Dugout Central: Bouffard: Roy White Better Than Jim Rice?

Ever wonder what would happen if you mixed one-part Jesus Melendez and one-part Bad News Cubs?

Bill James has forgotten more about the game of baseball than I’ll ever know. He’s been the baseball equivalent of Isaac Newton as it pertains to statistical analysis. He’s employed as Senior Baseball Operations Advisor with the Red Sox, and I write articles for this website in my spare time with no compensation. He has two World Series rings and I can’t find my high school class ring. So please spare me the flames – I know I’m going to baseball hell for the dual sins of challenging what James says and rooting for the Yankees, not to mention not having all that big of a problem with the DH.

In The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract James ranks White and Rice as the 25th and 27th best leftfielders of all time respectively. He goes into detail as to why White is better. The crux of James’ argument is that White was more valuable than Rice by translating their respective “Run Values” to “Win Values” by adjusting for league, park, and outs. I will make no attempt to even pretend I understand the math involved with that. It’s not that I can’t; it’s that I don’t want to. If that invalidates my argument in your mind, so be it. I’m an advocate of sabermetrics, but only to a point. Games are still played on the field, not on a calculator. If baseball truly is our national pastime, then I think we need to address it on a level that Joe Baseball Fan can understand without breaking out his slide rule.