THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

the difference between tim rains and tony gwynn? are you serious..well off the top of my head about a 40 point difference in career batting average. 540 some odd hits.7 silver slugger awards for gwynn ,and one for rains.only thing tim did better was stael bases.808 of em,gwynn 319.that being said..i think rains could be in the hall of fam,but dont compare him to gwyn because its not even fair

adrian, please tell me you are new to this blog.

Tim Raines: 137 wRC+
Tony Gwynn: 134 wRC+

I’d say they’re sorta close.

Raines scored about 200 more runs and drove in about 200 fewer runners.  The difference is basically geography.

Per 700 PA, this is how many runs Raines scored in each of three batting slots:
109
111
106

And this is Gwynn:
77
98
96

Not much of a contest, is it?

Per 700 PA, this is the RBIs, for Raines:
56
91
81

And for Gwynn:
42
62
92

So, the ONLY advantage for Gwynn is that he was more of an RBI machine when he was a #3 hitter than when Raines was a #3 hitter.  Raines demolishes him in all other cases.

Along the lines of Tango’s post, but without the splits, Raines scored 42% more runs per (AB-H) than league average; Gwynn scored 32% more.  Raines drove in 4% less than league average; Gwynn 16% more. 

If one is skeptical that the lineup effect is the major cause of the RBI gap, look at Rickey: +58% runs scored, -19% RBI.

the REAL difference is in Gwynn’s silky smooth broadcasting baritone that has won him so many accolades in the radio industry.  raines cannot hold a candle to gwynn’s velety dulcet tones.

rWAR has them pretty close, for anybody interested:

Gwynn: 68.5
Raines: 64.9

Of course Henderson: 113.1

raines not being in is crazy

I think this is very fairly put. Whatever standards you use to evaluate players, you should use them consistently, rather than modifying them to favor one player or another.

There IS a case that can be made for Morris in, Blyleven out. Jon Heyman’s explanation of his decision for leaving Blyleven out is that Blyleven never led the league in a positive pitching category, while Morris did lead the league in wins twice. Actually, the basic argument isn’t true - Blyleven led the league in Ks, CG, and IP in 1985 and in shutouts on three occasions - but Morris leads in Black Ink 20-16. It’s a pretty weak case, to be sure - Blyleven’s failure to lead the league more often was due more to his competition (Ryan in Ks, for example) than his own shortcomings - but it’s not a totally baseless approach if you consider the nuances. (Blyleven’s Grey Ink total, OTOH, is higher by quite a bit, 240-193.)

The first poster just said they weren’t very similar hitters not that their values weren’t equal.  In their defense, the way you phrased it in the article, you seem to say they were virtually the same player, but they got their value in different ways.  I think that is what Adrian was saying. 

Feel free to angrily bash me.

"you seem to say they were virtually the same player, but they got their value in different ways”

It is self-evident they got their value in different ways.  Isn’t it obvious to someone who follows baseball what I could possibly mean if someone is a career .330 hitter and another is a career .294 hitter, that one is a leadoff hitter and the other is a #3 hitter, that one has 800 steals at an 85% clip while the other one does not, but that there is no difference between them when it comes to evaluating them in a yes/no position for the HOF?

If I said everything I just said, aren’t I stating the pure obvious?  Is it necessary I do that if I want to spend ten words to make a throwaway point?

I absolutely LOVE wOBA as short-hand but it is short-hand. Just like GPA in school, 2 A+, 2 B, and 2 F gives the same GPA as 6 B. What you’ve averaged out is the greatness. Gwynn was truly great at getting hits - one of the very best ever. Raines was pretty good at a lot of stuff - he got straight B’s. Some people like the jack-of-all-trades and others prefer greatness in a couple things.

This is the entire essence of the HOF debate. What, exactly, constitutes greatness. Estimated runs created? Or what you get from watching the games and seeing hits vs seeing walks. Do you want a Hall of Fame or a Hall of Production or some combination of both. Could, for instance, Blyleven have dominated a Game 7? Maybe. But we actually saw Jack Morris do it. Some luck/randomness may be involved but that’s life.

Again, it goes back to your assumptions. If your assumption is that a hit usually produces .75 runs and a walk .66, then you believe in cumulative statements, like GPA. Every dollar on the bottom line is equivalent. Others want to see great feats on the field of play, to be entertained. For them, an A+ here is worth enough for me to ignore a C there.

Raines is only a clear HOFer to those of assumption 1.
Gwynn, generally, a clear HOFer to those of both assumptions.

Which assumption is better? That’s debatable.

"others want to see great feats on the field of play, to be entertained.”

Which is funny, because I doubt the majority of HOF voters actually saw Raines for more than 20 games a season in Montreal.

@Zach

Yup, we all have to admit that HOF voting has some bias toward more visible players. The corollary might be, however, that less visible players failed to be sufficiently “great” to attract visibility. This, too, is part of the debate.

Is that on the player or the lack of understanding of the voters?  To me, that isn’t all that debatable…

@Wrencis

I suspect that Raines was every bit as exciting to watch as Gwynn was. What made Gwynn noticed was appearing at or near the top of the batting average lists in the paper every day.

@Tangotiger

“Isn’t it obvious to someone who follows baseball what I could possibly mean if someone is a career .330 hitter and another is a career .294 hitter, that one is a leadoff hitter and the other is a #3 hitter, that one has 800 steals at an 85% clip while the other one does not, but that there is no difference between them when it comes to evaluating them in a yes/no position for the HOF?”

In addition to the point made above about Gwynn being better w/ men on, Gwynn reached base roughly the same number of time even though he played 3 fewer seasons. The value of steals relative to wins? Lot’s of debate about that but Gwynn wasn’t a stiff w/ over 300 steals, too (to be fair, he only succeeded 72%, vs 85% or so for Raines).

@pacbellpilgrim

I caught a little of them when they were both in their primes in the 80’s. Gwynn *felt* like more of a star. It just seemed like you couldn’t get him out. Raines looked like the proverbial “good-not-great” player. Brett Butler and Vince Coleman seemed as good or better and, of course, Rickey was King of the leadoff guys.

All of this was, to be fair, through the eyes of an 8/9 year old. In retrospect, I respect what Raines accomplished but I don’t value walks as
highly as many other stat geeks do.

Mean values used in the linear weighting averages out the quality of lineups. Players we are considering for HOF, almost by definition, are better than the batter behind them. How do you neutralize a good hitter? Walk him. Remember, “leadoff” guys usually only actually leadoff one, maybe two innings a game.

With men on, I’d prefer Gwynn over Raines by a wide margin (K% 4.7/10.9, BABIP .345/.315). Both guys had over 5000 PA’s w/ men on base. Gwynn was the best in the game over the last 60 years (with Pujols). Raines wasn’t close.

Understand that the just under 1600 wRC and just under 400 wRAA vs. Raines’ just over 1600 and just over 400 are approximated, not real ‘in-game’ runs/wins. Also, remember that when those two guys played they didn’t know that a .371 wOBA would be less valuable than a .374 wOBA. It’s hard to hold a player to (or reward a player for) a standard that didn’t exist at the time they played. I’m speculating here but, I suspect that if wOBA was the accepted standard in 1980, Gwynn would have adjusted his game to that style and been the superior player. Total speculation.

All that said, if Raines gets in, I’d be ok with it because he’d be better than a number of players already there. I would not vote for him if I had a ballot, though.

@ wrencis - I have to disagree with your speculation that Gwynn would have adjusted his style to wOBA.  For one thing, wOBA accounts for walks, hits, and everything else one can do offensively… basically, simply doing whatever one already does best IS the way to maximize one’s wOBA.  Being a base-hit machine was Gwynn’s way to be great; Raines’ way was to use his superior batting eye and then pilfer second.  wOBA is a useful way to compare people of two different styles, but it isn’t the only way.

For another, someone who draws a lot of walks may not drive in the run himself the way a guy like Gwynn might… but he is guaranteed, when he walks, not to spend outs.  He often forces runners to advance and makes them easier to drive in for others.  If I have a guy on first who moves to second when Raines walks, and then scores on a single, then Raines helped that runner score when he may not have otherwise. 

Third, leadoff guys may only lead off once or twice a game - but they’re the only guys GUARANTEED to lead off at least once.  Having a guy with a great OBP there is always a good idea.  He’ll lead off the game by getting on about 40 or more percent of the time, with good hitters following him; all the better if he can safely move himself into scoring position without spending an out.

I find one part of this discussion fairly fun: a guy like Raines followed immediately by a guy like Gwynn is far from the worst way to run a team.  We’re debating their relative merits but they are very complementary players to my eye.

Raines almost signed with the Padres in the 1987 pre-season, for something like 1.2 MM$ (Expos offered 4.8/3 at the time).  Collusion killed that deal, along with a deal I think to the Mariners or Astros (can’t remember which) for close to that.

Raines had to sit out April and resign with the Expos.

@nightfly and @tangotiger (one and the same? lol)

Can’t agree more. They would have been lethal together. In that vein, what about Ichiro/Figgins or Figgins/Ichiro (which ever way it works out)?

Is that now the best 1-2 in baseball?