November 23, 2009
Order Now The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 is now in development and will ship in mid November! This year's book will feature articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright. If you use this link to purchase the Annual, you will be in the first group to receive it and you'll be supporting THT. 
Rich Barbieri
John Barten Brian Borawski Craig Brown Evan Brunell David Gassko Jonathan Hale Brandon Isleib Chris Jaffe Max Marchi Bruce Markusen Harry Pavlidis Jeff Sackmann Dave Studeman Steve Treder Bryan Tsao Tuck! Dan Turkenkopf Colin Wyers Geoff Young John Brattain And here's the full roster.
Or you can search by:
Gear up for baseball season with Chicago White Sox tickets and New York Yankees tickets. LA Angels tickets, Houston Astros tickets, and Atlanta Braves tickets are hot sellers! You can get Boston Red Sox tickets, San Diego Padres tickets or Chicago Cubs tickets for your favorite baseball fan. Coast to Coast Tickets has the best MLB tickets like Minnesota Twins tickets, LA Dodgers tickets, Milwaukee Brewers tickets, New York Met tickets and St. Louis Cardinals tickets. Find premium Chicago Cubs tickets and other Chicago tickets at JustGreatTickets.com. Chicago Cubs Tickets Chicago Tickets  All content on this site (including text, graphs, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
Grumpy Old Men revisitedby John BrattainFebruary 01, 2008 During my various tirades since the Hall of Fame vote (tirades … moi?) a number of folks took issue with my Albert Belle/Jim Rice comparison. The No. 1 complaint was that their respective eras were so different that I was short-changing Rice. OPS+ tells us how far above his peer group a given player is, but it does have some shortfalls. The biggest among them is that the "peer group" differs from era to era. Put another way, an OPS+ of 150 is more impressive than an OPS+ of 170 if the man at 150 led the league while the hitter at 170 finished fourth in his circuit. We’ll do this with a few measures to see if Rice was more impressive than Belle. We’ll use their 10 best seasons for the comparison because, first, a 10-year career is the minimum to be on the Hall of Fame ballot (yes, there have been exceptions), and second, these are the seasons that make or break a potential Hall of Famer. We’ll use Rice’s career from 1977-86 and Belle’s 1991-2000 seasons. Albert Belle Finished in the top 10 Year BA OBP SLG OPS+ Runs HR RBI BR RCAA BA OBP SLG OPS+ Runs HR RBI BR RCAA 1991 .282 .323 .540 134 60 28 95 18.9 13 5 9 1992 .260 .320 .477 122 81 34 112 15.1 6 4 4 1993 .290 .370 .552 145 93 38 129 39 42 7 8 4 1 9 T10 1994 .357 .438 .714 193 90 36 101 58.5 73 2 3 2 2 5 3 3 2 2 1995 .317 .401 .690 177 121 50 126 62.1 71 8 1 3 1 1 1 3 3 1996 .311 .410 .623 158 124 48 148 55.8 61 7 6 6 4 1 6 7 1997 .274 .332 .491 116 90 30 116 14.3 4 8 1998 .328 .399 .655 171 113 49 152 66.1 72 3 7 1 1 7 2 2 1 1 1999 .297 .400 .541 142 108 37 117 42.1 45 10 10 10 10 2000 .281 .342 .474 109 71 23 103 18.4 1 Jim Rice Finished in the top 10 Year BA OBP SLG OPS+ Runs HR RBI BR RCAA BA OBP SLG OPS+ Runs HR RBI BR RCAA 1977 .320 .376 .593 147 104 39 114 40.8 41 6 9 1 6 4 4 3 3 6 1978 .315 .370 .600 157 121 46 139 48.4 62 3 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1979 .325 .381 .596 154 117 39 130 46.1 54 4 2 4 3 1 2 3 3 1980 .294 .336 .504 122 81 24 86 12.8 15 7 2 1981 .284 .333 .441 116 51 17 62 8.7 7 9 10 1982 .309 .375 .494 130 86 24 97 23.9 17 7 7 1983 .305 .361 .550 141 90 39 126 33.9 30 2 6 1 1 6 1984 .280 .323 .467 112 98 28 122 8.0 -11 2 1985 .291 .349 .487 123 85 27 103 16.9 7 9 9 1986 .324 .384 .490 136 98 20 110 32.9 39 5 10 10 6 10 4 5 4 Now let’s see how many times they were among the top 10, five and three and led the league: Top 10 5 3 1 Rice 47 30 21 10 Belle 41 29 24 10 I have to admit, they’re a lot closer than I thought. Belle enjoys a clear edge in career batting runs (372.5 to 294.7) and RCAA (379 to 270). But I can’t get past the fact that Rice has more black ink over the course of his career and the same in our 10-year sample. In addition, Belle’s having never gone through a decline phase means that his batting runs and RCAA never were subject to erosion. Had Belle been healthy, perhaps his decline phase would have comparatively brief (a la Edgar Martinez) but there’s no way to know that. All we have is what we have (no, I haven’t turned into Yogi Berra). The only edge Belle really has is in his top three finishes (over our 10-year space). Numbers like batting runs, OPS+ and RCAA don’t account for the quality of the league in a given year. This is where black ink comes in handy. If you lead the league, then you’re the best in the league. Belle has the more impressive numbers, but Rice’s numbers were among the top 10 more often. The problem with black ink however is that Rice’s home park helped him more than Belle’s park did. What are we left with? Belle created more runs above average than Rice. His adjusted numbers are superior, too. However, a lot of that can be explained by the fact that Belle’s era was far more conducive to offense and his lack of a decline phase. Yes, Rice had the better hitting environment at home, but Belle enjoyed a pretty good hitting environment across the entire league(s). When I wrote the initial article, I felt that Belle had the better career. I based that not just on the numbers, but also from witnessing the entire careers of both men. After going over the numbers with a fine-tooth comb, I’m having a hard time justifying my earlier point of view. Both were major Jay-killers (Belle .309/.381/.593; 29 HR over 460 AB, Rice .292/.346/.533; 34 HR over 561 AB) so it can’t be the result of one of them pummeling the Blue Jays. You tend to remember the players of your younger years as better than what we watch today. However, I felt certain that I was watching a much better hitter than Rice. My only guess is that, due to how the game was covered in the 1970s/80s as opposed to the 1990s and 2000s, I saw more of Belle. I saw Rice only when he was playing Toronto; with cable and satellite, I could watch Belle even when he wasn’t playing the Jays. I saw Rice’s ugly decline phase. Belle really didn’t have a chance to experience one. My most recent memories of Rice were of the death throes of his career, whereas Belle hit 20+ HR with 100 RBI (the numbers flashed most often on the TV) in his final year. All things considered, I’m going to recant on the "Belle better than Rice" article of Jan. 18 and bow to the readers who caused me to take a much closer look at the issue. I’m not going to say that Rice was obviously superior, but I will concede that he was somewhat better. Our good friend, and THT stalwart, John Brattain passed away on March 24, 2009. John was a prolific writer, whose work can also be read at Sympatico/MSN Sports and Baseball Digest Daily. John's work was also featured at USA Today, MLBtalk, ESPN Insider, Baseball Prospectus, The Baseball Analysts and The Baseball Journals. Never afraid to express himself in any medium, he was also a frequent radio speaker. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. Do you have a general question or comment for one of THT's writers? Send it in to our weekly mailbag We also welcome unsolicited op-ed pieces of approximately 500 words for consideration. We reserve the right to edit for length, clarity and consistency of style. Please include your whole name and location to be considered. If you have a comment about this specific article, please email the writer. Next Article: The quest for respectability>> <<Previous Article: Does changing players change a team? |
