Holy appeal to authority Batman!

many of the executives who ran teams and the managers who managed and the players who played did not value walks the way walks are valued these days.

You see this a lot in the mainstream media, particularly in arguing for Rice and Dawson in the HoF. Of course, out of the other side of a lot of their mouths comes, "Billy Beane didn't invent OBP! My great uncle knows about that!"

Look, forget the Moneyball-linked OBP mysticism and dogma ... you're telling me that teams didn't know it was a good idea not to make outs?

many of the executives who ran teams and the managers who managed and the players who played did not value walks the way walks are valued these days.

Many of the excutives who ran teams and the managers who managed and the players who played didn't win very often, either.

If Rich is checking in, this series of articles has been great. Critical, yet respectful, and, whether or not it is your intention, I think they have strong mainstream appeal because they don't rely on advanced statistics that mainstream fans will blow off. (Your Blyleven pieces are good too, but I remember a strong focus on RSAA (I think), which may scare off more mainstream fans.)

"Look, forget the Moneyball-linked OBP mysticism and dogma ... you're telling me that teams didn't know it was a good idea not to make outs?"

The awareness of this way of looking at the game was not widely shared in baseball in the 1960s and 1970s. It was common for leadoff hitters to have OBPs well below league average; it was perceived that speed was more important than not making outs, and hence the Luis Aparicios and Omar Morenos found their way to the top of the batting order. The statistics tables that were published in my Saturday newspaper in the early 70s were long and contained every batting title qualifier, but there was no column for batter walks (pitcher walks were there, though).

That does not mean that voters in 2008 should bind themselves to misconceptions of 1978.

Very good interview, Rich, and while I agree that Rice is a marginal HoFer at best (I wouldn't vote for him), the point that Olney made about Eddie Murray in the batting cage was a very good one. In effect, a slugger almost was forced to be either a hyper-disciplined and completely self-taught Ted Williams type, or a ridiculously fear-inducing Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth type, in order to rack up the sort of walk totals that "help win baseball games" beyond what they actually accomplished by swinging away as they did.

you're telling me that teams didn't know it was a good idea not to make outs?

Ted Williams caught shiit for not swinging at balls an inch off the plate and passing on his middle-of-lineup RBI responsability.

Ted Williams caught shiit

Send him with Dan Z to Fallujah!

you're telling me that teams didn't know it was a good idea not to make outs?

The triple crown stats didn't measure that, so...no, it wasn't so obvious I think to most.

But you are making a vital distinction well worth making if you're trying to get traction with the trad crowd. It's not about walks; it's about outs.

Just because (or even if) the skill wasn't valued back then (or by certain teams now), that doesn't mean the skill wasn't valuable. Duh.

Tango just made a great point in the comments section over there. Rice's walk rate was more or less the same across situations. Seems to me if he were an "RBI man" and took to his trade as such, his walk rate might be lower with runners on and/or in scoring position.

Despite breaking into the big leagues under a progressive manager like Earl Weaver, Murray wasn't thinking about on-base percentage; he defined himself by RBIs. He didn't say at the end of the year, Hey, I had an OBP of .380 and I feel damn good about that.

During Murray's prime, he did walk more than the average hitter. He was in the AL top 5 in OBP five times (and led the league once), with three top 5 finishes in actual walks. A man who walks 70 times or more in 11 seasons is certainly thinking about walks to some extent.

The conventional wisdom was that a middle-of-the-order hitter who took a lot of walks was actually hurting his club (especially if he was a cleanup hitter on a team in a lineup without a lot of depth).

Maybe that was the case, but if so, the top sluggers weren't listening. The top 10 home run hitters in 1985 averaged about 76 walks. (For the record, I just picked a year at random in the middle of the '80s, but this would seem representative of power hitters of any era.)

I'm sure Gammons is right when he says Rice felt pressure to drive in runs and would sacrifice potential walks (and swing at borderline/bad pitches to do so), but that's not a credit to Rice, it's a flaw in his hitting approach, especially since he often had excellent hitters behind him who were quite capable of driving in runs on their own.

But you are making a vital distinction well worth making if you're trying to get traction with the trad crowd. It's not about walks; it's about outs.

Yeah ... I understand these counterarguments, sure you can say they didn't care about outs on a micro level (w/ RISP, in RBI situations, sacrifice it for speed) ... but we're looking at Rice on a macro level, his OBP for his 3-year peak, his 12-year stretch of "fear," his career. There are certainly a handful of situations where baseball taught players to make productive outs or try to drive the run home ... but in general, Jim Rice or Omar Moreno or whoever else stepped up to the plate knowing that making an out was a bad thing.

Sure. But, the commonly held perception of the times was that hits resulted from batter skill, whereas walks resulted from pitcher error. You still see a faint hint of this notion in some current reporting.

Lederer:

Walks have always been important. If anything, walks were more valuable in Rice's day because bases and runs were scarcer than they are today.

This may be the worst serious argument against Rice. His logic seems to be that when runs are scarce, any positive offensive outcome contributes more to win expectancy. This may be true. However, in any meaningful context, the statement that walks are more valuable in low-scoring times is simply dead wrong. As the run environment decreases, OBP becomes less valuable relative to SLG.

Thought experiment: Imagine a league in which the average hitter is the equivalent of Barry Bonds at his peak and the average pitcher is the equivalent of a typical high school pitcher. Teams would score many runs per inning. In this context, a walk would be nearly as valuable as a home run. The batter and any runners on base would likely score either way. An out would be especially harmful, decreasing run expectancy by at least a run on average.

Now imagine a league in which the average hitter is the equivalent of a typical high school hitter and the average pitcher is the equivalent of Pedro Martinez at his peak. Runs per inning would go down to a tiny fraction above 0. In this context, a walk would be worth basically nothing, and an out would have almost no cost. Both outcomes would be functionally worthless. A batter would be best-served trying to hit a home run, which, in guaranteeing a run, would frequently win the game for his team.

Obviously the MLB scoring environment has never approached such extremes, but the effect remains. OBP has been significantly more valuable relative to SLG over the past 15 years than it had been in the previous 15 years.

To me, how much Rice credit deserves for playing to common perceptions of the time depends on how much you think a player can modify his game to reflect current opinion. To take an extreme example, NBA player salary is driven in large part by their points per game average. Even though the numbers indicate that someone like Allen Iverson should be shooting less, I find it hard to fault him for doing what is: 1) expected of him as a team leader, 2) has made him rich and famous.

I think the general consensus is that baseball player ability is more innate than adjustable, but the Eddie Murray story demonstrates that hitting philosophy affects how players of that period practiced and prepared.

Holy appeal to authority Batman!

Damn Voros, beat me to the punch. If you can read my mind I'll take you to the DBacks game of your choice.

Why don't they just let Gammons pick the HOF? He's almost a god now so that's an appeal to the highest authority.

I've read a bunch of news stories about Rice recently (paperofrecord is free, folks, but I only see a couple of you referencing it.) and he did read Ted William's The Science of Hitting. So he was aware of his approach. But he was afraid of falling behind in the count. FWIW, I think that his minor league batting instructor was Sam Mele.

in general, Jim Rice or Omar Moreno or whoever else stepped up to the plate knowing that making an out was a bad thing.

Well, they did, but (I believe) more in the sense that they had to get a hit, not in the sense that they were eager to take a base on balls if it was offered. Very few players have made a living by walking; it's not (I believe) a good way to approach hitting, to make your goal the base on balls and hope for the best otherwise. It should be the other way 'round: make your goal to take good rips at good pitches and if you don't get good pitches, hope the bad ones are called balls and take your base.

In sum, as #15 noted, the walk is traditionally more often seen as the pitcher not getting the ball over and not the batter working the pitcher, and I think this is actually the correct way of viewing it.

I’ll never be such a serious fan or student of the game that I would discount the information generated in hundreds of MVP votes cast in 14 AL cities during Rice’s time as a player.

These selfsame BBWAA voting guys did not feel that Rice was a HoF when their memories of his play were still fresh. Why does Olney not hold that judgement in the same regard that he does a couple of MVP votes? Does it make any sense to say "I trust MVP voters but not HoF voters?"

#20,

But really good hitters do not swing often at pitcher's strikes with less than 2 strikes and some (Appling, Jeter!) have the ability to foul off these pitches when they do have 2 strikes. They're not trying to walk per se, but the ability to strike out less and walk more over a season is a function of the batter's approach at the plate.

Rice would try to pull the pitch down and away with a runner on first and less than 2 outs and less than 2 strikes more than most good hitters would. He'd get his share of singles in the hole, but more than his share of GIDPs. His batting average would not suffer much, but he was hurting the club.

These selfsame BBWAA voting guys did not feel that Rice was a HoF when their memories of his play were still fresh. Why does Olney not hold that judgement in the same regard that he does a couple of MVP votes?


in this THT article (which, I trust, will be posted soon), Brattain points out that it is NOT the geeks, the statheads, the Neyers, the Sabers who are "keeping" Rice out of the Hall

it's the grumpy old men of the BBWAA they own selves

Rice would try to pull the pitch down and away with a runner on first and less than 2 outs and less than 2 strikes more than most good hitters would.

I think that damn low-and-away pitch is the single biggest thing between Jim Rice and a deserved place in the HOF. If he had ever learned to consistently lay off that thing, he'd have gone in a long time ago.

in this THT article (which, I trust, will be posted soon)

I told you it would be posted soon

Crispix is right. This is Jim Rice Think Factory. And he should know. He's crispy rice on one side, crunchy corn on the other.

that damn low-and-away pitch is the single biggest thing between Jim Rice and a deserved place in the HOF. If he had ever learned to consistently lay off that thing, he'd have gone in a long time ago

As with so many things, what applies to Jim Rice applies to Juan Gonzalez. Well, aside from "being able to stand upright in the batter's box without pulling a hamstring."

The thing is, the OBP issue isn't really the main argument against Rice. It's the main argument against Andre Dawson. Jim Rice's career .352 OBP, while not great, isn't embarrassing either. Jim Rice's OBP isn't the reason to keep him out of the Hall of Fame.

The arguments against Rice are more about his short peak, his very ordinary second act (give or take 1986), and his relative lack of defensive value.

I've read a bunch of news stories about Rice recently (paperofrecord is free, folks, but I only see a couple of you referencing it.) and he did read Ted William's The Science of Hitting. So he was aware of his approach. But he was afraid of falling behind in the count. FWIW, I think that his minor league batting instructor was Sam Mele.

Rice called him out in the clubhouse, in front of his team-mates, and ridiculed him for having a batting average in the .270s when he hit .500 when he swung at the first pitch. "Jim Rice hit like a genetic freak and he wanted everyone else to hit the way he did," Hatteberg said. "He didn't understand the reason I hit .500 when I swung at the first pitch was that I only swung at first pitches that were too good not to swing at."

As with so many things, what applies to Jim Rice applies to Juan Gonzalez.

Jim Rice just signed a 2 year, 2 million dollar contract with the Yankees. He hopes that by the end of the contract he can collect his 400th homerun and improve his chances at making the HOF.

#22, totally agree. But I'm not intending to comment on J-- R---. I've done that plenty elsewhere. I'm merely commenting on the "walks are so valuable" attitude one hears so often around here. I strongly believe that's neither the correct way to think about on-base average nor the correct way to communicate the concept of on-base average to the uninitiated. It works as a shorthand, but only among cognoscenti.

#31. Agree. I'm pretty sure that Williams had a ton of short term success working with other hitters is that he never talked about working a walk. Everything was about only swinging at pitches you could drive.

I'm pretty sure he said something close to, "be willing to walk rather than do the pitcher a favor" (sprinkle to taste with profanity)

The thing is, the OBP issue isn't really the main argument against Rice. It's the main argument against Andre Dawson. Jim Rice's career .352 OBP, while not great, isn't embarrassing either. Jim Rice's OBP isn't the reason to keep him out of the Hall of Fame.

Well, the OBP isn't really an argument against him, but it's responsible for a lot of the disconnect in how he's viewed by sabermetric types vs. mainstream voters, as his good-but-not-great OBP is a lot less impressive than his .298 BA. He finished in the league's top ten in batting average six times, and in the top five four times, but only twice in the top ten in OBP, never higher than ninth. If you discount OBP and care a lot about batting average, then Rice looks like a much stronger candidate than he is.

Jim Rice just signed a 2 year, 2 million dollar contract with the Yankees. He hopes that by the end of the contract he can collect his 400th homerun and improve his chances at making the HOF

Another item for Szym's list of better ideas than signing Juan Gonzalez.

I’m sorry, but I guess I’ll never be such a serious fan or student of the game that I would discount the information generated in hundreds of MVP votes cast in 14 AL cities during Rice’s time as a player.

I'm sorry, but I guess I'll never be such a serious fan or student of German history that I would discount the votes of millions of German citizens cast in 1933 which helped elect the Nazis.

I'm sorry, but I guess I'll never be such a serious fan or student of German history that I would discount the votes of millions of German citizens cast in 1933 which helped elect the Nazis.

Sorry John, but I think that's uncalled for. Paying attention to the perceptions of observers when a player was active in evaluating that player should not be compared to people voting for the Nazis.

People will trash me for this, because they trash anyone who says anything remotely positive about Rice around here, deserved or not, but some of Lederer's arguments are just awful.

Among other things, he argues that:

a) Rice had a low on base percentage
b) Rice, even at his best, did not create many runs for his team
c) Rice, even at his best, was a worse hitter than Dave Parker.
d) and therefore, Rice had little value even at this peak (which is why he didn't acquire him for his APBA team).

These are really, really easy to prove false - so much so that I question Lederer's intentions in writing them. Either he knew his many of his own arguments were false, in which case it was extremely irresponsible (and telling) for him to make them, or he doesn't know they were false, in which case he really shouldn't be writing about Jim Rice.

The thing is, the OBP issue isn't really the main argument against Rice. It's the main argument against Andre Dawson. Jim Rice's career .352 OBP, while not great, isn't embarrassing either. Jim Rice's OBP isn't the reason to keep him out of the Hall of Fame.

The arguments against Rice are more about his short peak, his very ordinary second act (give or take 1986), and his relative lack of defensive value.

This statement I agree with, and is rational and intelligent, far more than the arguments made by Rich Lederer.

Fire away.

Among other things, he argues that:

a) Rice had a low on base percentage
b) Rice, even at his best, did not create many runs for his team
c) Rice, even at his best, was a worse hitter than Dave Parker.
d) and therefore, Rice had little value even at this peak (which is why he didn't acquire him for his APBA team).

A) His OBP is rather low for a HOFer, just 15 points above league during his career. The average OBP for HOF outfielder (post 1900) is .384
The lowest:
Lou Brock .343 (13 above league)
Little Poison .353 (7 above league- Lloyd was a TERRIBLE mistake)
Winfield .353 (27 above league- worse home parks than Rice)
Reggie J. .356 (34 above league- his raw stats were just murdered by his era and his home parks
Clemente .359 (32 above league)

B) Rice at his best created a lot of runs

C) Rice top 5 by OPS+: 157, 154, 147, 141, 136
Parker: 166, 149, 149, 145, 141
EQA shows pretty much the same thing, I think at his best Parker was a marginally better hitter than Rice at his best. I wouldn't argue strenuously one way or the other, but saying that Parker was better is not "really, really easy to prove false".

D) Rice had a lot of value at his peak.

Sorry John, but I think that's uncalled for. Paying attention to the perceptions of observers when a player was active in evaluating that player should not be compared to people voting for the Nazis.

My point is nobody should accept any vote blindly. Olney apparently does, either because he's lazy or he is a Rice supporter and the MVP votes support his cause.

Since Rice's MVP votes were unquestionably (and I mean unquestionably) helped by his park to a degree, then using them to help bolster your argument is wrongheaded.

Should MVP votes be ignored, Diz? Of course not. But I refuse to place blind faith in them, either.

Football has some parallels. Johnny Unitas is regarded, in football history, as one of the greatest quarterbacks in history. And if you look at his completion percentages and quarterback ratings and interception rates, you could, at first glance, ask: What's the big deal? There were four quarterbacks who had higher ratings this year than Unitas did in his best season. His completion percentage would be pedestrian in the modern game, a skill that you might think would translate in a conversation about eras, in the same way that you might think that Rice should've drawn more walks.

But if you talk to anyone affiliated with the NFL in Unitas' era and what they will tell you, without hesitation, is that Unitas was The Man. The game was just different.

Grr. That's a totally false parallel. Because the game was radically different. Much more different than baseball in Rice's day vs. baseball today. The main thing that's different about baseball today, in the context of this discussion, is that observers, including executives, have a different (most of us would say better) understanding of what's important, i.e. getting on base and not making outs. So: OBP is way important.

Comparing the game Unitas played to today's game is analogous to comparing today's baseball to early-20th-century baseball, or maybe even late-19th. Recognizable as the same game, but very, very different.

The killer stat for quarterbacks, the rough equivalent to OBP in this conversation, isn't the useless and convoluted QB rating, or completion percentage. It's yards per attempt. Unitas' completion percentage looks pedestrian compared to today's because he was chucking the ball downfield. The short passing game that rules today's play wasn't in use during most of Unitas' career, and was just being experimented with in the AFL during the rest of it. Compare his completion percentage and his yards per attempt with the twin gold standards of today:

PManning comp pct 64.2
Brady comp. pct. 63.0
Unitas comp. pct. 54.6

Unitas YPA 7.8
PManning YPA 7.7
Brady YPA 7.2

Hell yeah, Unitas was the Man. Or at least a Man. (Bart Starr: 57.4, 7.8)

Hell yeah, Unitas was the Man.

...and nobody wore a crewcut like he did.

Gee, I know rhetoric is running high, but I didn't expect to see a Jim Rice thread Godwined by the 35th post :)

Actually, what Rich Lederer said about Rice and Parker was that Parker was a better hitter, a better fielder and a better baserunner than Rice at their peaks in the late 70s. The first point is arguable, while the second two are clearly true.

Hell yeah, Unitas was the Man. Or at least a Man. (Bart Starr: 57.4, 7.8)

Allen Barra will argue for Starr, but Barra went to 'Bama.

The killer stat for quarterbacks, the rough equivalent to OBP in this conversation, isn't the useless and convoluted QB rating, or completion percentage. It's yards per attempt.

Actually my thinking was that completion % was like OBP and Yards/Att was like slugging %...

The main drawback with the Unitas/Rice comparison is that you have to compare Unitas to his peers- even if you use the current system you have to compare Unitas to his peers, not players today. Unitas led (or would have led if they had invented the QB rating earlier) his leagues 3 times, yd/g four times, yds/att 23 times, TDs 4 times, Completion % once.

QB ratings averaged 60-70 during Unitas' years- Unitas Averaged 78.2
in 2007 the average QB rating was 80.9
Brett Favre's career average is 85.7- league average for his career? somewhere between 75-80.

Unitas cleared his peers like a true HOFer
Rice did not.

I think you might be better arguing that Rice couldn't lay off the pitch low-and-away and that made him easier to pitch to than he should have been. In particular, he let pitchers pitch around him, and force him into bad swings. If he'd laid off those pitches he'd have walked a few times, but he'd also have got better pitches to hit. In fact, not only would his OBP have gone up, so would his SLG - in part for the obvious reason (turn outs into walks and you reduce the denominator on SLG) but also because some of those PAs would have replaced poor contact with good contact. Say we up his OBP by .020, purely by converting outs to walks, and then convert another 1% of PAs from outs to hits (distributed between singles, doubles and HRs on his normal distribution. Those two are probably enough to get him in the Hall of Fame on merit, aren't they?

The arguments against Rice are more about his short peak, his very ordinary second act (give or take 1986), and his relative lack of defensive value.

AND the extent to which his stats got a big boost from having Fenway as his home park,

AND the rather early end to his productive playing days (and not just his peak), such that he was done as a good or productive player after his age 33 season.

I'm sorry, but I guess I'll never be such a serious fan or student of German history that I would discount the votes of millions of German citizens cast in 1933 which helped elect the Nazis.

The Nazis were never elected; they never achieved a majority, and in fact were losing deputies, not gaining them, in the last free Reichstag election. Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933 in large part because the moneymen in Germany thought it would be better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.

On the Rice topic: #28 is exactly correct, IMO. Rice had six top-five MVP finishes (that's the main argument of his supporters), but five of those six seasons (excepting 1975) were his only great seasons (with 1986 borderline), and his career was relatively short (14 full seasons). His peak is too short for a peak candidate, and his career isn't long enough for a career candidate. He had only four seasons with a SLG significantly better than .500 (plus one of .504); for a guy perceived as a slugger, that's not a lot of slugging. I suspect he's going to get in, and he wouldn't be the worst player there, but he'd be among the worst elected by the BBWAA.

In terms of career shape, Rice's career is not unlike Greg Luzinski's. Like Rice, the Bull had a short peak (in his case, four straight years of top-10 MVP finishes, only three of which were deserved), little outside of it, and a relatively short career. No one's trumpeting Luzinski for the Hall, last I looked.

-- MWE

The Nazis were never elected; they never achieved a majority, and in fact were losing deputies, not gaining them, in the last free Reichstag election. Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933 in large part because the moneymen in Germany thought it would be better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.

But the Nazi Party did have a plurality of votes, so they did have more people supporting them than the other parties, IIRC.

Reminds me that I need to reread The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

I suspect he's going to get in, and he wouldn't be the worst player there, but he'd be among the worst elected by the BBWAA.

Worst position player to be elected by the BBWA since ....? Not that is is a valid argument against him, someone has to be the worst - but I really don't know the answer.

Say we up his OBP by .020, purely by converting outs to walks, and then convert another 1% of PAs from outs to hits (distributed between singles, doubles and HRs on his normal distribution. Those two are probably enough to get him in the Hall of Fame on merit, aren't they?

Very rapid back of the envelope calculations have this as being worth ~200 runs (DISCLAIMER- may be completely wrong). That makes him fairly borderline on overall career value - given that its packed into a short career and accordingly the large peak/prime that would have resulted and I think the hypothetical Rice would be comfortably over the line.

N.B. 200 runs is substantially more than the difference between the real Rice and an average left fielder

I will add my other two objections to Rice as HOF:

1. He was not sufficiently superior -- if superior at all -- to a large number of contemporaries and near contemporaries, who will not sniff the hall, including his outfield mates, or Murph and Parker, so as to be able to say that THIS GUY was the HOF-er of the bunch.

2. His peak was not of such historical greatness as to be impressive on a hall of fame scale. His three year peak for OPS+ was the following (with rank):

1977-147-6
1978-157-1
1979-154-4
1983-141-6
1986-136-6

For a left-fielder/dh with little speed on the base-paths, that is not very impressive. The guys who beat him out in 77 and 79:

77
Rod Carew
Ken Singleton
Mitchell Page
Reggie Jackson
Andre Thornton

79
Fred Lynn
Sixto Lezcano
Ken Singleton


I was in Boston from 73-77. I very much appreciated Rice at the time. He was one of the top players in the league, no doubt. A "name". But as good as he was, I don't remember anyone suggesting that we were witnessing a player of historic dimension.

Err, OBP would be completion percentage, SLG would be yards per *completion*. and of course, yards per attempt - turnovers would be the key ratio. i wonder how to rate the turnovers though in that system...

Allen Barra and George Ignatin published a Baseball Abstractesque book on football during the 80s and they counted an interception as -50 yards. I forget what Football Outsiders (a cross between here and BPro for football) accounts for interceptions.

EQA shows pretty much the same thing, I think at his best Parker was a marginally better hitter than Rice at his best.

I don't see much difference between Parker and Rice. I'll give Parker a slight edge, by an arm, and I think my favorite player Brian Downing would agree with me.

Henry Aaron himself was quoted as saying he thought, if there was a guy playing who might challenge his record, he picked Rice to be the guy.

If Rice maintained his 77-79 peak from 1980 to 1994, he would be Henry Aaron (with less speed and defense though) and we wouldn't be having this discussion. And if my aunt had balls....