Rickey gets in, Raines gets screwed

There was never any doubt that Rickey Henderson would be elected into the Hall of Fame this year. The man was simply good at baseball. Yesterday came the announcement that he and Jim Rice were voted in. It was Rickey’s first year of eligibility and Rice’s last year of eligibility. Also part of that announcement was that Tim Raines did not get voted in. In fact, after getting a ridiculous 24% a year ago, he feel to 22.7% this year. Not a good sign for a player who a sure thing hall of famer. I wrote last year about ridiculous it was that Raines got only 24% and pmayo wrote a few months ago about why he thought Raines didn’t get voted in. I wrote the following a year ago (and provided links to many of the statements that you can see if you click on the link): Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame announced its 2008 vote a couple days ago with Goose Gossage as the only player getting enough of the votes to enter the Hall of Fame. Gossage is probably deserving of this honor, but the troubling, though not surprising part of the vote is what happened elsewhere. Tim Raines is undoubtedly a first-ballot hall of famer. Raines remains one of the top 60 position players in the history of the game. Raines, despite not being a power hitter, had a higher career OPS+ than did Andre Dawson who gets an unusual amount of support while Raines got fucked over this year. Raines ranks 44th in Win Probability Above Replacement among all players since 1957. Sadly, 2 others who most definitely belong in the Hall rank just ahead of him in Mark McGwire and Bert Blyleven. Raines was better in nearly every regard than Jim Rice who will sadly be elected in next season. Raines was significantly better than Lou Brock who is in the Hall of Fame. Despite Peter Gammons being a complete moron, Jayson Stark is correct. Nothing has changed. All of that is still true. pmayo compared the public opinion for Raines to Josh Hamilton considering both battled similar problems to get to where they are. Now, raise your hand if you knew of Raines’ role in the Pittsburgh Drug Trials. I doubt many hands are up. How about if you knew that Raines had been among the players who instigated a scandal that ultimately helped to protect the players from owner collusion, making much of the fabulous wealth players gain from free agency today possible? Still, no takers? Now, raise your hand if you knew that Raines, largely of his own volition, entered rehab after his second MLB season, and went on to have one of the most prolific careers in MLB history. Maybe a few more here. Now raise your hand if you’ve heard of Josh Hamilton. Ah, now everyone’s listening. We all know the story of Josh Hamilton. Can’t-miss prospect. Five tools. Won’t quit on the field. A career derailed by drug and alcohol abuse. A resurrection and rebirth into one of the most exciting and talented players in the game, a perennial All Star and eventual HOF’er, if he keeps up his current pace. Yeah, we all know that story, and the truth is, it’s a fantastic story and one of the most incredible things we’ll ever see in our lifetimes. Only, we’ve already seen it happen, in the person of Tim Raines. You should go read both of those articles. Since last evening we began debating The Hawk and The Rock’s HOF candidacy, I felt this piece was more than useful and appropriate. It compares Dawson and Raines. Raines was better over the course of their careers and was also better over the course of their 4 best years (consecutively). Bottom line, the difference between Raines and Dawson’s careers from this point-of-view is two seasons of sub-2007 Vizquel level production. The difference between 2.87 and 2.80 outs per run produced can add up in a hurry. It doesn’t matter whether you use traditional or sabermetric measures, the bottom line is Tim Raines had a superior career to Andre Dawson. “The Hawk” is a borderline candidate, which puts Raines over the border and into the Hall of Fame. What did Bill James think of Tim Raines during the years he was writing his annual Abstract? Here’s what he said from 82-88. 1982 (all are based on previous season) Home-road breakdowns (.347 and .265) shouldn’t be taken too seriously on 150 at bats each place. Raines has already established 21% chance of breaking Brock’s career stolen base record. I’m anxious to get the season started and see how many he can steal. His offensive won-lost percentage is the best in baseball for a left fielder, but his defensive stats were so-so; I suppose you know he never played the outfield in the minors. 1983 By the lead-off formula given in the Henderson comment, Raines ranks as by far the best lead-off man in the National League. But the formula says he should have scored 111 runs, and he wasn’t anywhere near that (he had 90; the -21 is easily the largest discrepancy of the season). This suggests two things: 1) that the Expos lacked a decent #2 hitter, which it is pretty obvious they did, and 2) that all of the Montreal fans who wrote to me that Dawson wasn’t hitting anything in the clutch probably weren’t imagining it. TRIVIA TIME – He came to the majors as an infielder, he was shifted to left field as a rookie, he had an outstanding rookie year in which he led the National League in stolen bases, he was then shifted back to second base, and he had a long and outstanding career in the major leagues as a second baseman. Who is he? I’m not going to give you the answer, by the way. But I’ll give you a hint: he is still active and at the major-league level in some phase of the game. (19-10; 3-2) 1984 Missed becoming the first man to score 20% of his team’s runs by only three runs scored. The record for scoring the largest share of your team’s runs is held by Kindly Old Burt Shotton of the 1913 St. Louis Browns (I don’t think he was “Kindly Old” at the time) who has to be one of the few St. Louis Browns to hold a single season mark of any kind. George Sisler’s hit record of 1920 is the only other one to come to mind. Raines did establish a new NL record, breaking the old one set by Mays in 1964 by a good margin. Raines and Henderson are two of the few leadoff men on this list; Shotton was another. Mostly, they’re sluggers. 1985 The 1984 Montreal Expos, not meaning to slight Charlie Lee (sic) or anything, had essentially two strengths. In Gary Carter, they had one of the greatest catchers in the history of baseball. In Tim Raines, they had the outstanding lead-off man in the history of the National League. Raines hit .309, got on base almost 40% of the time, reached scoring position under his own power 130 times (with the help of 75 stolen bases and 38 doubles) and, playing center field, was second among National League outfielders in putouts. Raines scored 106 runs with a terrible offense coming up behind him, led the league in stolen bases and is now five years ahead of Lou Brock’s pace as a base stealer. He doesn’t throw real great, but if you’ve got to have a weakness that’s a good one to choose, because it really doesn’t cost the team a half-dozen runs a year. He is a great ballplayer, one of the ten best in baseball. 1986 Now clearly the greatest lead-off man in National League history. He hit .326 on artificial turf, the highest turf average of any player who played on turf in his home park. His .788 offensive winning percentage was third in the league, behind Guerrero and Strawberry. As mentioned in the San Diego comment, Montreal lead-off men – Raines, for the most part – scored 128 runs, by far the largest percentage of team runs scored by any batting position in the league. A great, great player. 1987 He would have been a deserving recipient of the National League Most Valuable Player award last year, which is not to say that Schmidt wasn’t. If you compare them offensively, Schmidt and Raines are oddly similar in dissimilar ways. They went to the plate almost the same number of times, 664 for Raines and 657 for Schmidt. Offense in baseball consists of two things: getting runners on base, and advancing runners. Raines won the batting title, and with seventy walks also led the National League in on-base percentage, at .413. Schmidt hit .290 himself and drew 89 walks besides, so that he was on base a lot, too. With adjustments for getting caught stealing and grounding into double plays (we penalize the hitter for taking other runners off base), Raines is credited by the runs created formula with being on base 259 times to Schmidt’s 246. Close, but the edge to Raines. As to advancing runners, Schmidt because of his power, had 302 total bases, which is the largest factor in the advancement of runners. However, Raines had 54 extra base hits himself (35-10-9), and being the batting champion, he too had 276 total bases. In addition, Raines stole 70 bases, 69 more than Schmidt. Although the runs created method considers the value of this to be equivalent to only 36 batting bases, with an adjustment for stolen bases and miscellaneous stuff, Schmidt is credited with 326 “advancement bases” by the runs created method, while Raines is credited with 333. Again, it’s very close, but again Raines has the edge. Raines did slightly more to advance himself or other baserunners than did Schmidt. . . . Then you have to put that into a context of outs. Schmidt made 392 batting outs (552 minus 160) and 19 miscellaneous outs (9 sacrifices, 2 caught stealing, and 8 double plays). Raines made 386 batting outs (580 minus 194) and also made 19 miscellaneous outs (4 sacrifices, 9 caught stealing, and 6 double plays). The totals are 411 outs for Schmidt, 405 for Raines. Putting the runs in a 27-out context, you have 8.01 runs created per 27 outs for Schmidt, and 8.66 for Raines. They are one-two in the league, but Raines’s small advantages add up to a significant edge, making him pretty clearly the best offensive player in the league. . . . Raines created more runs than Schmidt despite playing in a much tougher hitter’s park. Raines’s batting and slugging percentages were 16 and 50 points higher on the road than they were in Montreal. Schmidt’s batting and slugging averages were 16 and 94 points higher in Philadelphia than on the road. With adjustments for the statistical distortions of the parks, Raines was really a much better hitter. Further, the average Phillies game had 9.0 runs, whereas the average Expos game had only 8.2 runs, so the runs that Raines created were more valuable – had more of a win impact – than the runs that Schmidt created in his inflated environment. . . . 1) Schmidt drove in 25% of the runners that he inherited in scoring position. Raines drove in 26%. The big difference in RBI was that Schmidt came to the plate with 253 runners in scoring position, and Raines came up with only 173 ducks on the pond. 2) Schmidt drove in 49% of his runners on third base with less than two out, 20 of 41. Raines drove in 58% of his, 18 of 31. 1988 (James began using the Player Ratings) TIM RAINES Hitting for Average: A Hitting for Power: B Plate Discipline: B+ Baserunning: A OVERALL OFFENSE: A Defensive Range: A Reliability: B+ Arm: C+ OVERALL DEFENSE: B+ Consistency: A Durability: A OVERALL VALUE: A- In a Word: Brilliant There is no doubt whatsoever that Tim Raines is a Hall of Famer and while I know I’m just beating a dead horse at this point—his support decreased and is not high enough to think he has a reasonable chance of getting elected into the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA—I feel it needs to be done.