HOF : Tim Raines

[ctorg]

Originally Posted by bababui

The stats fantasy baseball players rely on are very apropos for fantasy baseball but they are simply a two dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional game. While stats are a by-product of a baseball game, baseball itself is a game that often sacrifices maximum statistical performance for the sake of winning; ie grounding out to second to get a runner from second to third.

Also, there are social factors that might make a player important to a team. Is he good with his teammates? Will he help younger teammates develop? Will he make sacrifices (like playing out of position) for his team? Will he bitch and moan when either he or the team is in a slump?

For fantasy players to crow about their superior baseball knowledge proves that they have matched their sportswriter/broadcaster brothers in hubris.

Hey, I'm not a fantasy baseball player and I'm not crowing about superior knowledge. I'm looking at both groups and seeing that, despite the truth of what you said, the fantasy baseball players make much more compelling arguments. The writers' arguments just come across as ridiculous and silly much of the time. They may write about the game, but sometimes they seem to understand it less than many of the regular fans.

[Jason Moyer]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Chuck Tanner, his long-time manager, once said about Stargell's presence and leadership that "When you had Willie Stargell on your team, it was like having a diamond ring on your finger."

His leadership was surely impressive (the late 70's Pirates were basically his teams, afterall) but I doubt the HOF voters were ignoring the 475 homeruns he hit during an often-injured career (had he played 150+ games a year during his prime I think there's little doubt he would have finished with 600 or more).

I'm glad someone brought Fred Lynn up, because he was every bit as good as Jim Rice was.

I really don't see how you can put Jim Rice in the hall of fame but not Dave Parker. Or Fred Lynn.

[Splitter24]

Originally Posted by sporr

If you read this you'll see that, since 1950, there were 19 non-HOF players that had better OPS+ than Rice in a 12 year span (similar to the span of "good" years that Rice had). In fact, Fred Lynn, Rice's own teammate, was one of them.

First off, a lot of the guys mentioned on his list weren't contemporaries of Jim Rice (his list isn't truly germane to our discussion about Jim Rice and the "fear factor").

But most of all, there's a serious flaw in this guys list. Especially as it pertains to Fred Lynn. I loved Fred Lynn. He was a terrific player... when he was in the lineup. The problem is, many of Lynn's "seasons" that are included are of the 115 games or less variety. Rice, over that 12 year span (and prorating 1981 out to a full schedule) averaged 152 per season. Lynn over the same time period averaged 129. You can't just average individual OPS+ numbers together when you're dealing with seasons with incongruous amounts of plate appearances. Using the same logic, Larry Hisle was better from 1978-1980 than Jim Rice or Oscar Gamble was the best player in baseball in 1979.

[bababui]

Originally Posted by ctorg

Hey, I'm not a fantasy baseball player and I'm not crowing about superior knowledge. I'm looking at both groups and seeing that, despite the truth of what you said, the fantasy baseball players make much more compelling arguments. The writers' arguments just come across as ridiculous and silly much of the time. They may write about the game, but sometimes they seem to understand it less than many of the regular fans.

I wasnt directing my comments specifically at you but at the thread at large. Should have made that clear in my post. Apologies.

[BaseballMan]

Dave Parker was a player that a kid watching the 79 series , i felt he was gonna be a superstar. Though a good player he was never one of the top players of that era imo. I wouldnt be against him in the Hall but i would probably go with Rice first.

[bababui]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

Dave Parker was a player that a kid watching the 79 series , i felt he was gonna be a superstar. Though a good player he was never one of the top players of that era imo. I wouldnt be against him in the Hall but i would probably go with Rice first.

He would have been a HoF lock were it not for his cocaine habit.