With apologies to my friends who are Red Sox fans, Rice is a marginal HOF candidate. He was great hitter at his peak, but he couldn't sustain it, and his cumulative statistics show that. Bob Ryan in this morning's Boston Globe has a piece deriding Palmeiro this morning-if he had stuck to steroids, I would have gone with it, but he found Palmeiro's stats unconvincing, even though they are no worse than equal to Rice's, and Palmeiro hit milestones that, not only used to be universally considered an automatic ticket to Cooperstown, but that Rice didn't even approach. Here's something to chew on for Rice fans. After his three peak years (77-79), in which he truly was a great player, for the last ten years of his career-about 5500 plate appearances (60% of his career totals), his cumulative slugging percentage was under .500, his OPS was about .820, and his OPS+ was about 116. His career OPS+ of 128 puts him at 197th all time. Good enough for the Hall Of Fame? Maybe, but by no stretch of the imagination is it compelling, and the BBWAA votes over the years show that diffidence. Boston writers have talked about Rice being "feared"-perhaps that's true-at his peak, he certainly was formidable, but it's a mushy way to get Rice in while justifying the exclusion of others who were statistically superior. The knowledge you get from your own eyes is important, but the data is more so. In the end, every voter gets to choose with his or her own biases intact. Jon Heyman just wrote a piece in SI which was remarkable in its ability to contradict itself. But if you parse out all of the self-justification, it really comes down to feel for Heyman (and, I would guess, for many HOF voters). Jim Rice, Jack Morris, Burt Blyleven, Tim Raines? We aren't talking about about Ted Williams, Sandy Koufax, Walter Johnson, or Rickey Henderson. There is a qualitative difference-and that's where all the fun comes in.

Brian Giles Nth best season WAR graph is pretty close to Rice. Granted there are dozens of such non-HoF players at that level or better who have virtually no shot at being enshrined [before maybe some vet committee ballot after their death]

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx?playerid2=990&playerid3=1010897&playerid4=&playerid5=

Thanks for the article, Sully.

A couple points. One that you certainly know is that there are two popular WAR implementations and others exist too, making it hard for the concept to go mainstream. That's an inevitable thing, so I'm just noting it rather than bemoaning it.

Second, your point that WAR can create a reasonable list of the top 15 batters and therefore is useful to differentiate at a first pass among Dwight Evans, Chet Lemon, and Jim Rice is not very persuasive. The top MLB position players are spread out way on the far right tail of the talent distribution curve so that any decent statistic identities them. For example, when I sort by career runs produced (R+RBI-HR), a statistic few statheads would endorse, the top 7 batters all are listed in your top 10 WAR list. It's not a very persuasive argument.

Eventually, looking at WAR and other advanced statistics will gain more mainstream adherents, but it'll be a very long, gradual process.

A few points, Detroit Michael:

1) WAR incorporates defense.

2) WAR assigns appropriate run values to batting events like walks, stolen bases, caught stealing, GDP's, etc.

3) A first pass WAR look at Chet Lemon and Jim Rice tells you they're darn near identical. That's not interesting? A first pass look at WAR tells you Dwight Evans was a way better player than Rice, even though Rice is in the Hall and Dewey was off the ballot after three tries. That's not illuminating?

Finally, I am aware of the different WAR variants.

Thanks a lot for the comment.

Sully,

I agree with all of your points.

What I was trying to write (with poor results apparently) was that your argument that WAR must be pretty good because the top 10 or 15 batters ranked by career WAR match our expectations of the best batters is a weak argument. A garbage stat like Runs Produced that makes no adjustments for ballpark & era and ignores tons of stuff also can rank the top batters. If someone is skeptical about WAR, saying it works well for the top batters in history is not persuasive.

Great article. I wish I was as eloquent in my arguments as to why Rice (and Palmiero for that matter) are not HOF material.

Many call Ryan a dominating pitcher, and they usually refer to his 7 no-hitters or his world record strikeouts. However, the objective evidence shows that, year in and year out, Ryan did NOT dominate his peers, and was in fact inferior to Blyleven. Given that a pitcher’s goal is to give up as few runs as possible, one way to judge consistent dominance is how often a pitcher ranks among the league leaders in fewest runs given up. If Ryan were truly dominant, then he would consistently finish in the top 10 in his league in ERA+. We're not talking leading the league, just Top 10. Let's see what the objective evidence says.

Ryan finished top 10 in his league in ERA+ a mere 6 times, or only about every 3 years or so. In other words, in 2 out of every 3 years, AT LEAST TEN pitchers had a better ERA than Ryan. Compare that with Bert Blyleven’s 12 times finishing in the top 10 in ERA+.

Ryan and Blyleven pitched in the same league in 8 seasons. In those 8 years, BLYLEVEN HAD THE BETTER ERA 6 OUT OF 8 TIMES. So, when comparing apples to apples, Blyleven was a better pitcher than Ryan 75% of the time, even with Blyleven pitching in more hitters’ parks.

1973 is a great example that debunks the Ryan “dominance” myth. Most Ryan fans remember from that year Ryan’s all-time record 383 strikeouts. However, Blyleven was better than Ryan in Ryan’s most “dominant” season. Despite setting the record in Ks, Ryan had a far worse ERA than Blyeven (2.87 to 2.52). Why? Ryan fans don’t mention his 162 walks (4 per start!) compared to 67 for Blyleven. Walks kill. So although it looked like Ryan dominated, Blyleven actually dominated more in what matters: giving up fewer runs. The same thing happened the next year. Ryan led in Ks but also he also led in BBs with 202! (that’s 5 walks a start!), and thus again gave up more runs than Blyleven. In fact, year after year, Ryan struck out more than Blyleven, and gave up fewer hits than Blyleven, but gave up more runs than Blyleven. Why? WAY MORE WALKS. So, while Ryan “should have been” one of the best pitchers ever, he was NOT even one of the top 10 in his own league in ERA in most years. Walks kill.

Because Ryan walked tons of batters, while Blyleven was a control artist, Blyleven outpitched Ryan year after year.

More Statborg propaganda--Blyleven, a compiler if there ever is one, Mr. 12-5/14-9 lifetime, is your idea of a Hall of Famer. Pay no attention to that guy w/ the 20 win seasons and the 250-odd wins, we can't mention him in the same breathe. His K-W ratio just isn't as pretty as Burt's.

CHET LEMON? Chet Lemon was to Jim Rice what Johnny Damon is to Albert Belle. PLEASE get a grip here. Did you actually see any of these guys play?

A very good article. My issues:
1) When using cummulative WAR, it favors players that had long careers, even those that 'hung on' with mediocre numbers their last years. Maybe we could also include something like WAR/500 AB.

2) Since Defensive stats are very imperfect, especially looking at older players, maybe instead of WAR we could use oWAR and dWAR.
Also, why not include career ERA+, OPPA and OPS+ and wOBA along with WAR, when looking at HOF chances? I know D in not included, but again, D stats vary greatly.

Great idea. Tim Raines vs Tony Gwynn is entertaining - as is Alomar & Larkin. Thx!