Is Jim Rice a Hall of Famer?

With all the HOF talk lately, I was wondering if Jim Rice might be a candidate.  Maybe you’ve seen some discussion on it – maybe not.  With next year being his last year of eligibility, I figure, what the heck, take a look.

I am a Small Hall of Fame person.  That means people have to be great to get in.  There is room, in my Hall, for achieving milestones, because milestones are only achievable through quality over time.  There are no peak-driven milestones.  I am also as guilty as the next BBWAA voter with regard to some level of “feel” in my Hall.  You have to.

I’m also something of a position stickler.  People like to lump the HOF outfielders together, and I don’t think they would lump the HOF infielders together.  The three OF positions are distinctive and teams look for different skills for each one.  Yes, left fielders and right fielders are close, but they are not the same.  Center fielders are clearly a different class.

So it’s pointless to look at the best HOF left fielders and pretend that Rice is in the class of Williams or Musial.  But is he in the class of the rest of the HOF left fielders?  Before you start saying “we can’t use the lowest common denominator”, I’m not going to.  Who are Rice’s real HOF comps?  On Baseball-Reference, Billy Williams and Willie Stargell pop up on his comp list.  They were also both left fielders.

So I split out HOF left fielders from the “real baseball” era.  I define that as 1936 to present.  If you played baseball prior you were either playing against a weaker league, or a dead ball.  That’s barely describable as a “modern” era.  My count has the HOF left fielders as: Ducky Medwick, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Ralph Kiner, Monte Irvin, Carl Yastrzemski, Billy Williams, Lou Brock, and Willie Stargell. 

For this comparison, we’re going to not use Teddy Ballgame or Stan Musial.  Rice isn’t in the inner-circle.  We aren’t going to use Monte Irvin – he is in for a good portion of his Negro League career.  Ralph Kiner’s career is too short.  And Lou Brock is in the HOF for 3000 hits and 938 stolen bases.

That leaves Medwick, Yaz, Billy Williams and Stargell.  Well, Yaz has 3419 hits, so he’s got a level of longevity over Rice.  So, I will be using Ducky, Pops and Billy Williams.

Player	Last	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS+
Jim	Rice	2089	8895	8225	1249	2452	373	79	382	1451	670	1423	0.298	0.352	0.502	128
3 HOF	Avg	2277	9110	8304	1268	2471	466	85	369	1466	806	1178	0.298	0.360	0.507	141

I know context matters, and that difference shows up in the OPS+ numbers.  But with all the other numbers, is that single data point sufficient for all the clamoring that Rice doesn’t belong?  Well, yes.  It basically says that the leagues that Rice played in were 13 percent easier to put up the stats he put up.  So Rice is 13 percent worse than the usual HOF left fielder.

What’s funny is that Rice’s OPS+ is right beside Yaz’ (129).  If Rice had hung around for another decade and got 3000 hits, he’d be elected.  I don’t think the proper comparison is that Rice was the best left fielder (whether he was or not) for a given decade, but whether or not he measures up to the definition of a HOF left fielder.  That’s pretty well established, and he clearly is not.  In order to make the Hall, he should have 3000 hits or 900 stolen bases or 7 straight home run crowns, assuming his OPS+ is going to be less than 140. 

I must say, I was really surprised at how reasonable Rice’s stats look compared to solid HOF left fielders.  These aren’t the margins – so it’s understandable how anyone not looking at OPS+, or some other statistic that accounts for context, that Rice looks good.  His count and rate stats are right in line with the average of Stargell/Williams/Medwick.  Rice is legitimately described as a top ten left fielder in the modern era.  Many people think that’s enough to be a HOFer.  Is it?

No, Jim Rice shouldn’t be a Hall of Famer, but this analysis shows that Rice “put up Hall of Fame numbers”, just not at a good enough rate.