THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

+Boggs, or no? Maybe I’m missing the purpose of putting those names all together.

HOF-level corner outfielders with speed and a (relative) lack of power of the last 30 years seems to be the common thread to me.

Tom—We are on it and will get published later tonight.

Very cool.  Thanks a bunch guys.

Tom - Just posted it. 

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/7/22/957459/graph-of-the-day-henderson-vs

To add it to this thread so people don’t have to click through:

Good job, thanks.

First we see that Rickey is off on his own world.  So, any comparisons to Rickey need to stop.

Raines was compared to Rickey (favorably) through 1987, but then Rickey continued to add to his legacy, and Raines didn’t as much.

Ichiro and Gwynn are pretty good comps: good fielding OF (Ichiro is better), singles machines, good speed (Ichiro has more), few walks, etc.  Overall, as we can see, Ichiro and Gwynn track each other very strongly.

Raines is right in the middle of Ichiro and Gwynn.

Ichiro, if he has a few 3 WAR seasons, will continue to track Gwynn and Raines.

The difference is that Ichiro has likely other 5 and 6 WAR seasons that don’t show up because he wasn’t putting them up in MLB.  This would put him ahead of Gwynn/Raines (but still below Rickey).

If Ichiro retires after the 2010 season, and making NO allowance for his Japanese time, his 10-yr career will have tracked Raines/Gwynn, making him (and Raines) a viable HOF contender.  Piling up a bunch of 2 WAR seasons (league-average) really does nothing to add to his legacy.

I’d be in favor of simply going on a WAA, and zeroing out the negative seasons.