Talk:Jim Rice/Archive 1

Rice and the Hall of Fame (POV)

Rice may or may not belong in the Hall of Fame, but Wikipedia is not a soapbox, and a Wikipedia article should not lobby for someone's election. I have again removed the following statement:

His career numbers compare well to the career statistics of Hall of Famers, Orlando Cepeda, Duke Snider, Billy Williams, and Willie Stargell.

Whether he really rates as an equal of these players is mostly a matter of opinion; personally, I feel it's a stretch to compare him with Snider (who played CF, not LF) and Stargell in particular. In any case, there is already a factual statement of where Rice ranks in various categories compared to Hall of Fame leftfielders in another point in the article. Dsreyn 18:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• • • If I read the statement that was removed, correctly, it had compared the career (batting) numbers of these players, and in my opinion Rice's .298 career batting avg., 382 HRs, 1451 RBIs "compare well" to the .295, 407, & 1333 that Snider had. Not to mention the .297, 379, & 1365 of Cepeda, .290, 426, & 1475, Williams had, and Stargell's .282, & 1540 RBIs. The only number that I feel is not comparable is Stargell's 475 HR. I'm a bit puzzled because I didn't see where the words "Rates as an Equal" was used, and REMEMBER! There is a system that respective voters for the HOF decide who will become a member.

It's still a subjective argument. You said it yourself - "in my opinion...". The comparison is somewhat flawed also because you're comparing different eras (Cepeda, Williams, and Stargell all played through the late 60s and early 70s, when offensive numbers were way down). Granted, you said "compare well", but "rates as an equal" seemed to be the clear implication. If that's not implied, what's the point of the comparison? Why not let pure facts speak for themselves? The article should state Rice's accomplishments; and readers can draw their own conclusions. And remember, this should not be a platform for pushing the "Rice for Hall of Fame" agenda (Wikipedia is supposed to have a neutral POV), and what HOF voters might or should consider isn't relevant. Dsreyn 13:07, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, here's another comparison that seems equally valid. Let's take RBI's out (team dependent, depends heavily on RBI opportunities provided by players batting in front of you), and go with OBP and slugging percentage instead of BA (most baseball analysts view these as more meaningful than BA). Now compare Rice (382 HR, .352 OBP, .502 SP) with Frank Howard (382 HR, .352 OBP, .499 SP), Dick Allen (351 HR, .378 OBP, .534 SP), Norm Cash (377 HR, .374 OBP, .488 SP), and Rocky Colavito (374 HR, .359 OBP, .489 SP). None of these players are in the Hall of Fame, and Rice seems to fit quite nicely with that group. With the earlier group, he's well behind Stargell (475 HR, .360 OBP, .529 SP) and Snider (407 HR, .380 OBP, .540 SP), and compares somewhat better with Williams (426 HR, .361 OBP, .492 SP) and fairly closely with Cepeda (379 HR, .350 OBP, .499 SP). Dsreyn 15:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• • • Look at the Actual Batting Statistics (not percentages, averages and/or the SABR stats) and you can see how Rice compares.

Career Hits/HR/RBI/Total Bases/Seasons 

F. Howard - 1774 - 382 - 1119 - 3235 - 16

Norm Cash - 1820 - 377 - 1103 - 3235 - 17

Dick Allen - 1848 - 351 - 1119 - 3379 - 15

R. Colavito - 1730 - 374 - 1159 - 3177 - 14

Jim Rice - 2452 - 382 - 1451 - 4129 - 16

D. Snider - 2116 - 407 - 1333 - 3865 - 18

W. Stargell - 2232 - 475 - 1540 - 4190 - 21

O. Cepeda - 2351 - 379 - 1365 - 3959 - 17

B.Williams - 2711 - 426 - 1475 - 4599 - 18

I don't know what brand of math you have used to base your opinion on, but think that most baseball analysts would agree with my point! Furthermore, when I looked on Baseball Reference . com look at who they list as Similar Batters to Rice.

Orlando Cepeda (911) * Andres Galarraga (893) Ellis Burks (882) Duke Snider (880) * Joe Carter (864) Dave Parker (856) Billy Williams (854) * Luis Gonzalez (847) Willie Stargell (843) * Gary Sheffield (839)

footnote: The words "SIMILAR BATTERS" should not be confused with "Rates as an Equal"!

First of all, I'm not sure why you want to make it personal with the "brand of math" comment. What's so hard to understand about the statistics I posted? In the categories I used, I think anyone can see that Rice looks pretty similar to Frank Howard (for example). Despite what you may think, the statistics I cited are indeed "actual baseball statistics" - just not the ones that make your point. Furthermore, I believe that most "baseball analysts" would in fact welcome the use of slugging and OBP. I don't recall bringing any SABR metrics into the discussion. But it's interesting that after accusing me of using non-standard statistics, you now cite similarity scores to make your point. In any case, why were only the Hall of Famers in the list from baseball-reference.com mentioned in the article? What this shows, I think, is that Rice is in fact a borderline candidate - of the eight retired players in the list (excluding Gonzalez and Sheffield), four are in the Hall, and four are not.

And I think this discussion illustrates the main point - this is clearly a battle of opinion, and as such, it doesn't belong in the article. Dsreyn 23:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• • • This battle of opinion is where it belongs (In Discussion). The numbers that you had compared are similar, However they are limited and undercut Rice's baseball talents! You brought up Frank Howard who is not in the HOF, and you wrote that Rice's numbers look pretty similar to those of good ol'Frank's, implying that Rice does not belong in the HOF because Frank's not there.

I look at it differently. Frank was considered to be a Home Run hitter for the most of his career. Rice was considered a line drive hitter who was talented at driving in runs in several ways including hittig Home runs. Both player's had 382 career homers, a .352 OBP, and played for 16 seasons, and batted in either the 3 or 4 positions in the line-up! That is most of their similarities. If you look at their total hits you will see that Rice had 2452 to Howards 1774 (672 difference), Rice had hit 373 doubles to Howard's 245 (128 more), Howard had drove in 1119 runs during his career and Rice 1451 (332 more). For arguement sake Rice had a career batting average higher than Howard's (.298 to .273 or .025 higher). Contrasting their careers we find out that Rice had more career at-bats and also played in more games. So why do they have the same OBP? Because Howard walked more! The only stat in Howards favor is walks! Is a walk coming out of the 3 or 4 position in the batting order more important than the possiblity of driving in a run? All in all, How does that make them similar?

Consider this, when Wade Boggs was elected to the HOF, instead of looking at his OBP, BA, and hit totals (his strengths), if the focus shifted to his career RBIs and Home run totals, would he have been elected? Frank Howard had Higher numbers in both of those HR and RBI catagories. Does that make good ol' Frank a better or similar player to Boggs? So how does having the same or better numbers in some catagories out weigh having better numbers in the majority of the catogories. It makes no sense to me and leds me to speculate on a person's motive who agrees with that logic.

Second of all why did you take my math comment so personal? It was a humorous reaction to what I thought was an unreasonable focus on your part. I wasn't that sensitive when you interpreted and changed my statement(s) over and over to suit your arguements. Let alone using only the stats to better fit, what increasingly appears to be, a Rice-bashing position. Hey isn't that being subjective? Talk to you later!

First of all, as far as you questioning my "motives", my only "motive" is to maintain a neutral point of view in the article. I get the feeling that you still don't understand why I removed the sentence in question. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but the implication seemed to be - Rice "compares well" to these Hall of Fame players, therefore he also should be in the Hall. Would it not be equally valid to say that Rice compares well to non-Hall of Famers Andres Galarraga, Ellis Burks, Joe Carter, and Dave Parker (numbers 2, 3, 5, and 6 on the list)? Why weren't these other players mentioned? The appearance is that you hand picked 4 players out of 10 to lead the reader to a particular conclusion - this is not a neutral point of view! How is this any different from you taking my Frank Howard comparison to imply that Rice should not be in? Again, this is my point - the article should present facts in a neutral way. I don't see how that is "Rice bashing".

As an aside, I don't see how it's insulting to be compared with Frank Howard - the man was one heck of a hitter. Go to baseball-reference.com and look at the Senators stats during his years there (1965-71) and you'll see that in those seven years, he never had a teammate (regular - 100 games or more) hit .300, and there were only a total of five regulars in the seven years who even hit .275. Compare that with the RBI opportunities Rice had - except for 1978, at least one teammate hit .300 every year from 1975-86 (something similar to this is mentioned in the article as an explanation for his high GIDP totals). Who was Howard supposed to be driving in? Dsreyn 23:39, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

• • • Feeding into your argument that "Frank Howard rates as an equal (Talent wise) to Jim Rice" I must point out that during Howards first seven years he had several teammates that could get on base (Jim Gilliam, Maury Wills, Wally Moon, Tommy Davis, and Willie Davis) and during that time only once did Howard drive in over 100. After he was traded to the hapless Senators I assume that is the time you had talked about when you said he didn't have anyone to drive in. However, he did have 3 more years of 100+ RBIs during that time. Could he have had more if he had been on a better team? Probably!, but that is subjective on my part to think that Howard's star status would have shined brighter if he had a better cast of charactors around him. Seeing that when he did have that cast he had limited success.

Is the opposite true in your book? If Rice had a good cast of talent around him, does that lessen his accompishments as a player? It appears to be so when you have stated that he rates as an equal to players such as Howard, Cash, Allen, and Colavito when they all have failed to even obtain 1200 RBI's and 2000 hits during the course of their big league careers. Is Rice the only player that you have penalize using this convenient tool. Maybe you can convince me that Cepada's numbers were more valuable than Rice's? With all being equal, comparing these numbers and using your approach, I think having Mays, McCovey, Alou, Hart, etc. on his team should have penalized Cepada's value too. Maybe McCovey benefited from the talent as well, let alone some of the players on those Yankee teams! Where does it stop! Oh yeah - thats right it stops with Rice because it fits your argument.

Earlier in this discussion you said that most Baseball Analysis view OBP as being more meaningful than BA. I think that you had used this vague positioning as a way to force your opinion on me and the individuals that have or will read this discussion. Is that being kosher? When I see MLB remove BA from being a Triple Crown ingredient then I will consider your view of Frank Howard rating as an equal to Rice in their Baseball accomplishments. Which leads me to ask has Howard, Cash, Allen, or Colavito been inducted into Ted William's hitters Hall of Fame,yet?

Obviously we aren't going to agree on this. Again, I remind you that my objective here is simply to maintain a neutral point of view in the article, and mostly I posed this as a "devil's advocate" argument to make the point that such comparisons lead the reader excessively and are not neutral POV - and based on how seriously you are taking this, it looks like I've succeeded in making that point.

Your disdain for OBP is rather puzzling though, and I don't see how MLB's inclusion of BA in the triple crown in any way refutes my claim "baseball anaylysts" prefer OBP. I really don't have time to dig up specific references for you, but if you check out some works by Bill James, or something like Baseball Prospectus, I think you'll find that analysts do in fact value OBP more highly.

If you prefer a specific reference to a baseball analysts opinion, check out Bill James' New Historical Baseball Abstract and you'll find that he rates Howard (#19) ahead of Rice (#27) among left fielders. Sure, if counting RBI without looking at context is your only measuring stick, Rice ranks ahead of Howard. Analysts like James look at context issues like ballparks (Fenway was one of the best hitter's parks in the majors during Rice's career; LA and Washington were both pitcher's parks), era (Howard played through the modern version of the deadball era), and so forth.

Also, you might want to look at those early 60's Dodgers stats. First, Howard wasn't quite a full-time player there - from 1960-64 he averaged about 121 games and 412 at-bats a season. But some of the players you cite as people "who could get on base" actually support my argument more than they support your own. For the years 1960-64, Willie Davis' OBP was .314 - pathetic in any era. Tommy Davis' OBP, despite a couple high batting averages, was only .338. The others: Wills - .341, Gilliam - .355, Moon - .376. Not quite the same as hitting behind Wade Boggs. Dsreyn 04:28, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's more for you to ponder. If you go to www.retrosheet.org, you can get situational stats for Rice and Howard (click on "splits"). This will tell you things like how many at-bats each had with men on base, runners in scoring position (RISP), etc. I'm not going to repeat all the stats here, but I think you'll see that Rice had many more opportunities to drive in runs. The most AB that Howard ever had in a season with RISP was 142 in 1969. Rice topped that 10 times in 12 years from 1975-1986 (averaging 165 per year), with a high of 202 in 1986. Note particularly Rice's high AB/RISP from 1982-1986 (averaging 177 per year), when Boggs was batting in front of him. Howard averaged 129 per year from 1965-71 with the Senators, and 104 from 1960-64 with the Dodgers. Dsreyn 14:34, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

• • I must add in to this discussion since Bill James' name was brought up. if you look at some of the measurements that he created you will find that your argument about Howard being equal to Rice offensively dosen't hold up! Take .. Black Ink, Rice scores a 33, Howard a 17 (avg. HOF is equal to a 27). Gray Ink, Rice a 176, Howard a 121 ( avg. HOF 144), HOF Standards,Rice 42.9, Howard 26.2 (avg HOF = 50). HOF Monitor, Rice 146.5, Howard 62 (likey HOF 100). Howard is good but not equal to Rice's Career offensive numbers.

Also, if you look at players already in Cooperstown you will see that some of those numbers of Rice's rank higher. For example: Snider's Black Ink is 28 and Cepada's is at 14. However Rice's Gray Ink is lower than Snider's 183 and Cepada's 196. All three (Rice, Cepada, and Snider) are less than the desired 50 on the HOF Standards, and Rice ranks the Highest amoungst the three on the HOF Monitor. In one of James books, written in 1994, he predicted that Rice would be a first ballot HOF, when that didn't happen his opinion about Rice flip-flopped faster than an opinion coming out of the mouth of ... that last presidential contender..., and he has made statements (post 1995 justifying his new position (or maybe guarding his credibility?).

Here's another Bill James stat you forgot to mention - career Win Shares: Howard - 297, Rice - 282. Some others who have been discussed: Colavito - 273, Cepeda - 310, Cash - 315, Dick Allen - 342, Snider - 352, Stargell - 370, Billy Williams - 374. Have you considered the possibility that James changed his opinion after looking at Rice's statistics more closely? His opinions on a number of other players have also changed significantly over time, and not all of the changes involve Hall of Fame election or non-election (as an example, Ernie Banks dropped from 40th all-time in the first Historical Abstract to 77th in the second).

In any case, I think this discussion has already gone on far too long - clearly, well beyond what's immediately relevant to the article. Once again, I must ask - does anyone still not understand why I removed the sentence that started this whole discussion? From the response my remarks have generated, I think the POV issues are obvious. Dsreyn 03:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• • • Granted, the ultimate goal is an accurate, factbased, and fair article about Jim Rice's professional baseball career. And thanks to the many contributors, to this article, it has become just that! As far as this discussion page goes, looking at the "Devil's Advocate" position that was taken, and, some Strawman Comments that were made. I now view these as they were made to heighten the awareness of Point of View (POV)Statements. If this is true, then the point is well taken.

I just removed the most recent edit that cited slanted statistics regarding Jim Rice's HOF qualification. It should be obvious by now that the inclusion of a section on the HOF debate about Rice is to identify that a debate exists, NOT to provide a forum for the debate itself. The sections in question clearly were part of that debate, not descriptions of it, and as such were clearly a POV faux pas. In addition, not only was the information slanted, but the language to describe them was slanted as well. "His secondary skills were poor" is a perfect example. That's clearly an opinion and "poor" is subjective. "Low number of walks" falls in the same category. "Modest on-base percentage" is another, and is particularly egregious in that it makes no mention of the fact that Rice's career OBP was higher than the OBP of Jimmy Rollins in 2007, a year he was judged to be the National League's MVP by a subset of the same voting body that votes on the Hall of Fame. Calling it a "modest" OBP is therefore obviously slanted and, even if true, bears little relation to the voting practices of the BBWAA. Another obvious problem statement was "With Rice hitting nearly twice as many home runs at Fenway as he did on the road during his peak years". First, that's nebulous since "peak" isn't defined. Second, it's factually inaccurate. Outside of just three seasons, 1977-1979, Rice actually hit more home runs ON THE ROAD than in Fenway Park. So were those three years his "peak", or does his "peak" refer to 1975-1986, the dozen years that are typically considered his peak year by the people who vote for the HOF? If the latter is the case, then "nearly twice as many home runs in Fenway" is a deliberately misleading statement. Can we all just agree that the debate itself over Rice's HOF case shouldn't be argued in the body of the article?Jakzhumans 23:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)