and bought the legend, are putting him into the Hall of Fame today.
Rice’s honor isn’t about him. Rice’s honor is about late baby boomer sportswriters a little bit fazed, a littel bit daunted, by the objectivist revolution in baseball validating their own youth, their own memories, their own relevance.
I’ll have more on this as a guest on ESPNews today at 2 p.m. ET.
Bert wasn't circled? As a Twins fan, his announcing frequently annoys me, but Blyleven's sustained excellence certainly seems to deserve enshrinement before James Edward. Oh well, at least the endless Rice debates will be a thing (largely) of the past, even if the outcome wasn't necessarily justified.
My thoughts also. The Boston echo chamber got him elected. I realized this last night when a flipped on MLB Network's "Greatest Red Sox" show (or maybe that's the name of the channel) and heard only two words "most feared," before I changed the channel.
Other readers have rated this comment below the viewing threshold. Click here to view anyway.
Rice's candidacy has mirrored the revelations of steroids use in baseball. Rice's "non-roid" numbers now look excellent. In the late 80's and thru the 90's, the game's bloated 'roid numbers overshadowed Rice's power stats.
It never ceases to amaze me that people say these things, and apparently believe them.
Let's grant for a moment that everyone since Don Mattingly is a proven cheater. Let's grant that steroids somehow help you hit the curve ball and lay off tough pitches. Let's ignore the ton of evidence Eric Walker has assembled about what really caused the offensive explosion.
EVEN AMONG HIS CONTEMPORARIES AND PEERS Jim Rice's record is nothing special. A vote for Jim Rice's numbers demands a vote for Reggie Smith and a vote for Jimmy Wynn and a vote for Chet Lemon and a vote for Roy White and so forth. If Jim Rice now looks "excellent", so do they.
As a *real* legend and feared hitter once said, "You could look it up".
Yes, the buzz about all things Red Sox and Yankees (see practically every episode of Baseball Tonight aired to date), gave Rice a boost with the HOF voters.
I'd like to submit a few candidates more deserving for the HOF than Jim Rice: Tim Raines,* Bert Blyleven, Tommy John, Minnie Minoso,** Ken Boyer, Joe Torre, Ron Santo, Billy Pierce, Vada Pinson and Harold Baines.***
* After Rickey Henderson, the "Rock" was the second greatest leadoff man of all time.
** The color line kept Minoso out of the major leagues until his late twenties. With his talent and but for the color line, he would have certainly made the majors by his early twenties. In those five or six years, Minoso "lost" the stats that would have made him look statistically like the Hall of Famer he really was. Of all the HOF snubs, this one is the worst and least defensible. The repugnant notion of a color line should not be used as a club to keep the great "Cuban Comet" out of the HOF.
*** I don't know if Pinson or Baines belong in the HOF but both were feared hitters who played long carrers at a high level. My sense is that they both deserve the honor more than Rice.
For the 1 millionth time...I'd love to hear a Rice voter try to justify a vote for Rice while not even giving Albert Belle a 2nd thought. They were the same player, except Belle was half a measure better. (And neither would be in my HOF.)
Oh, I guess Rice did play for the Red Sox. That's worth a bunch of votes at least.
Is it really true that "objective standards have lost"? By any standard, objective or otherwise, Rice would be far from the worst player elected to the HOF. You seem to forget that VORP, WARP, JAWS, etc. are just formulas devised by all-too-fallible humans in an attempt, but only an attempt, to better measure baseball performance. Not only were the formulas developed after Rice's playing days were over, but you keep tinkering with them each year! What's so objective about that? He does pretty well in other "objective" measures like Black Ink, HOFS and HOFM. I am not saying that the fear argument should carry any weight -- it was debunked a long time ago -- but I do think you've taken the mythology of your supposed objectiveness a bit too far.
HOFS and HOFM were created to predict HOF voting, not as measures to be used to support a HOF case. And, they're right - Rice did what the voters look at. Those metrics don't assess his value as a baseball player.
I feel people would be a lot less upset about the whole Rice thing if the same voters at least had Raines, Blyleven, and Trammel on their ballots, too.* Raines and Trammel especially--two guys who if they had won the MVP awards they deserved back in the day would be flying into Cooperstown now. If you're a "big hall" guy and think Rice should be in, fine. He wouldn't be the worse HoFer. But you'd better have ten guys on your ballot and 7 of them better be Henderson, Raines, Trammel, McGwire, Blyleven, Dawson, Smith.
The idea that Rice is getting in--even if it took him 15 tries--while three exceptional candidates still have to fight for enshrinement is absurd. (And you shouldn't need WARP, VORP, WAR, JAWS, Win Shares, etc. to tell you.)
*Personally, McGwire is a no-doubter, and while there's a valid argument to keep him out, it's really not consistent with a) the fact the same writers keeping him out now were the ones who lionized him ten years ago, and b) the fact the Hall already has its share of much much worse scumbags. And since we'll never really know who was clean--and who wasn't--and since few of these guys failed drug tests, I don't think we can pick and choose based on circumstantial evidence.
"Far from the worst player elected" is one of the worst arguments you can make. If the worst player elected to the HOF is the standard, there are hundreds of guys who deserve to get in. If you haven't read Bill James' book on the HoF, run, don't walk... good stuff.
Let's say that five years after your career is over, people suddenly change the metrics that determine a baseball writer's worth. Let's say that instead of Equivalent Average, OBP, and OPS, they now decide that you should have been focused on Batting Average, Home Runs, and RBI. Does this devalue your worth as a writer?
Rice in his prime did what people thought great hitters were supposed to do. He hit for average, foreswearing walks (I remember reports of DiMaggio knocking Williams for passing the buck when Williams would take a walk in a key situation). He hit for power. He knocked guys in.
When Rice played, this was how ballplayers were evaluated. If you want to go back and reevaluate the careers of others in the Hall of Fame based on contemporary standards, you will probably find that past definitions of greatness, and today's definition, probably do not fully overlap.
Back in the seventies, Jerry Remy was an All-Star. Today we know that .300 average was hollow, and the stolen bases were more than offset by the times caught stealing. But the player did what they asked him to do.
By the way, the "counting stats built in a great lineup" Rice accumulated were with Remy and Rick Burleson at 1-2 in the lineup. Back then, those guys put the ball in play, and could run. But we know now that Rice's counting stats would have been far greater had he had the benefit of some OBP guys in front of him. Don't we?
Wasn't there a piece recently on hardballtimes de-bunking this whole "he was just doing what he was told to do" argument? Anyone remember this (because I can't find it!)?
Joe Posnanski addressed this point on his blog and showed that walk totals have been pretty steady throughout baseball history. The idea that Rice lived in an era wen no one walked is ridiculous (and would be reflected in his relative performance if it wasn't.
Rice isn't the worst HoFer... but even in the 70s and 80s people KNEW Schmidt, Morgan, Aaron, Jackson, Brett, Carew, Bench, Fisk (for starters) were better, more complete players.
I wonder if people are conflating the story of Rice being "feared" with more recent images of Bonds being intentionally walked over 100 times a year. Because, ladies and gentlemen, THAT is feared.
It's not like the previous decades didn't have guys like Ruth, Gehrig, Williams, Mays, Mantle, Musial... come on. Rice shouldn't have to measure up to that inner-circle standard, but the idea that people didn't know OBP had value is kinda ridiculous. (Hell, Joe Morgan the ballplayer knew it, even if Joe Morgan the commentator seems oblivious to it now.)
Keith Law (among many others) has debunked this one numerous times. I'll borrow his words from his last chat, and note that he wasn't feeling well and so his tone is rather aggressive (and maybe he means "Rice" when he types "Dawson", though it applies to both):
"Frank (Frankfurt): What's your favorite Jim Rice argument? Mine is "it's not fair to judge him by today's statistical analysis." Yeah, cause advances in knowledge should be ignored instead of celebrated and applied
SportsNation Keith Law: That's the Dawson argument that kills me. "They didn't know OBP was important." Really? Players in the 1970s and 1980s didn't realize that IT WAS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN TO BE OUT??? How unbelievably stupid were ballplayers back then? Did they need help to tie their cleats? Did the manager have to point them to first base? Did the umpire have to inform each team after nine innings that the game was over, and identify the winner? OBP measures one thing: How often a hitter reached base safely - that is, how often he didn't make an out. This is not high concept. So stop making lame excuses for Dawson's low OBP. He had a low OBP because he was NOT CAPABLE of posting a higher one."
He will be announced as a new menber of the HOF in 20 minutes or so only, solely, singularly, and in this day and age I shall include the term disgustingly, for one reason and one reason only.
I agree with the previous comment that a vote for Rice isn't so terrible if the voter takes an inclusive approach to the HoF. However, hardly anyone is speaking up for Dwight Evans, and he was simply a better player. He hit better than Rice, he fielded better than Rice, and he ran the bases better than Rice (perhaps a dubious honor, but even so). Rice and Evans played on the same team at the same time, so comparison is impossible to avoid. Simply put, you cannot reasonably vote for Rice and not vote for Evans.
I think the Dewey Evans argument is really the issue here--not whether or not Dewey or Rice deserves to be in, but that b/c Rice is in now, we should open the doors for Dewey. And Belle. And every other questionable candidate, past or future. It just doesn't seem right to me. If there's this much debate on Rice, he shouldn't be let in. I always thought the HoF was for the shoo-in's, the no-brainers, the inner circle. If a reasonable argument can be made against a player (Rice, for instance, and that reasonable argument has certainly been made by many), that alone suggests that he isn't a shoo-in, no-brainer, inner-circle candidate. And that's not a HoFer, at least not to me.
By the way, if anyone didn't think David Ortiz was getting in the HoF in the future, I think Rice's induction just saw to that.
Yes he is. If you factor in defense, Jay Bell is arguably a better HoF candidate than Rice, and Bell managed to get two voters laughed at for selecting him.
The problem with voting for Rice is that, to be consistent, you now have to vote for another 50 players who aren't in, and will never get a vote from anyone else. Ken Singleton, Roy White, Reggie Smith, Chet Lemon, Jimmy Wynn, Cesar Cedeno, Jack Clark, and I'm still on mostly-contemporary outfielders. That's how far below the established standard Rice falls -- accepting his level of play as "deserving" would double the number of outfielders enshrined. We're not talking borderline cases here. We're talking about a player whose weaknesses aren't understood and strengths are drastically overrated by the voters. Joe Carter on (if you'll pardon the expression) steroids.
The "most feared" thing even shows up in the AP wire report:
"Rice, among baseball's most feared hitters in the late 1970s and early 1980s, got 76.4 percent of the vote after falling just shy with 72.2 percent last year."
I thought his support would fall because a similar player (Henderson) was on the ballot. Writers tend to vote that way. Expect Dawsons' total jump next year now that Rice is out.
I find it funny how closely HOF voting parallels the college football season. Inevitably, we end up complaining that our objective and subjective standards don't line up.
That said, for all the hub-bub about BCS champions, imagine if they didn't vote for the 2008 champion until 2013...
In any event, I think the HOF voting process reflects those who do the voting; writers; discussion about enshrinement is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the mere question about worthiness is interesting/controversial enough that it serves as an ongoing source of material, it will inevitably make the player seem more deserving. HOF worthiness, to many voters, seems to be roughly equivalent to newsworthiness. Once the feedback loop gets started, it's just a matter of time.
I think the process would be much better served by a shorter period of time during which the player can be considered. Force the debate to occur and then move on. Give 10 years for perspective and 5 years for voting.
I think I'm a normally reasonable person, but at this point I'm thinking they should raze the Hall's standards to the ground and then rebuild them using competent standards.
A single logical reason? Nope, but then again, I don't see the argument for anyone voting against Rickey Henderson. Sadly, it's a virtual lock that someone will leave Maddux off, if only to get the national attention that comes from being the contrarian.
"Rice’s honor is about late baby boomer sportswriters a little bit fazed, a littel bit daunted, by the objectivist revolution in baseball validating their own youth, their own memories, their own relevance."
i reckoned that i will never see the day when i smile to the phrase "objectivist revolution." i have been proven wrong by objective reality! hopefully this phenomenon is contained in baseball analysis.
Imagine if Blyleven had his full career with the Red Sox, while Rice toiled for the Twins, Rangers, Pirates and Angels.
Even if the stats were the same as they are now, Blyleven would have gotten into the Hall after maybe five years, and Rice would have been removed from the ballot.
I believe that Rice played for Boston is the primary factor for his enshrinement.
Raines support fell because of Henderson. They'll be up next year. I think a lot of voters would only want to vote for one OBP/Speed leadoff hitting corner outfielder, which is kind of reasonable.
Raines and Blyleven are both more deserving than Rice, but Rice got in because it was the last chance the writers had to put him in. If Blyleven and Raines get to that point, they'll get in, too.
Honestly, it's not like Jim Rice is that bad of a choice. He is a great player, if not really as great as some people would want you to believe. For some reason, he's become kind of an anti-Blyleven, a guy for a lot of us in the saber-metrics community (for lack of a better term) want to rally against. There are a lot of worse players in the hall of fame. Yes, he doesn't fare well by a lot of advanced metrics, yes he doesn't field or run well (which we're willing to forgive MacGwire for), yes his offensive production is inflated by his home ballpark, but you're all acting like they elected Mo Vaughn (or Greg Vaughn) into the hall. If you're electing someone in the neighborhood of Ralph Kiner and Lou Brock, you could do a lot better, but you could really do a whole lot worse.
Please, prospectus community, don't jump off any cliffs. Given the choice between him and Gossage or Sutter, any GM with a head on his shoulder would go with Rice. It's not a great choice, but it's not going to open the doors for Trot Nixon.
I guess I just mean that there is some sensible reason behind it. Looking back, there aren't many years where similar players from the same era got elected. Maybe Boggs and Sandberg, but they're certainly not as comparable as Rickey and Tim.
Again, I'm not saying I wouldn't have voted for Tim, or that I would have voted for Rice (I would have voted for Rickey, Tim, Bert, and Trammell. I wouldn't have voted for Rice, MacGwire, or Dawson.)
Let me put this in algebraic terms. No one is saying that Raines = Gehrig. The argument is Ruth/Gehrig = R. Henderson/Raines.
Ruth is the greatest player in the history of the game. Gehrig, while a great slugger and Hall of Famer in his own right, would be second banana to Ruth if you compared them side by side.
Same principle holds true for Henederson and Raines. Henderson is the best leadoff man in the history of the game. Raines is the second best leadoff man in history. Raines was a switch hitter and should get some credit for that but the point remains that if you compared the two players side by side, Raines would be second banana to Henderson.
So, yes, not voting for Raines because Henderson is on the ballot is as illogical as not voting for Gehrig if Ruth were on the HOF ballot.
> voters would only want to vote for one OBP/Speed leadoff hitting corner outfielder, which is kind of reasonable.
Given the long tail of the voting process, I don't really agree with that philosophy. Two guys from different eras could easily be on the ballot at the same time. And if they'll vote for him next year, why not this year?
There's a pretty fair chance that Glavine, Pedro and the Big Unit could all be on the ballot together, perhaps with Smoltz. (At least, I'm not meaning to omit anyone.) Would it be appropriate to overlook any of them just because the others are on the ballot too? I realize that there are more SPs than RFs but we are talking about a whole rotation here.
To me all four of these guys are first-ballot HoFers, and I don't see why the voters should worry about the coincidences of their retirements - or anyone else's.
22.6% For Tim Raines? Unreal - even for the BBWAA. Rob Neyer has already called this "the single most embarassing number in the history of Hall of Fame voting". Sadly, it's really hard to see any hyperbole in that statement.
What about 11 or 2.6? Bobby Grich received 11 votes, 2.6% of the total, in 1992 to fall off the ballot after his first year of eligibility. I think that is the BBWAA's most embarrassing number. 22.6 is definitely up there though.
Actually, I think you can point to a shift in voter attitudes as the steroid scandal unfolded.
The counting stats had begun to seem much too low for a HOF player, but if you invalidate the steroid era, you might think that his counting stats are good enough.
If you were that kind of person.
I don't like the generational argument, much...do you have anything to support it? (I have nothing to support my counter-theory, mind you.)
When I think of Rice I tend to think of Dale Murphy too, both guys who put up huge counting stats for a few years then spent years with average stats and lots of GIDPs. Like Murphy, who was the star of WTBS (as the first cable network to broadcast into other local markets) Rice was on a contending team the networks loved to broadcast, so everyone saw lots of them on TV.
I recall Bill James' line: "If you cut Rickey Henderson in half, you get two hall-of-famers" Raines (speed, OBP) is one half, Rice or Dawson (power, "intangibles") may be the other.
If Bill James' quip is the math you're using, I'll counter with Henderson's 127 OPS+ to Raines's 123 OPS+--which makes Rock about 96.85% of Rickey.
And you haven't answered the big question: if you're not a "small hall" guy--and clearly over 75% of the voters aren't--how do you justifying voting for Rice if you don't include at least Raines, Trammell, Blyleven, Dawson, Lee too?
If the BBWAA is waiting for McGwire's teary-eyed confession before inducting him ... well, prepare the Veterans' Committee. My compromise answer, as always remains this -- let him in, but have the last sentence of the plaque read something like "However, many believed McGwire's accomplishments to be tainted because of alleged use of performance enhancing drugs."
That's only slightly less absurd than adding "...didn't play against minorities..." to the plaques of every player in the HOF whose career ended before 1947.
Except the pre-1947 players didn't really have much choice as to who they played against, though I suppose white players could have signed up for the Negro Leagues.
Look, I'd handle Rose the same way -- induct, with the last sentence on the plaque being "Agreed to lifetime ban from Major League Baseball in 1989 amid allegations of gambling on baseball games."
Allegations???????????? He ADMITTED he bet on games while he was managing. I wish Rose fans would devote the same energy to defending the game's integrity as they do to trying to make a case for a man who betrayed baseball, and lied about it until he was forced to come clean.
No argument here: Rose bet on baseball while he was a manager. However, his contributions to baseball clearly merit HOF elecion.
Career highest in hits, games played, at bats, plate appearances, singles.
Second highest career in doubles, 5th most runs scored, 12th most walks.
Pete ended up with a .303 career batting average, .375 career OBP. He hit .300 or better fifteen (15)different times. He scored 100 runs in a season ten (10) times. Rose had ten (10) seasons with 200 or more hits, the most in MLB history. Pete had seven (7) seasons with at least 40 doubles.
Pete also holds the NL record for longest hitting streak. He won an MVP, and three world series rings, and over a dozen all-star appearances.
I simply just don't agree that betting on baseball, even on his own team (to win) negates all of that.
Let Pete in the Hall, but keep him out of organized baseball.
I only said "allegations" because that's what it was at the time of the Dowd Report; Rose's agreement with MLB sidestepped that admission. He didn't admit to it until, what, 15 years later?
I think I have to quibble with Joe a little bit. Rice's biggest jump in support was in 2000. That was when he got into the Hall. No player who has ever polled 50% or more has failed to get into the HOF either through the writers or the veterans.
I think two factors put Rice in:
1) Rice's supporters understood how the game was played. It's not about statistics, unless those stats come with lots of 0's after them. When it come to marginal players, it's about the story. They spun a myth -- Rice was the most feared hitter of his day and hasn't gotten in because the writers hated him. They even resorted to Red Sox press stooge Shaughnnesy making the unprovable claim that managers "thought about" walking Rice with the bases loaded (funny, they never seemed to think of walking him with a base open...)
Never mind that it wasn't true -- the hateful writers gave Rice and MVP and HOF support equal to his contemporaries like Murphy and Parker. They found their story and they told it long enough and loud enough for 3/4 of the writers to listen.
This has always been the case (see Rizzuto, Phil) but Rice may be the last to benefit from it as more objective information filters into the writers' skulls. For right now, we've got, to quote James, our guns on Raines and Blyleven pointed in the wrong direction. We need to be telling a narrative, not arguing facts.
2) The Steroid Era has given a huge boost to sluggers from the 60's, 70's and 80's like Cepeda, Rice, Hodges and Perez. The meme is that they put up "real numbers", they hit homers when they didn't come cheap. So obviously they're better than some steroid-addled slugger (McGwire) who wouldn't have made it out of AAA if it weren't for the juice.
For a real treat, tune into Jon Heyman's breakdown of the HOF voting on the MLB Network. True contradictory gems.
Otherwise, pretty predictable. Anyone who didn't already know that Rice was in was kidding themselves. As for the validity of it, questionable is a fair assessment. The induction is not the travesty it is being made out to be, but he does fall towards the bottom of the spectrum. As for guys like Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, etc. I suppose time will tell.
Do we have any hard data on the generational makeup of the BBWAA itself over time? That'd be interesting to see. The theory rings true to me. As a Generation Xer and a young Orioles fan during Rice's heyday, my gut reaction (i.e., before actually looking at numbers, which I did later) to Rice's HoF bid was "Well, yeah, of course he deserves it. Rice, Eddie Murray, and Reggie Jackson were the three most feared hitters in baseball!"
Is Jim Rice crazy or what? I am watching him on mlb network right now. He is nuts. Just so everyone knows, he only worried about wins and losses not about OBP. Back in his day the game was played by men not young men like today---I have no idea what nonsense he was getting at. Just bizarre.
Looks like Steve Phillips' favorite word is "impactful." Joe, how hard was it to restrain yourself from blurting out, "Christ, Steve, do you have any original thoughts?"
It's so good to see guys like you and Law schooling guys like Phillips on a mainstream sports show.
Rice's induction is not the travesty some are making out to be. While some here seem to be claiming that being a Red Sox helped out his case, how much of the antipathy is simply because he was a Red Sox and many fans suffer from Sox fatigue? Did being a Red Sox who never won a WS suddenly start to count more for writers in Milwaukee, San Diego and Texas? I sincerely doubt it.
Joe mentions the objectivist revolution being disregarded by these new 'young' writers who heroicized Rice. Firstly, if any writers are buying into the statistical analyses, it's not the old farts, it's the younger guys, not the older ones and I doubt anyone outside of Boston heroicized Rice, he was an ornery, mean jerk. Many in Boston didn't even like him.
There are a lot of factors at play in Rice's election. The first is that Rice, frankly, was a jerk (too put it nicely) and as of late has made himself more media friendly. many of the writers who covered him when he was a jerk have since retired (or died) and while being a jerk shouldn't effect who gets in, it does.
The Roid Revolution played a factor as well, both in suppressing his vote earlier in his candidacy, and boosting it when the light of day struck. "Here is a guy who played the game honestly"
Even as a Boston fan, I'm not a fan of Rice getting in, but I hold an exclusive view on the Hall, that it should only be for those few who really transcended the game. Not those who were really, really good (which, let's be honest, is what the Hall currently is). There are plenty of worse players in there, I'd love to see them tossed out, or to see the Hall tiered as Bill Simmons wisely (for once) suggested. but the Hall is what it is. It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Transcendent Statistics or even the Hall of Excellence.
We can pine over what we wish the Hall was, what it should be or could be. Or we can accept it for what it is and in so doing, acknowledge that while Rice is not a transcendent player by any means, he fits comfortably in the company of those whom are currently there.
As for those advocating for Clemens, Bonds and McGuire... good luck to you. You may get 2 out of 3, but Big Mac will never get in, and as one-dimensional, short-lived and artificially inflated as his career was, he doesn't belong, even in the less than August company of the current Hall of Fame.
"The Roid Revolution played a factor as well, both in suppressing his vote earlier in his candidacy, and boosting it when the light of day struck. 'Here is a guy who played the game honestly'"
Question: Why doesn't that help Raines' case with these same voters?
McGwire might not get into the HoF, but don't pretend it's because he was one-dimensional or his career short-lived. It's for one reason only--and nobody knows how prevalent steroids (and HGH, etc.) were, who used, who didn't, and how it affected the game. Do we KNOW Rickey was clean? A lot of his teammates allegedly weren't. (Not to mention, where were these reporters on their high horses now ten years ago?)
Unless you suggest a moratorium on all players from the mid-80s until MLB explicitly outlawed and started testing for these things... I don't think you can pick and choose who's in and who isn't.
Other readers have rated this comment below the viewing threshold. Click here to view anyway.
ghruth - Raines was a very good player in his day. But to say he was even close to Rickey Henderson is just silly. Rickey is unquestionably one of the top few players of all time, arguably the greatest leadoff hitter ever. Raines wasn't even in his class.
It's not arguable. Henderson was the greatest leadoff hitter of all time.
And if the Hall of Fame vote was just about getting the 50 (or so) greatest players into Cooperstown--10-15 pitchers, with 4 or 5 at every other position--Henderson would be the only worthy candidate on this year's ballot. (Heck, Henderson probably would have been the only HoFer elected since Ripken... and before that, gosh, Brett?)
Yet at least 75% of the voters feel otherwise, because they also put Jim Rice on their ballots.
So if you're not an "inner-circle only" HoF guy--a defensible stance but clearly one most of the voters don't hold--then there's some 'splaining to do. Because Raines was a dramatically better baseball player than Rice. Rock unquestionably meets the standard of a Hall of Fame player.
Everything is arguable when it comes down to anointing someone the best of something. Better, worse, best, worst, those are opinions and perspectives and all are open to debate. I think the argument that anyone is better than Henderson is completely laughable, but I know that it's a matter of opinion and while I may think their opinion is ridiculous, opinions such as who is the best are just that, opinions.
I'm not arguing about Raines as a HoFer, I'm arguing against Raines as being 97.3% of Henderson.
Other readers have rated this comment below the viewing threshold. Click here to view anyway.
Sheehan wrote, "Then, in 2006, he jumped, and in 2008 he jumped again, and in 2009 he’ll jump in."
The reasons this happened are not because a bunch of newly eligible writers with foggy memories and clouded judgement voted for him. The reasons were 1) steroids (the first congressional hearing with Sosa, McGwire etc was in early 2005) and 2) the Red Sox started sending out an information packet on why Jim Rice belongs in the HOF. The Sox have continued to send this packet out, every year since. This started in late 2005.
So which do you think it is, people looked at the Red Sox' carefully researched statistics on Rice's case for the HOF, and also looked upon his accomplishments in a new light based on the inflated numbers of the steroid era? Or do you think a whole slew of newly arriving BBWAA writers were simply dreaming of the big fearsome Jim Ed Rice of their youth?
I don't think Sheehan's columnb is insightful at all. Insight would have been to actually see what the reasons were for Rice's increasing vote total, not come up with some theory based on writers being hoodwinked by their own faded and inaccurate memories. The irony is that it was Rice's NUMBERS that got him elected, not his reputation for being feared. The numbers put forth by Dick Bresciani were well presented and carefully researched. He sent this letter out to BBWAA voters every year starting in 2005. Rice's vote totals went up the very next vote after he sent this letter out. Compound this with the ongoing steroid scandal, and you have a nice complement of factors that increased the appeal of Rice as a HOF candidate.
Sheehan obviously doesn't agree with Bresciani's numbers, instead he agrees with the sabermetric evaluations. I tend to agree with Sheehan on that. I just don't believe that his theory for why Rice got increasing vote totals holds water.
While others are frustrated with your position on this issue, it's supported overwhelmingly by the MVP votes of BBWAA members of Rice's era--he's 29th in all-time MVP Award Shares--just as it's supported by three-quarters of current BBWAA HOF voters.
I hesitate to call Joe Sheehan or his article stupid, though.
I point again, as I have in recent comments, to the situation where the deviation of hitters' performance bottomed out just as Rice hit his peak. Normalizing WARP3 by run average while overlooking deviation puts Rice at a disadvantage. The possible shortcomings of WARP in evaluating left field defense in Fenway Park, a notorious issue with Zone Rating systems, could contribute to an underestimation of Rice's defense: I really don't think that a left fielder with a greater Range Factor than Carl Yastrzemski was roughly 130 runs worse over a career than his peer, George Foster, a well-known defensive liability, but that's what the FRAA online leads us to believe. Furthermore, with WARP we're forced to accept astoundingly high Park Factors limiting Rice's contributions without knowing the derivation of those factors--reverse engineer the BRAA to see what I mean. Yes, Rice hit better at home, but so did almost every player of his era, and Rice's career road stats aren't too different from those of George Foster or Jose Cruz, hitters far above him in JAWS scores.
Joe Sheehan is a writer. He accepts, I expect, the Davenport Translations and the JAWS system at face value. Had he had a chance to read, before he went on ESPN News today and committed himself to the excellence of Albert Belle, that WARP favors the 1992 era dramatically over the 1979 era, he might have chosen different words.
BBWAA members see the game as it is at any point in time. During the career of Jim Rice, and again 20 years after his retirement, they considered him HOF-caliber. I'd like to consider Jim Rice a "Perfect Storm" of shortcomings in JAWS and WARP and continue to respect Joe Sheehan, Jay Jaffe, Clay Davenport, and the BBWAA as well, despite radical differences regarding this one player.
Some of the thought "Most-feared / did what he was aked" logic behind Rice getting in from Verducci--
Rice was paid not to steal bases or walk or play centerfield. He was paid to be a consummate middle-of-the-order hitter, and in his day he was paid more money to do that than anybody else and was regarded by the people in the game, especially those who played it, as among the best of the best. Had anybody proposed trading White or Downing for Rice straight up in their primes, he would have been laughed out of the room. Think the Phillies would trade Ryan Howard straight up for J.D. Drew?
Its hard to know where to start with this.
For starters, Howard for Drew is a strawman argument, because Drew is 32. Howard is however, a good modern comp for Rice, and I can think of at least 25 players I'd trade Howard for before I hung up the phone -- Albert Pujols, Hanley Ramirez, David Wright, Chase Utley, Alex Rodriguez, Jose Reyes, Matt Holliday, Dustin Pedroia, Grady Sizemore, Josh Hamilton, Joe Mauer, Brian McCann, Justin Morneau, Ryan Braun, Jimmy Rollins, Miguel Cabrera, Curtis Granderson, Prince Fielder, Mark Teixeira, Johan Santana, Tim Lincecum, Jon Lester, Cole Hamels, Dan Haren, Jake Peavy, Chad Billingsley, Edinson Volquez
This got me trying the same thing with Rice in 78-79. Its a harder proposition because we know more about career trajectories (I'd trade Rice for Whitaker in 79, but only on the basis of what is known now) and because it was something of a dead zone for pitching. But I came up with the following names: Schmidt, Brett, Keith Hernandez, Molitor, Winfield, Eddie Murray, Fred Lynn, Nolan Ryan, Ron Guidry. Who else?
There are some who argue that Rice's induction isn't the worst thing in the world. While they are right, his induction is making an on-going Hall of Fame problem even worse. Part of this argument is that there are worse players than Rice already in the Hall. So adding Rice then makes it right?
Like it or not, that is a large part of how some of the BBWAA decide who to vote for. A simple equation like: "Player A was better than Player B... and Player B is in the Hall... so Player A should be too." That's what bothers me about Rice getting in. Rice will be that "player B" in the future when voters are deciding on a potential candidate.
I'm not as troubled by this result as most, but I'll admit I've been thinking a lot more about this process over the last month. The thing I think people don't notice is the voting population:
Just look at the list and note that the Class of '99 just got their first vote in. Next year it will be 2000 and so on. There's a lot of open minded people before the cutoff, but there's more after. The "after" group will have grown up with Bill James, with fantasy baseball, and will have likely read BP's annual before every season of their coverage. I'm not sure how or if that will change things, but I fear I may get the chance to vote for Tim Raines in ten years.
Well, now I never have to hear/read another frickin' "Jim Rice HOF?/!" story/screed/whine ever again. He doesn't deserve it, but he's in, and now maybe we can focus on actual worthy candidates.
I have no problem whatsoever with Jim Rice being in the Hall of Fame. He was a damn famous player. I grew up on baseball in the mid-to-late 80's. I had a Jim Rice model Louisville Slugger as a kid. (I grew up in Toronto). I knew Jim Rice. His baseball cards had lots of italics on them. Today I know much more about baseball and recognize the weaknesses in Rice's game and the strengths of his contemporaries (Evans, etc.).
In a project such as the Hall of Merit, we have voted Evans in (both Evans', actually), and not Rice. And that's awesome. But for Cooperstown, the fame takes the day. Jim Rice is in.
I am also a 'Big-Hall' guy. My personal, unaffiliated ballot had (in no order) Henderson, Raines, Blyleven, Rice, Murphy, Trammell, McGwire, L. Smith, Cone and Dawson.
I find it interesting that of all the new entries on the ballot this year, none will be there again next year. Each one was a one and done.
The argument that it is the hall of fame, not hall of merit, is the same as the argument that it's the most valuable player, not the most outstanding player. Semantical nonsense.
Rice was the sort of player who looked a lot better if you experienced his career through the back of his baseball card. And since that's how most of the voters experienced his career, he got in. It's hard to get past the triple crown stats to the defense/obp/double plays when you don't actually get to see the guy play all that often.
With the modern coverage the game gets, 162 televised games per team, and 24 hour ESPN highlight cycle, it will be much harder for a player like Rice to get in.
I hope you're right, but I don't think it'll work that way. The typical fan knows nothing about the game, and doesn't care to. In the past, he got his info from MSM "writers" who also know nothing about the game. Today, he gets it from the know-nothings at the East Coast Sports Programming Network. Tomorrow, the know-nothings will still dominate the discussion, and determine the outcome, and the average fan will still pay to read and listen to their drivel.
Sheehan's right - it's all about the story; and the know-nothings get to tell the story.
Is/should the the Hall of Fame (be) about honoring the best baseball players of all time? Is that all it should be about? Sheehan says "The hagiographers, the storytellers, the mythmakers" have won, suggesting that stories and myths, very much a part of what makes baseball so fun, aren't a part of his criteria for hall of fame induction. Does everyone agree with this?
I'm a little shocked at the outcry against Rice. First of all, it's an awful lot of venom and energy expended towards keeping someone out of the hall, which strikes me as kind of ugly, disrespectful, and ultimately somewhat distasteful.
I'm also struck by the way that an awful lot of people here assume that objective analysis of baseball (which I am obviously a very big fan of, or why would I be here?) should be extended into hall of fame consideration. Considering that the Hall of Fame is a)a museum and b)the keeper of baseball history, to me it doesn't seem so inappropriate that simplistic, occasionally goofy little maxims ("he was the most feared hitter of the era," for example), should have a place in the consideration for inclusion in the hall.
I get the feeling that a lot of people here are more interested in compiling a list of the most objectively valuable players in baseball history (using some of the best stats available for that purpose), and then having that list, rather than the players, enshrined in the Hall of Fame. In fact, it seems like this isn't about the players, or the stats, or the history, at all, but getting their dogma established as the primary dogma (which I fully acknowledge is my dogma as well). Thus, a borderline hall of famer's inclusion in the hall is viewed not as honoring a player who may not be as worthy as others, but as a personal affront to everyone who loves Bill James and Prospectus and THT and FireJoeMorgan and Rich Lederer and Rob Neyer and Tom Tango.
It's not, though, is the thing. It's about Jim Rice's accomplishments, not vindication or negation of any particular baseball ideologies. There's no doubt in my mind that a team with Raines is going to win more games than a team with Rice. But that's not the point. There are different ways to enjoy baseball. There are reasons to like players other than their objective value to a team. In a different way of enjoying baseball, Rice is one of the best. He was strong, he was mean, and yes, he was feared. For some people, that's all that matter. Possibly for most people, that's what matters. And the people to whom that matters like baseball just as much as any of us.
An awful lot of venom? Ugly and disrespectful? I believe Tom Verducci referred to it as a "sabremetric jihad."
Maybe I'm mistaked but I don't recall Joe or anyone here in the comments making personal attacks against Jim Rice. In fact, I found Verducci's remark a bit disrespectful. Maybe some folks see a moral equivalence between pointing out Tim Raines' WARP3 and mass murder.
"Rice’s honor isn’t about him. Rice’s honor is about late baby boomer sportswriters a little bit fazed, a litte bit daunted, by the objectivist revolution in baseball validating their own youth, their own memories, their own relevance."
"I think I'm a normally reasonable person, but at this point I'm thinking they should raze the Hall's standards to the ground and then rebuild them using competent standards."
"He will be announced as a new menber of the HOF in 20 minutes or so only, solely, singularly, and in this day and age I shall include the term disgustingly, for one reason and one reason only. He played for Boston......."
"I wonder what tarnishes the hall more: this or Rose, McGwire, eventually Bonds, not getting in?"
"He doesn't deserve it, but he's in, and now maybe we can focus on actual worthy candidates."
The difference between snark and venom, particularly online, is typically which side of the argument and comment you're on.
Snark versus venom in an actual human conversation can be picked up in the tone and inflection of the comments.
Those don't exist online.
JMC made some great points. Most people look at the Hall as what they think it should be rather than accepting it for what it is. A hall of Fame. A home for history and noteworthy players who made an impact on the game. However much you argue MacGuire's stats, he will always be remembered most as a cheat and as a result, be shut out. He threatened the game's integrity. We know this. Ditto Bonds. Raines is remembered as a druggie. Ty Cobb as a racist a-hole. Stats aren't everything and they certainly aren't the most important thing. If you're a computer, then the stats are all that matters, but most of us are humans, and humans like stories. That's why when it comes to the Hall of Fame, someone like Rice gets in. That's why when it comes to the Hall the storytellers, mythmakers and others like them matter far more than any number of sabermetricians.
"He threatened the game's integrity. We know this."
Amazing. And here I thought there were no actual positive tests, no credible witnesses, no tangible evidence, and (most importantly) no reason to think that doing the things he's accused of would "threaten the game's integrity".
Gary Sheffield threatened the game's integrity; he's the one who deliberately played badly in order to get traded. Hal Chase, Joe Jackson, Pete Rose... they threatened the game's integrity. Gaylord Perry, too, while we're at it -- where's the angst over *his* election to the HoF?
I've always found a tinge of "we are smarter than they are" here at BP that seems to resonate through many of their articles. As if to disagree with them or question their metrics means you must be the stupid one.
I think you've caputured that criticism quite elegantly in your posting.
This is a very good post. I think the author is right that people probably should not be so upset about Rice's election. Many of the voters are well aware that Rice was not the best player of his era, and indeed they base his election upon the reasonable grounds which are suggested by this post. However, I think the problem many of us have is that it seems as though many of the people who voted for Rice bought into a story which was simply untrue. Rice was not the most feared hitter of his era. You know this, everyone here knows this. This is the story that has been told over and over again to vault him into this museum. Now a story that we know to be false is forevermore immortalized in the museum honoring the game we love, because like it or not, to most people--and most voters--the hall of fame is the hall of the best players in baseball history.
It would be different, I think, if the story surrounding Jim Rice's election was more like the one you, and the others here defending his election, are telling. If it was about his fame, and his moustache, and the Jim Rice autographed bats, and the towering home runs, then that would be one thing. But that's not the story that is being told by those doing the electing. And it's not the story that is going to go onto his plaque. The story there is going to convey a false impression. It's going to imply that Jim Rice was one of the all time greats.
Tim Raines' failure to get elected is going to not be because he was in Montreal and thus was not interesting (as the voters write it). It's going to be because he's not perceived as good enough at baseball. And this isn't true. People who don't vote for him because they think he 'Vince Coleman' when in reality, Raines was much better than that. The reason we are so fired up is not because Jim Rice and his moustache are in the hall of fame. It's because people are TRYING to vote for the best baseball players and FAILING.
As for stories, I would point out that for many of these awesome players for whom there is no 'story', is that this is a matter of selection bias. There is a great story for Tim Raines. No one is telling it! I think this also tends to bother people on this site, because the only reason that Jim Rice has this story (which, as you point out, might be a legitimate justification for his election) and Tim Raines does not have a similar story is a matter of circumstance and luck of which team owned them. My perspective on this is that perhaps that is just the reality that we are cursed with. Players in Boston and New York will inevitably be bigger and more remembered personalities than their contemporaries in Milwaukee. If you go with a 'story oriented' hall of fame, that's just the way it is and it actually doesn't bother me that much.
Ortiz is exactly the kind of player who makes me think, "Either NO ONE whose prime came between '94-'04 should be eligible for the HoF, or we must just look at their stats and ignore the rumours and innuendo."
I couldn't agree more. Most sports journalists are just fans with pens. There is no objectivity. I couldn't have put it better myself when you said they are re-living their own youth.
115 comments have been left for this post.
Bert wasn't circled? As a Twins fan, his announcing frequently annoys me, but Blyleven's sustained excellence certainly seems to deserve enshrinement before James Edward. Oh well, at least the endless Rice debates will be a thing (largely) of the past, even if the outcome wasn't necessarily justified.