The preemptive "I can't believe Tim Raines only got 32% of the vote" Thread

[tennOsfan]

How the ESPN guys voted.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/hof09/news/story?id=3819625

Wow. Pedro Gomez. Wow.

He voted for Jay Bell and Dave Parker? And not Blyleven or Raines?

Did he just get confused what dots to darken?

Jim Rice does not belong in the Hall. There is no way to justify his presence while Blyleven gets left behind.

[Webley Webster]

I'm wondering how many people who are sure Jim Rice doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame saw the guy play in his prime.

I realize this isn't statistically driven analysis, but I do know that I was a pretty devoted O's fan throughout Rice's career, and that from 1975 to 1986, he was among the most intimidating opposing hitters, if not the most, that we faced.

He wasn't much in the field and his end-of-career downturn was extraordinarily rapid, but for 12 years the guy was as good a hitter as there was in the AL. I guess we can argue about whether that qualifies you for the Hall of Fame. I think it does, and I'm glad he's in.

I wouldn't have bothered posting this at all, except that I'm surprised at how uniform people's opposition to this on this board appears to be.

PS I think Blyleven belongs in the Hall too.

[BaltimoreTerp]

I'm wondering how many people who are sure Jim Rice doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame saw the guy play in his prime.

I realize this isn't statistically driven analysis, but I do know that I was a pretty devoted O's fan throughout Rice's career, and that from 1975 to 1986, he was among the most intimidating opposing hitters, if not the most, that we faced.

He wasn't much in the field and his end-of-career downturn was extraordinarily rapid, but for 12 years the guy was as good a hitter as there was in the AL. I guess we can argue about whether that qualifies you for the Hall of Fame. I think it does, and I'm glad he's in.

I wouldn't have bothered posting this at all, except that I'm surprised at how uniform people's opposition to this on this board appears to be.

PS I think Blyleven belongs in the Hall too.

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/?s=Jim+Rice+Hall+of+Fame

Joe Posnanski has done a great job illustrating both sides of the argument; read through some of those posts.

Really, it boils down to:

Short career

Low defensive value

Stats inflated by home park

Plate appearances (something that isn't discussed much in this context: over that famous 12-year stretch he led the league in quite a few counting categories...including plate appearances by something like 400 over that period. When you play essentially 8 more games than the rest of your competition every year...)

There is also this quote:

*I will say that one argument I don’t like is the cherry-picked argument that Rice led the American League in 10 different categories from 1975-86. I respect that, it’s nice, but that only covers Rice’s good years and there simply weren’t very many good players in the league that played all 12 of those years (Rice got 400 more plate appearances than any other American Leaguer over those 12 years, and only six American Leaguers were even within 1,000 plate appearances of Rice).

Let’s expand the thing just slightly — look at how he ranked in baseball from 1970-1990:

Homers: Rice is fifth behind non-Hall of Famers Dave Kingman and Dwight Evans.

RBIs: Rice is fourth, 17 RBIs ahead of Dave Parker.

Runs: Rice is 11th, again behind Darrell Evans and also Dwight Evans.

Doubles: Rice is 28th.

Triples: Rice is 14th, which is quite impressive if you think about it.

Extra base hits: Rice is 8th.

Batting average: Rice is 12th behind Al Oliver, Bill Madlock, Pedro Guerrero and Ralph Garr.

Slugging: Rice is 5th, behind Reggie Smith, and just ahead of Guerrero.

On-base percentage: Rice is 60th.

OPS: Rice is 10th, behind Kent Hrbek, Jack Clark, Guerrero and Reggie Smith.

OPS+: Rice is 24th, tied with Oscar Gamble, Johnny Bench and Keith Hernandez.

This shows a picture of Rice that I think is pretty accurate — he was a very good player with a well-rounded offensive career who played in a good hitting park. But in my view he was not the dominant force in the game that I think so many want to make him out to be.

I would have voted for him if I had a vote, which I likely wouldn't have in the past before starting to read more than just the basic "He was intimidating! Let him in!" versus "He doesn't have the stats! Leave him out!" arguments. Doesn't mean there isn't a seriously legitimate argument against him, though.

Really, far more of one against him than someone like Blylevan or Trammell or Raines.

[Baltimoron]

What I didn't figure out was how to incorporate pitchers into the scheme. I didn't find anything as convenient as WARP3 for ranking pitchers' contributions to team wins. Any suggestions?

They have WARP for pitchers. Its under the Advanced Batting Statistics (although it includes hitting for pitchers who hit) Palmer

BRAR = batting runs above replacement

FRAR = fielding runs above replacement

PRAR = pitching runs above replacement.

That does not mean WARP is the best measure, but its BP's.

[mweb]

Lou Brock but not Raines? Absurd!

[DrungoHazewood]

I'm sorry, and I don't mean to sound like OldFan, but Trammell doesn't pass the sniff test when discussing the Hall.

Good thing that the Hall of Fame is not bound by sniff tests. (Not to go too far down that road, since the Hall isn't really bound by anything.)

I'd like to see a good, sound, logical argument that Alan Trammell shouldn't be in the Hall but Dave Bancroft, Luke Appling, Travis Jackon, Hughie Jennings, Rabbit Maranville, Pee Wee Reese, Phil Rizzuto, Joe Tinker, and Bobby Wallace should. An argument that isn't based on "Rizzuto had great teammates!"

I could see an argument that Trammell shouldn't be in if he was just a little better than some ridiculous Vet's Committee selections under Frankie Frisch. But he's quite a bit better than a third of the SSs the BBWAA elected.

In all seriousness Alan Trammell had a better career than half of the shortstops in the Hall, played for two postseason teams including a dominant WS winner. He got MVP votes in seven different seasons. He hit .300 seven times with pretty good power and ~20 steals in an era where your average shortstop was Julio Cruz. Four time GG winner, three time silver slugger. And when you slide over to the advanced stats his case is rock solid - his WARP or WAR numbers are well over established HOF thresholds. He makes the Hall better with his induction.

I think your (and to be fair, the writers') perceptions of Trammell are colored by the Cal/Nomar/ARod/Tejada era. He played almost his entire career before the offensive explosion and the ARod shift in how we look at shortstops. But in his time he was as good as anyone outside of Cal and Barry Larkin.

[DrungoHazewood]

I'm wondering how many people who are sure Jim Rice doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame saw the guy play in his prime.

I realize this isn't statistically driven analysis, but I do know that I was a pretty devoted O's fan throughout Rice's career, and that from 1975 to 1986, he was among the most intimidating opposing hitters, if not the most, that we faced.

He wasn't much in the field and his end-of-career downturn was extraordinarily rapid, but for 12 years the guy was as good a hitter as there was in the AL. I guess we can argue about whether that qualifies you for the Hall of Fame. I think it does, and I'm glad he's in.

I wouldn't have bothered posting this at all, except that I'm surprised at how uniform people's opposition to this on this board appears to be.

PS I think Blyleven belongs in the Hall too.

I wonder how many of the writers who put Rice in the Hall noticed that his road OPS was about 50 points lower than Ken Singleton, almost identical to Dave Kingman and Greg Luzinski, and only about 25 points higher than Alan Trammell, a shortstop who gets almost no support?

Think about that for a minute. Put them in the same park and Rice was barely better as a hitter than a Gold Glove shortstop who gets almost no support in his own HOF case.

Before they built that big press box in Fenway, it was the biggest hitters' park in baseball. That or Wrigley, it was close. And outside of Fenway Rice wasn't any better than dozens of players who dropped off the HOF ballot without a second thought.

[DrungoHazewood]

Lou Brock but not Raines? Absurd!

If you ranked the top 100 players at each position, you only have to get to #5 or #10 before it becomes a crapshoot as to who's in the Hall and who isn't. You have guys that almost any decent analysis would rank 6th or 8th who are out, and 40s and 50s who are in. Once the players from the 1990s and 2000s come up for consideration we'll have to move that #5 up to #1.

[Webley Webster]

I wonder how many of the writers who put Rice in the Hall noticed that his road OPS was about 50 points lower than Ken Singleton, almost identical to Dave Kingman and Greg Luzinski, and only about 25 points higher than Alan Trammell, a shortstop who gets almost no support?

Think about that for a minute. Put them in the same park and Rice was barely better as a hitter than a Gold Glove shortstop who gets almost no support in his own HOF case.

Before they built that big press box in Fenway, it was the biggest hitters' park in baseball. That or Wrigley, it was close. And outside of Fenway Rice wasn't any better than dozens of players who dropped off the HOF ballot without a second thought.

Just playing devil's advocate here--wasn't Tiger Stadium also a phenomenal hitter's park throughout Trammell's career? FWIW, I think he was a great player too.

And no one needs to convince me about Ken Singleton. Perhaps the most underappreciated offensive player of his era--the guy was tremendous.

The arguments against Rice you guys make are compelling.

[DrungoHazewood]

Just playing devil's advocate here--wasn't Tiger Stadium also a phenomenal hitter's park throughout Trammell's career?

Not like Fenway. Fenway's park factors in the 70s were in the range of 110-115. Tiger Stadium's were in the 100-105 range.

BB-ref has a stat called "Air", which is a decent measure of how pumped up a player's stats were by his run context. Rice's is 102, Trammell's 99. Which means that Rice's run environment was 2% higher than MLB historical averages, while Trammell's were 1% lower. Actually, it's not even that close because Trammell played the last four years of his career as a part timer in the high octane 90s and that drives up his context. In his prime he was in a context 8-10% lower than Rice.

Rice played in a higher-than-normal run environment, historically, even though he played in an era that depressed runs overall and wasn't even close to today's scoring. That was Fenway.

[backwardsk]

Oh, and Raines got 22.6% of the vote, which is nearly criminal. If there's ever been hard evidence that the BBWAA has some indefensible problems doing its job with respect to HOF voting it's right here. One of the top 10 LFers in the 130+ year history of the game gets voted "no" by over 3/4ths of the pool, while Rice, Chick Hafey and Goose Goslin have plaques. Absurd.

I'm not going to say that Raines shouldn't get in, he should, but you really think he's a top 10 LF?

Baseball Reference doesn't indicate which spot in the outfield one plays if their career was pre WWII era. And I know you've read a ton about the early days of the game. So I got to think some of these guys have to be in the top 10 if they played LF: Joe Jackson, Sam Crawford, the Waners, King Kelly, Sam Rice, Al Simmons. I'm not sure if these guys were LFers or not, but some of them had to be (I know Jackson was). Then you have guys like Ted Williams, Bonds, Musial, Robinson, Henderson, Yaz, Winfeld, Stargell, Brock, Billy Williams. Do you think Raines is part of this group?

Also, do you put much stock in the four HOF indicators that BR provides (Black Ink, Gray Ink, HOF Standards, HOF Monitor)? I don't know too much about these, but they show a more favorable light to Jim Rice compared to Rock Raines.

And another thought about ball park normalization and such, and I'm just throwing it out there, don't you think that when one sees a player with better home numbers than away could be due to the fact that they've adjusted their approach to hitting in their home ballpark? For example, maybe Rice never really developed an opposite field approach because he found great success pulling balls off the top of the Green Monster. So while it's a good tool to predict a guy's future output if they are traded or a free agent, it may be a little too detailed oriented when looking at past performance. --Just a thought. I've never seen a graph of Rice's at-bats and where he put the ball in play.

[Migrant Redbird]

... perceptions of Trammell are colored by the Cal/Nomar/ARod/Tejada era....

Absolutely! You could also include Ozzie, who defined fielding excellence at the position, and Vizquel, who dominated the GG voting in the AL during the latter part of Trammel's career. I don't "perceive" Trammel as a HOF member, but his hitting accomplishments at the SS position, plus his 4 gold gloves, force me to concede that his candidacy has more merit than many on the list.

[BaltimoreTerp]

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/01/13/the-hall-of-fame-roundup/

Bert Blyleven (338 votes, 62.7%). Up only two votes this year … not a whole lot of momentum there. Sigh. I fear what Blyleven is missing is a solid theme, a slogan, a new campaign, something to rival “Most fearsome hitter of his time.” I’m not going to lie: I don’t think, “Guy whose numbers impress a lot of Internet Geeks” is getting it done for us.

Maybe we need to simply play up his shutouts. I think we all know that shutouts are good things … and they are an old fashioned thing. The old writers should APPRECIATE a good shutout. And shutouts are not things that you can just COMPILE by hanging around. Pedro Martinez is 36 years old, he has an argument as the most dominant pitcher ever, and I suspect he will NEVER throw another shutout.

So, let me kickoff the new “Project Shutout” by putting it this way:

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Bob Gibson. He has more shutouts than Juan Marichal. He has more shutouts than Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson — a lot more than either of them. He has more shutouts than Jim Palmer, Gaylord Perry, Fergie Jenkins or Robin Roberts. He, of course, has more shutouts than Koufax, who had his career shortened, and he has more shutouts than Phil Niekro who pitched forever. He has more shutouts than Three Finger Brown, more than Five Finger And Some Sandpaper Don Sutton, more than Early Wynn, who threw at batter’s fingers.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Lefty Grove, Lefty Gomez, Lefty Hoerst, Lefty Tyler, lefty Hopper, Lefty Williams, Lefty Stewart and any other pitcher named Lefty including Steve Carlton, who was nicknamed Lefty.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Bob Lemon and Jack Morris combined.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Greg Maddux and Mike Mussina combined.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Whitey Ford and Don Gullett combined.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Bob Feller PLUS Roy Halladay.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Tom Glavine PLUS John Smoltz and you could throw Babe Ruth’s 18 shutouts on top of that and still not get there.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Curt Schilling PLUS Pedro Martinez PLUS Johnny Sain PLUS Two Days of Rain PLUS Roy Oswalt.

Bert Blyleven had more shutouts in 1973 than Johan Santana has in his career.

Let’s put it this way: Since 1920 — the beginning of the lively ball era — Bert Blyleven ranks fourth in shutouts. Only Warren Spahn, Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver have thrown more shutouts. Spahn has three more. Ryan and Seaver each have one more. They are all in the Hall of Fame, first-ballot, never a doubt. I’m just not sure what we are waiting for.

Don’t make me do this same exercise with strikeouts. Because I will.

And don't think he won't! :laughlol:

[Moose Milligan]

Good thing that the Hall of Fame is not bound by sniff tests. (Not to go too far down that road, since the Hall isn't really bound by anything.)

I'd like to see a good, sound, logical argument that Alan Trammell shouldn't be in the Hall but Dave Bancroft, Luke Appling, Travis Jackon, Hughie Jennings, Rabbit Maranville, Pee Wee Reese, Phil Rizzuto, Joe Tinker, and Bobby Wallace should. An argument that isn't based on "Rizzuto had great teammates!"

I could see an argument that Trammell shouldn't be in if he was just a little better than some ridiculous Vet's Committee selections under Frankie Frisch. But he's quite a bit better than a third of the SSs the BBWAA elected.

In all seriousness Alan Trammell had a better career than half of the shortstops in the Hall, played for two postseason teams including a dominant WS winner. He got MVP votes in seven different seasons. He hit .300 seven times with pretty good power and ~20 steals in an era where your average shortstop was Julio Cruz. Four time GG winner, three time silver slugger. And when you slide over to the advanced stats his case is rock solid - his WARP or WAR numbers are well over established HOF thresholds. He makes the Hall better with his induction.

I think your (and to be fair, the writers') perceptions of Trammell are colored by the Cal/Nomar/ARod/Tejada era. He played almost his entire career before the offensive explosion and the ARod shift in how we look at shortstops. But in his time he was as good as anyone outside of Cal and Barry Larkin.

My perception of Trammell isn't colored by Cal/Nomar/ARod/Tejada...primarily because Trammell didn't play too long against the Trinity and I'm old enough to remember what baseball was like before them. Yes, he stole a couple of Silver Sluggers from Cal when Cal had seasons that weren't up to his usual standards ('88, '90), but that doesn't make me hate on the guy.

I also find it very interesting that you hold up the "received MVP votes in 7 different seasons" as a reason for why he should be inducted when those votes are cast by the same writers you love to criticize for idiotic HoF and award voting. I mean, Andres Galarraga received MVP votes in 7 different seasons and had even more top 10 finishes in his career than Trammell did and I don't see you campaigning for his HoF chances.

I'm also throwing out his 1987 season as a huge outlier, for reasons that should be obvious. Yes, there are players that have had magical seasons before and never reached those heights again, but the 1987 season was the year of the juiced ball, the only season of the decade that totaled over 4,000 homers and beating the decades next highest total by 645. Not coincidentally, it is BY FAR Trammells best year ever...in a year where a lot of players had monumental years.

Lets take a look at Tony Fernadez, one of the other better shortstops in the AL for the 80s:

Hits: Fernandez: 2276 Trammell: 2365

Average: Fernandez: .288 Trammell: .285

Doubles: Fernandez: 414 Trammell: 412

Stolen Bases: Fernandez: 246 Trammell: 236

OBP: Fernandez: .347 Trammell: .352

Slugging: Fernandez: .399 Trammell: .415

Of course Trammell beats Fernandez with the longball, but it's not like Trammell was an all out masher. Trammell hit over 20 only twice (including the 1987 outlier) and only beats Fernandez by 16 points in his career for slugging percentage.

Per 162:

 AB    R    H   2B 3B  HR  RBI  SB CS  BB  SO   BA   OBP   SLG 594   79  171  31  7   7   63  18 10  52  59  .288  .347  .399 586   87  167  29  4  13   71  17  8  60  62  .285  .352  .415

So what now, Tony Fernandez for the Hall?

And as far as WARP and the whips dips and potato chips, you can see in this exchange that you could make a case for Jay Bell for the Hall of Fame.

Don't get me wrong, Trammell was a great player, a player anyone would like to have on their team....but he's not HoF worthy.

[TommyD4207]

My perception of Trammell isn't colored by Cal/Nomar/ARod/Tejada...primarily because Trammell didn't play too long against the Trinity and I'm old enough to remember what baseball was like before them. Yes, he stole a couple of Silver Sluggers from Cal when Cal had seasons that weren't up to his usual standards ('88, '90), but that doesn't make me hate on the guy.

I also find it very interesting that you hold up the "received MVP votes in 7 different seasons" as a reason for why he should be inducted when those votes are cast by the same writers you love to criticize for idiotic HoF and award voting. I mean, Andres Galarraga received MVP votes in 7 different seasons and had even more top 10 finishes in his career than Trammell did and I don't see you campaigning for his HoF chances.

I'm also throwing out his 1987 season as a huge outlier, for reasons that should be obvious. Yes, there are players that have had magical seasons before and never reached those heights again, but the 1987 season was the year of the juiced ball, the only season of the decade that totaled over 4,000 homers and beating the decades next highest total by 645. Not coincidentally, it is BY FAR Trammells best year ever...in a year where a lot of players had monumental years.

Lets take a look at Tony Fernadez, one of the other better shortstops in the AL for the 80s:

Hits: Fernandez: 2276 Trammell: 2365

Average: Fernandez: .288 Trammell: .285

Doubles: Fernandez: 414 Trammell: 412

Stolen Bases: Fernandez: 246 Trammell: 236

OBP: Fernandez: .347 Trammell: .352

Slugging: Fernandez: .399 Trammell: .415

Of course Trammell beats Fernandez with the longball, but it's not like Trammell was an all out masher. Trammell hit over 20 only twice (including the 1987 outlier) and only beats Fernandez by 16 points in his career for slugging percentage.

Per 162:

 AB    R    H   2B 3B  HR  RBI  SB CS  BB  SO   BA   OBP   SLG 594   79  171  31  7   7   63  18 10  52  59  .288  .347  .399 586   87  167  29  4  13   71  17  8  60  62  .285  .352  .415

So what now, Tony Fernandez for the Hall?

And as far as WARP and the whips dips and potato chips, you can see in this exchange that you could make a case for Jay Bell for the Hall of Fame.

Don't get me wrong, Trammell was a great player, a player anyone would like to have on their team....but he's not HoF worthy.

Very good post, man. Hats off to you. I agree completely, I always got the sense that Trammell was really nothing more than Tony Fernandez with a bit more home run power.