In honor of Steve Aschburner's weird dismissal of Tim Raines' case, and in honor of Baseball-Reference.com's coolness, let's look at people who are 5th on the all-time list of some counting stat, and what percentage of the all-time leader's total they have.
Games
Leader -- Pete Rose (3562)
5th -- Ty Cobb (3035/85%)
Runs
Leader -- Rickey (2295)
5th -- Babe/Hank (2174/95%)
Hits
Leader -- Pete Rose (4256)
5th -- Tris Speaker (3514/83%)
Doubles
Leader -- Tris Speaker (792)
5th -- Craig Biggio (668/84%)
Triples
Leader -- Sam Crawford (309)
5th -- Roger Connor (233/75%)
*I find the triples list pretty interesting. Crawford and Cobb lead the list with ~300 triples and were left-handed. Honus Wagner is third, but is first amongst right-handed batters with 252. The next-best right-handed batter is Joe Kelley at 194. Honus Wagner must have had some crazy wheels. Out of the top 50, there are 20 RHB and 2 switch hitters.
Home Runs
Leader -- Barry Bonds (762)
5th -- Ken Griffey, Jr. (611/80%)
RBI
Leader -- Hammerin' Hank (2297)
5th -- Lou Gehrig (1995/87%)
Walks
Leader -- Barry Bonds (2558)
5th -- Joe Morgan (1865/73%)
Strikeouts
Leader -- Reggie Jackson (2597)
5th -- Jose Canseco (1942/75%)
Stolen Bases
Leader -- Rickey Henderson (1406)
5th -- Tim Raines (808/57%)
*Consider for a moment that Honus Wagner and Joe Morgan--10th and 11th on the list--have 1411 combined stolen bases.
Extra-base Hits
Leader -- Hammerin' Hank (1477)
5th -- Willie Mays (1323/90%)
*Willie Mays was an elite defensive CF. What an astounding player.
Times On Base
Leader -- Pete Rose (5929)
5th -- Carl Yastrzemski (5304/89%)
HBP
Leader -- Hughie Jennings (287)
5th -- Ron Hunt (243/85%)
*Biggio retired 2 short of the record. Jason Kendall is 5th all-time at 231.
Sac Hits
Leader -- Eddie Collins (512)
5th -- Donie Bush (337/66%)
Sac Flies
Leader -- Eddie Murray (128)
5th -- Big Hurt/Hank (121/95%)
IBB
Leader -- Barry Bonds (688)
5th -- Vlad (239/35%)
*Jim Rice, for all of the fear he supposedly inflicted upon opposing pitchers, had a measly 77 IBB in his career. 30 active players have more career IBB than Jim Rice.
GIDP
Leader -- Cal Ripken (350)
5th -- Eddie Murray (316/90%)
*Jim Rice is 6th on that list at 315, which I guess makes him the highest guy on that list who isn't in the HOF. Julio Franco is 7th at 312.
Caught Stealing
Leader -- Rickey Henderson (335)
5th -- Bert Campaneris (199/59%)
*Tim Raines is 23rd on that list with just 146 CS.
Outs
Leader -- Pete Rose (10328)
5th -- Eddie Murray (8570/83%)
Aside from our fun with stats, saying that Raines is worse than Rickey, therefore Raines isn't a Hall of Famer is an awfully silly argument. If that's our standard, we should unanimously vote in Rickey (because there are zero legitimate reasons to not vote for Rickey), wait to approve Barry Bonds, Greg Maddux, and Roger Clemens, and then start reconsidering applications when Alex Rodriguez retires. As Bill James aptly said, we could split Rickey Henderson in two and have two Hall of Famers. He's that good.
Rickey's stolen bases record is one of the most freakish records in the history of baseball. He's got 50% more stolen bases than Lou Brock, who is second on that list and might never be passed again. To use that as a benchmark against Tim Raines is like scoffing at someone's Nobel Prize because they don't have as many Nobel Prizes as John Bardeen.
If we want to find a reasonable HOF comparable for Raines, we could look towards Lou Brock. Raines played 2502 games, Brock played 2616 games. After adjusting for league and park, Raines hit .314/.409/.455 and Brock hit .307/.358/.430. Raines had 131.1 career WARP3 and Brock had 89.9 career WARP3.
Lou Brock's not an inner circle Hall of Famer, but he was a good choice for the Hall. Tim Raines had a significantly better career than Lou Brock and there's no doubt in my mind that Tim Raines belongs in the Hall of Fame.
I guess I'm like the anti-Aschburner, since I caught a case of temporary amnesia and forgot the awesomeness of Rickey (but not the solidness of the Rock) when I voted in some Internet poll.
Rob Neyer has been praising Tim Raines for several years now; here's an article of his from a year ago.
The more I read stories like Aschburner's, the less important institutions like the Hall of Fame become. Joe Gordon, but not Ron Santo? I suppose, you know, Gordon was a league MVP and Santo wasn't. Although Gordon's 1942 MVP was a little suspect. He was a 2nd baseman, so defensive position adjustments and all, but he hit .322/.409/.491 for a very nice 155 OPS+. There was, however, a certain outfielder from New England that hit .356/.499/.648 for a slightly better 217 OPS+. He led the league in batting average, OBP, SLG, OPS (natch), runs, total bases, home runs, rbis, bases on balls, OPS+, runs created, extra base hits, times on base, offensive winning percentage, batting runs, batting wins, and runs created. But, he was a dink to reporters, just like Jim Rice, so he finished second in the MVP balloting.
This little rant is kind of beside the point and kind of not. Raines's career doesn't really jump out at you -- he played his best years in relative obscurity and his value wasn't in hitting 600 home runs or something. He was a top of the order dude who got on base and was a lethal base stealer. He's got a strong case, but it's not one of those cases that's made by round numbers. And since we can't even be sure that writers will award the MVP award to someone who is far and away the best player in the league, how can we expect them to think hard enough to discern a more subtle case. They are sportswriters. If they had enough brains to understand this stuff, they'd have gone to engineering school.
It's hard to make comparisons back in those days, when grittiness wasn't so readily quantified.
Yes, but Ron Santo didn't lose some prime years because of military service. Gordon was a helluva player.
On the bright side, at least Aschburner's not falling for the Jim Rice Kool-Aid like everyone else. Rice's election would be a travishamamockery of the Hall. Also, pretty comical that he votes for the inferior Montreal OF on the ballot.
WARP3: Santo 113, Gordon 94. Gordon missed two years to the war. His total WARP3 for the 1943 and 1946 years were 14.4. 1946 was Gordon's worst year. Santo had a better peak with six consecutive years of > 10 wins with three of those years > 13 wins. So, throw in the two war years, be generous and assign him 18 WARP3 and you have two players with about the same credentials, with Santo still having a slight edge because of his stronger peak.
If Gordon belongs, and he's not a ridiculous choice, Santo belongs. I just wanted to riff on how sports writers were stupid in awarding Gordon an MVP when Ted Williams completely dominated the 1942 season. (Of course, Gordon was not chosen by sportswriters. He was chosen by whom? not the same group that failed to select Santo.) I'll go back to what I was doing now.
Nope, Gordon was chosen by a different "Veterans Committee" that was assigned pre-WWII players. By the way, I'm in a historical baseball league that uses Diamond Mind and happened to win the draft lotteries for the years of 1936 and 1938. We draft players 3 years before they make their debut, so yes, I will have Teddy Fucking Ballgame and Stan the Man in my OF.
Good luck trying to get a hit and run going. Those two losers combined for 102 SB in almost 23,000 PAs.
and 40 sacrifice hits (only FIVE for Teddy). Obviously selfish players.
90-100 WARP3 is usually good enough to get a guy into the Hall. The travesty here isn't so much that Gordon doesn't belong, but rather that Santo really does belong. His omission isn't as bad as Bert's, but it's right up there.
But your point is well taken that sportswriters have some pretty bizarre ideas of what makes an MVP. And while it may not be the same group of voters voting for MVP and HOF, the HOF voters are clearly influenced by MVP awards, whether or not they are fairly awarded.
Right. I'm not saying Gordon doesn't belong, but his case is no stronger than Santo's, other than he won that MVP award, which was totally undeserved. Guys like Bert and Santo really want to be in the Hall (hey, I'd want to be in the Hall, too). It's certainly cold comfort for them to realize that the guys who make the arbitrary decisions don't always know what the hell they are doing.
*Jim Rice, for all of the fear he supposedly inflicted upon opposing pitchers, had a measly 77 IBB in his career. 30 active players have more career IBB than Jim Rice.
That quote should be taped to every HOF ballot.
Here's the list, which defines "active" to include Barry Bonds and Mike Piazza:
Rank Player (age) Intentional Walks Bats
1. Barry Bonds* (43) 688 L
2. Ken Griffey* (38) 244 L
3. Vladimir Guerrero (32) 239 R
4. Manny Ramirez (36) 191 R
5. Carlos Delgado* (36) 186 L
6. Todd Helton* (34) 170 L
7. Frank Thomas (40) 168 R
8. Jim Thome* (37) 159 L
9. Albert Pujols (28) 154 R
Sammy Sosa (39) 154 R
11. Luis Gonzalez* (40) 150 L
12. Mike Piazza (39) 146 R
13. Chipper Jones# (36) 137 B
14. Gary Sheffield (39) 127 R
Ichiro Suzuki* (34) 127 L
16. Lance Berkman# (32) 116 B
17. Brian Giles* (37) 112 L
18. Garret Anderson* (36) 101 L
19. Bobby Abreu* (34) 97 L
Ryan Howard* (28) 97 L
21. Moises Alou (41) 91 R
Jim Edmonds* (38) 91 L
23. Cliff Floyd* (35) 87 L
Jason Giambi* (37) 87 L
25. David Ortiz* (32) 85 L
26. Ryan Klesko* (37) 84 L
27. Adam Dunn* (28) 81 L
28. Shawn Green* (35) 80 L
29. Alex Rodriguez (32) 79 R
30. Geoff Jenkins* (33) 77 L
There are some HOFers on that list, but Geoff Jenkins? Ryan Klesko? Brian Giles?
Fear!
Now that's no fair. You're comparing him to players with no overlap in careers. So here's the list for players who played 1974-1989 (or at least the years they played within that range):
1. Mike Schmidt 198
2. George Brett 190
3. Ted Simmons 157
4. Eddie Murray 155
Dave Parker 155
6. Dave Winfield 145
7. Dale Murphy 141
8. Garry Templeton 134
9. Jose Cruz 129
10. Keith Hernandez 127
11. Darrell Evans 125
12. Bill Madlock 121
13. Rod Carew 120
14. Jack Clark 110
Tim Raines 110
Ron Cey 110
17. Reggie Jackson 105
18. Steve Garvey 104
19. Andre Dawson 103
20. George Foster 101
Ben Oglivie 101
22. Darrell Porter 100
23. Gary Carter 98
24. Bill Buckner 97
Ken Singleton 97
26. Leon Durham 96
Pedro Guerrero 96
Dan Driessen 96
29. Chris Speier 94
30. Darryl Strawberry 93
Al Oliver 93
32. Ron Oester 92
33. Chili Davis 90
34. Harold Baines 89
35. Tony Gwynn 88
Don Baylor 88
Chris Chambliss 88
38. Wade Boggs 87
39. Pete Rose 85
40. Warren Cromartie 85
41. Don Mattingly 82
Greg Luzinski 82
43. Bob Boone 80
Carlton Fisk 80
Mike Scioscia 80
46. Larry Parrish 79
47. Bob Watson 78
48. Kent Hrbek 77
Jim Rice 77
Carl Yastrzemski 77
Willie Stargell 77
So, I guess Hrbek was just as fearsome.
Hrbek played five more seasons after that and totalled 110 career INTBBs. A lot of players on this list have more than shown here. Fearsome!
That list is totally money. I could certainly buy that Nails and Brett were feared hitters. Jim Rice? Not so much.
I think we're losing some perspective here. Is it too late to start campaigning for Warren Cromartie? Dude led the league in IBB in 1980.
Just the name "Garry Templeton" strikes fear to the very marrow of my bones.
that list is hilarious. My favorite is Chris Speier. No doubt most of those came with runners in scoring position and him batting 8th, in front of the pitcher's spot.
That's "ex-Twin Chris Speier."