I understand sticking up for the local guy and favoring the credentials of a Red Sox lifer on a Red Sox blog as the logical route, but the credentials of one Jim Rice simply do not stack up to a worthy inductee of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
By nature, I
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Zach—The intentional walks issue is a very interesting issue. And when it comes to Jim Rice (I drew what follows from my own HOF discourse, but I thought you’d like to share it), you
I’m sure he did too Moshe. I can’t imagine any other word he possibly could have meant.
Will Man-Ram Return To Greatness In ‘08?
http://modernrooters.blogspot.com/
“There are signs that Ramirez is finally realizing he isn’t 30 any more. According to Peter Gammons, Manny’s become a “manicle workout warrior”. Manicle is Gammons’ word, not mine. Gammons provides a brief first hand account of Manny’s workouts, describing them as “extremely difficult.”
I’ll bet he meant maniacal.
ESPN is running a poll on their baseball page on this very topic. With 15,905 votes cast, 67% believe Rice should be in the Hall, and 33% think he shouldn’t. I’m in the minority there; he was great, but (to use your word, Zach) not legendary.
If I were looking for a “fear factor” I would look at intentional walks as a percentage of plate appearances, not as a percentage of walks. These are guys with wildly different walk rates.
I think manicle sounds like a man encapsulated in ice…maybe it was a Ted Williams comparison.
Side-note:
The Sox have signed LHP Jon Switzer (former Rays reliever). His overall numbers at the ML level are awful, but Switzer has done well against lefties, so he might have LOOGY potential. Either way, he shouldn’t cost much.
They also added Michael Tejera to the Pawtucket rotation on a minor league deal.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3181689
Congress is asking Pettitte, Clemens, and McNamee to testify in front of them under oath on January 16th.
Aubrey—You could be right, but I find it extremely interesting to note how many of one’s walks—I did make a point of noting that you’ve got quite a few on the list who weren’t that great at taking walks in the first place—are free passes. I suspect (I’ve yet to do the math) that if you wrung out walks as a percentage of their plate appearances they’d probably come out not that far, either way, from their intentional walks as a percentage of their walks. (Well, maybe Dave Kingman and Reggie Jackson would be another story altogether . . . )
JaredK—I thought manicles were what you got clapped into when they wanted to haul you off to the calaboose.—Jeff
Rice should be in the Hall. Rizzuto is in for crying out loud. Don’t think of the Hall of Fame as a true Hall of Fame; look at his peers.
I dislike the Hall and think that it has become watered down. In this watered down Hall, Rice absolutely deserves to be in.
If we’re talking the REAL Hall, the issue isn’t voting Rice in, it’s getting the undeserving out.
Evan:
But doesn’t getting the undeserving out start with not voting any more undeserving in? I don’t think you can strip players of their Hall status once they’re in. By voting more undeserving players in, all we’re accomplishing is watering down the Hall even more. At this rate, by 2020, it’ll be the “Hall of Above Average,” if we don’t stop sometime soon.
Rice is on the borderline, IMO, but in the interest of raising the bar for the Hall in the future, I don’t think he should get in.
By the way, FWIW, KNBR reports that “the A’s continue to have strong interest in Coco Crisp, but are only willing to part with current major leaguers, ideally ones with no remaining minor league options, to get him.” I doubt Beane would do Coco for Huston Street straight up…but maybe Coco + Bowden? Of course, then Theo’s handcuffed on the Santana front…
Evan—Phil Rizzuto belongs in the Hall of Fame . . . as a broadcaster. And just because a given Veterans Committee was fool enough to think Rizzuto was a Hall of Fame player, it doesn’t make a case for whether Jim Rice should get elected by the BBWAA. The worst argument you can make on behalf of one player is to say he should be in because a far less worthy player got there, at all . . . never mind when the ones who put the lesser player in aren’t the ones who still have to consider the player on whose behalf you argue. That’s as unfair to Rice as to Rizzuto, and to the Hall itself.
I think what really hurts Jim Rice in the Hall consideration, other than that he may not have been as feared or fearsome as his reputation, are a) his ghastly home-road splits—they’re just too blaring, no matter how you cut and shape them, and it’s the same issue that’s probably hurting Dale Murphy the most; and, b) the fact that, taken at face value, Rice’s lifetime jacket shows a very short period in which he did play like a no-questions-asked Hall of Famer overall, even before the injuries and exhaustion finally began getting the better of him. I’m still not convinced that both Rice and Murphy are Hall of Famers when all is said and done, but neither am I completely convinced that they’re not.
As for beginning to excise the undeserving, I’d be for it. We could (should?) begin with just about everyone who got hustled in when Frankie Frisch and Bill Terry were running the Veterans Committee and, apparently, bent on getting as many of their old Giant and Cardinal buddies into Cooperstown as they could get away with, whether or not those buddies deserved the honour. What those two did to the Hall of Fame is a disgrace.—Jeff
To me Rice belongs in. He was dominant for about a 4-5 year stretch in the late 70s while his career numbers are borderline. In my mind if you have a great peak and your career value is close, that gets you in.
I don’t give a crap about the “most feared” stuff. That’s just one of those stupid things.
Evan, the Hall isn’t watered down, actually quite the opposite. It has become much tougher to get in. In 1955 the average team had 2.1 Hall of Famers, in 1985 the average team had 1.0 (if you give credit for Rose, Rickey and Roger). The problem isn’t the BBWAA voters, it’s the VC. Virtually every borderline (or worse) selection has been a VC selection.
I agree that Phil Rizzuto being in has really nothing to do with rice… for quiet a few reasons.
1. he’s voted in by the vets committee. it’s not like he was voted in by the writers.
2. he coupled a pretty good career with a GREAT broadcasting one.
3. he missed 3 season to the war… in his prime… which cost him around 450 hits if we look at what he did before and after.. which would at least make him a boarderline case considering the SS offense ability of the time
4. it’s unfair, but being part of the most ridiculasly successful era in the most ridiculasly successful team gets you plenty of extra points.
5. even Phil himself said he didn’t really deserved it.
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I think the biggest problem is this, here’s a list of guys that survived last year’s ballot .. i’m just going to point to the similar type players to rice (big hitter corner OF / DH / 1B type )
Harold Baines
Andre Dawson
Don Mattingly
Mark McGwire
Dale Murphy
Dave Parker
Jim Rice
Big – Mac is in another territory obviously as his stats are enough but obviously a certain day in a certain city is going to keep him out for at least 5 more years .. but let’s just look at these other guys. if you put Rice in, is there anyway you could debate not putting in the rest of that group ? (with the exception of Mattingly ) Murphy / Dawson / Baines all had significantly better count stats. Murphy / Dawson were known as GREAT defenders in their youth. Parker is a virtual clone of Rice and unlike Rice he had 2 rings .
If your going to vote in Rice, it’s really impossible to exclude everyone else save Mattingly on that list.
Rice’s offense was borderline. His defense was poor. His clubhouse leadership was worse. Defense certainly wins and loses games as well. No way should he get in.
Jim Rice is not a HoFer. His WARP-3 is 83.2. That is nice but nothing to get up in arms about. For a reference point, Manny is at 106.2.
Furthermore, HoF and MVP voting is the stupid and most annoying things in baseball. I hate hearing about it and i hate discussing it. It means nothing to me and shouldn’t mean anything to people outside of the players themselves.
In 700+ more games Baines had 2 more home runs and 200 more RBI with a lower OPS+ while Rice had three seasons with a higher OPS+ than Baines did.
Parker is a better comp but again, lower OPS+, fewer HR despite many more games. Also, both Parker and Baines had lower OPS on the road than Rice did (Baines by a lot).
Dawson and Murphy belong in.
McGwire has no relevance to this conversation as his exclusion has absolutely nothing to do with his on field performance.
Mattingly makes for an intriguing argument. Same OPS+, like Rice he had great peak value and almost identical road OPS (marginally better) to Rice. I think Rice’s career length/counting stats are borderline so Mattingly’s certainly don’t meet my standard.
Numbers tell alot, but not everything. Rice was indeed the most feared hitter during his peak seasons, and in ‘78 became the first player to have a team put in a defensive shift against him since Ted Williams. Good company. Ask anyone else who was following the Sox, and MLB, in the 70’s and you will probably hear the same thing. Just looking at the numbers alone don’t tell the whole story; it’s like looking at the blueprints of a building as opposed to walking through it after it is built. Same thing in a way, but really a totally different experience.
(And, as for IBB’s, take a peek at the rest of the lineup he hit in. We had Hobson at third base batting ninth, and he had 30 HR’s and 100 RBI’s. And deserved to hit ninth. You couldn’t pitch around anyone on that team.)
My gut tells me that Rice should make it…if you use the criteria of “most feared” in his time, there were very few hitters in the late 70’s as feared as Rice–Pete Rose (who is not nor probably every will be in the HOF), Dave Kingman (not in HOF AFAIK), and Reggie Jackson the only ones clearly more feared than Rice (guys like Joe Morgan, George Foster, Ken Griffey, Sr., and Robin Yount are in the same category as Rice).
Bill James 2008 Red Sox Pitching Projections
http://modernrooters.blogspot.com/
“I was a little surprised to see such a high ERA projection, even though 2007 was a career year for Beckett. Since his rookie season, Beckett’s posted an ERA on the lower side of 3.50 most of the time. Other than Beckett’s atypical 2006 season, Beckett’s BB/9 IP has gone down every year, yet the projection expects it to go back up in 2008.
I can understand why the projection is so high, as projections must give weight to Beckett’s 2006 season. But most indications point to 2006 being an off year and 2007 being an indicator of improving ability at the major league level as he enters the prime ages of most pitchers’ careers.”
Take away Rice’s last two years and his stats climb, if that is central to his candidacy. Those who lived with the Sox in Jim Rice’s prime know he was not only the man who dominated other teams, and led his own as Captain, but the man who finally and firmly smashed the color line in Boston. Local attitudes and negative press towards him was almost as nasty as that faced by Henry Aaron and even Ted Williams, and it was incessant. Jim overcame alot, accomplished alot, and deserves the Hall as one of the absolute stars of his era . . . and without the juice. Talking heads then weren’t much different than those of today.
Check out Goose Gossage’s comments in the Globe today about who was the most ‘feared’ hitter of the time. I predict he will get in, and know that he utterly deserves it. There were many at the time that said that what he did in dominating the League in ‘78 was by itself reason enough for the Hall. Koufax only had 5 good years, and he’s there. Imagine if Ruhle hadn’t busted Rice’s wrist down the stretch in ‘75 and he had been able to play in the Series. We probably would have won, perhaps with Rice as the MVP of the Sox beating the streak. And he’d already be in the Hall now.
props to you sir, eat it gammons
Ethan:
I’m fairly confident that the ERA is indeed bloated by his shaky 2006. I don’t see him regressing that much, though I don’t see Beckett being quite as good this year as he was last.