THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

The early return is for Raines to get around 50-55% of the ballots:
http://www.meadowparty.com/blog/?p=113

It’s a great starting point for a first year.  I’ll report back on the last time someone got 50% in his first year and was not eventually enshrined.

That said, it shows that there’s a good 25-35% of voters that require “round numbers”, instead of solid analysis (that is, the gap between Molitor/Gwynn and Raines).

Tim Raines not only saw our site, but also granted an interview to one of our guys.  We submitted a whole bunch of questions, and all were asked and answered.  Look for it in a couple of days.

That is wonderful.  I was always such a fan of Tim Raines.  Growing up, we got Mariner, Blue Jay, and Expo games.  I always looked forward to Wednesdays as that is when they showed the Expos (I have always been more of a National League fan).

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2007/12/qa_tracy_ringol.php

Tracy Ringolsby:

The biggest debates for me were Tim Raines, who obviously was overshadowed by Rickey Henderson, but also if you take Vince Coleman’s five top years, I would say he outperformed Raines, too, and I don’t see Coleman as a Hall of Famer.

I responded:

I’m in disbelief that Coleman’s top 5 years are somehow being compared to Raines.  Maybe Coleman’s top 5 are comparable to Raines worst 5.  Even then, I’d bet that if you take Raines’ worst 5, he’d still be better than Coleman’s best 5.

Only 4 of Coleman’s seasons had an OBP higher than the league average.  So, his 5th best OBP season was below league average.  Only once did his SLG exceed league average.

Coleman’s SB/CS was 752/177.  Raines had 56 more SB and 31 FEWER CS.

Tom

Just for fun, I took Coleman’s 5 best years.  They were hard to find, but I settled on this: 85, 87, 89, 90, 92.  That totaled 2818 PA.  (If you prefer different seasons, let me know. )

I looked for Raines worst years (which includes alot of abbreviated seasons) to match that total.  I came up with these years: 79, 80, 82, 91, 94, 96, 98, 99, 02.  The total of Raines’ worst years was 2820 PA.

Ok, so we have two partial careers of exactly the same length (in plate appearances), one for the guy at his best, and the other for the guy at his worst.

Coleman outscored Raines, by 25 runs.  Raines outRBIed Coleman by 78.  Raines also did that while using up 99 less outs.

The batting line: 
0.275 0.337 0.355 Coleman
0.266 0.363 0.371 Raines

Raines, at his very worst, is better than Coleman at his very best.

Dan McLaughlin has a piece on Raines at THT:  http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-path-to-cooperstown-tim-raines-and-the-tablesetters/

Thanks Guy.  That article, as well as one from Rich Lederer has been linked to in the Raines site.

Given the recent release of the Mitchell Report, I wonder if Raines admitted cocaine usage before, during, and after games will hurt him, at least on the first ballot.  Depending on the mindset of the voters, being a black cocaine-using Expo could hurt.

I don’t think voters will equate steroids and cocaine in any way.

However, I think there’s no doubt that there is a racial bias regarding drug abuse, considering how similar Molitor and Raines are.  I discussed this in the comments here:

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/more_tim_raines/

***

Keith Law’s blog has a running total of 58 HOF voters.  Here’s the count:
TOTAL 58 Pct
Gossage 52 90%

Blyleven 40 69%
Dawson 39 67%
Rice 38 66%

Morris 27 47%
Raines 26 45%

McGwire 18 31%
Smith 14 24%
John 12 21%
Trammell 12 21%
Concepcion 9 16%
Murphy 9 16%
Parker 6 10%

Mattingly 2 3%
Rose (write-in) 2 3%
Baines 1 2%

I’ve applied the wins over replacement system we’ve used for the contracts to player career totals for recent HOF players and this year’s candidates.

Raines is the top eligible player, and Dawson has a strong case as well:

http://lanaheimangelfan.blogspot.com/2007/12/alltime-outfielder-wins.html#links

Rally, fantastic stuff!

In my fielding system (WOWY), Dawson is a monster as a CF, and Murphy sucks almost as bad as Dawson is good.  Hard to believe he could win gold gloves.

Dawson’s CF playing time is really not being appreciated enough, that’s for sure.  That he spent so much of his time at RF is killing him.  Kirby only had some 2.2 more full seasons in CF than Dawson.

I’ve got Kirby as an absolutely incredible CF for his rookie year, pretty good his second, and downhill after that.  Pretty much an inverse relationship to his homerun total.

I’ve been reading all the WOWY stuff in THT and here, and it inspired the new method I’m using here, as well as a good sanity check for my results.

Instead of trying to explain it here, I’m planning on writing the whole method up and submitting to THT.

Bill James on Tim Raines:
http://raines30.com/c80.shtml

***

I said at some point that I couldn’t apply my WOWY method on an annual basis.  But, that was silly of me to say.  Once the context has been identified (park, pitchers, batters, runners), then I can apply their career averages on that fielder’s context.  Not sure what I was thinking.

It would of course be preferred if I can:
- include aging
- combine the parameters

I’m not sure if it’s really worth it.  Keeping things separate at least gives the appearances of uncertainty.  (Is Ozzie Smith +28 plays or +19 plays or +37 plays? etc, etc).

And aging, while preferred, probably won’t matter much.

Why 300 SB attempts?  When you hear of Raines’ historic high SB%, it’s always with the qualifier “and at least 300 SB attempts”.

But, why 300?  In order to topple Raines’ mark, one needs to steal 255 bases and get caught 45 times.  Is there anyone close to that?  Carlos Beltran is at 250/34.  So, if Beltran can steal at least 5 bases while getting caught at most 11 times, he will hold the mark (at least for a while anyway).  That is, Carlos Beltran *will* hold the SB% record.  As far as I’m concerned, and this is speaking as as big a Tim Raines fan as there is, Carlos Beltran currently is the titleholder.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean anything more than the list says.  It doesn’t mean Beltran was a better basestealer, or smarter, or whatnot.  No, no, and no.  SB minus CS, or SB minus 2*CS, or even SB minus 3*CS would be a better measure of that.

But, I don’t like these artificial opportunities threshhold as if someone had any great insight as to why 300 is any better than 250 (or 261), other than it’s a number that ends with 2 zeroes.  Or that someone came up with 3.1*GP for PA, or 1*GP for innings.

It may give a good separation point, but we should still look to see who it is that we are leaving out.

Sean McAdam:

For a guy who pitched 22 seasons, he received Cy Young votes in four years. Put another way, only once every five years, Blyleven was considered one of his league’s 10 best pitchers. Sorry, but that doesn’t exactly scream “all-time great” to me.

I really, really wish that the experts were more aware of the details than I am.  The Cy Young ballot consists of three names, not 10.  (The MVP is 10.) That makes an enormous difference.

Now, you could interpret that to mean that of all the ballots submitted with 3 names, you end up with 10 unique names in all, on average every year (which I doubt that’s the case, anyway).  But, I don’t think that’s what he meant.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/jon_heyman/12/28/daily.scoop/

Enshrinement in Cooperstown shouldn’t be about numbers. If anyone thinks so, let’s trash tradition and have a computer select the honorees.

The Hall of Fame should be about who starred and who dominated. And about who made an impact.

It should be about greatness.

Ahhh, the ole “Humans are better than computers” line.  Didn’t that die out already?  Did Heyman write this with a chisel and stone, and send it by horse to his editor?  Or did he use a keyboard and computer?  Oh, I see. 

Computers are dumb.  They are only as smart as the engineers who make them, and only as useful as the people who use them.  They are chisels, but with electronics.  So, every single person on that planet agrees that computers are like guns: they are only effective with effective people using them.

Is the problem that some people just don’t know how to use a computer?  I don’t know the first thing about cars, but I’ll tell you what: I prize my mechanic.  Why in the world are some people so afraid of people who know how to use computers?

Well, can’t I, like Heyman, use my electronic chisel to process large amounts of data using my own thoughts and methodology?  Would it make it any better to Heyman if I did this with a chisel instead?

Given the choice between some computer code and guys like Heyman selecting the HOF members, I’ll go with the computer code.  It’s not that I think computers are better than people.  It’s that people who write computer code are better than people like Heyman.

There’s plenty of other people to whom computer code takes a back seat.  Heyman is not one of those people. 

There’s the five or ten people in the world who can capture a player’s entire career without ever uttering a single number, and be representative of that player’s greatness (or lack thereof).  There’s the people who look at the numbers, in the right way (or at least intelligent way), and try to process all that (easier done with a computer).  Then there’s those people who utter crap like “Enshrinement in Cooperstown shouldn’t be about numbers”, and then back up their statements with numbers.

Heyman, for a guy I was so proud of in the past (remember, he pretty much matched my free agent numbers, and also remember that he gave out odds for some event that actually totalled to 100%… one of the very few writers who actually does that… most give you odds that total 130-150%), I can’t believe you said that sh!t.

I’ve got to put you on my “On Notice” list.  You’re right below Tracy Ringolsby.

Someone at BTF just said that Dawson is better characterized as a “RF”, because he spent more time there than at CF.  Of course, Dawson’s HOF merit is based in large part on his CF years, not RF.

But, as Rally pointed out, compare Dawson to Murphy:
Dawson, 9006.2 Innings in CF
Murphy, 9039.2 Inning in CF

I mean, really.  There is 33 innings separating the two.  Four games!  Just because Dawson was a good enough hitter that they could play his closing out years in RF doesn’t mean you get to call him a RF!

The bulk of his Wins Above Replacement (WAR) comes at CF, and that’s what he is.

Instead of trying to explain it here, I’m planning on writing the whole method up and submitting to THT.

Can’t wait, Rally!

Tim Raines interview:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/hof08/news/story?id=3170163

Now Peter Gammons is an intelligent fellow:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/hof08/news/story?id=3169953

Website has been updated with all the latest:

http://www.raines30.com/

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=326562

Raines’ case was hurt by his reluctance to run in all situations, as Rickey Henderson did. Raines seemed at times too concerned about preserving his stolen-base percentage.

!!!

You’re kidding me, right?  He was TOO efficient a base stealer?

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/story/2006/7/29/181346/885

Based on win expectancy, Raines was +15.6 wins, which includes +3.4 clutch wins.  That is, Raines did choose his spots… to help his team win.

Rickey ran for the hell of it.  Raines doesn’t have empty SB like Rickey.  This is a GOOD thing.

What about the more basic point of his SB%.  Even though Raines did steal over 800 bases, should he have stolen even more?

You should basically steal whenever the chances of being successful is over 70%.  So, your SB success rate should be between 70% and 100%.  Raines’ SB success rate was 85%.  But, there must be alot more situations at the 70% level than at the 100% level.  So, one could argue that any SB success rate over 80% really means that the runner was being too picky.

That is, Raines did not steal enough when the chances for success was 70-75%.  That’s possible.

But, seeing how he’s such a smart baserunner, and was picking his spots when his team needed the steals the most, and he did steal over 800 bases (he wasn’t shy!), I think it’s hard to argue that he should have had an extra 300 SB and an extra 100 CS to satisfy the theory that he was too picky a runner.  Even if he did that, his SB% would be 82%.

I prefer his smart basestealing, to some empty basestealing.

Since the BBWAA votes for both MVP and HOF, I thought I’d compare their votes.  Of course, MVP voting is different than HOF voting, but they are both the result of BBWAA voting.  MVP voting should at least give us some idea of how good the writers thought the players were against their peers.  Did it for fun, thought I’d share:

First group is players under consideration (and with the exception of Raines, have been turned down at least once) and second is the most recent elected into the HOF.  MVP is number of MVP awards won, 1-3 is number of times they came in first through third, etc.  Any is number of times they received any votes at all for MVP.

I updated the main page with some unflattering comments of Raines from the mainstream.

It’ll be interesting to see what correlates more to the BBWAA writers that did not divulge their ballots: what Keith Law is posting
http://www.meadowparty.com/blog/?p=118
Or what ESPN readers think:
http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/ballot?event_id=3262&incoming=1

Which players would get your vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame?

75.3% Jim Rice (63.5 percent in 2007)
74.1% Goose Gossage (71.2 percent in 2007)
71.7% Andre Dawson (56.7 percent in 2007)
69.1% Bert Blyleven (47.7 percent in 2007)
65.2% Lee Smith (39.8 percent in 2007)
59.0% Tommy John (22.9 percent in 2007)
43.5% Tim Raines (first year on ballot)
38.9% Jack Morris (37.1 percent in 2007)
32.4% Alan Trammell (13.4 percent in 2007)
30.7% Dave Parker (11.4 percent in 2007)
29.8% Mark McGwire (23.5percent in 2007)
23.8% Dave Concepcion (13.6 percent in 2007)
22.9% Don Mattingly (9.9 percent in 2007)
20.8% Dale Murphy (9.2 percent in 2007)
13.3% Harold Baines (5.3 percent in 2007)
[others chopped]
Total Votes: 267,628

http://danagonistes.blogspot.com/2008/01/will-raines-run-into-hall.html

When you look at these guys in terms of EqBRR per 550 opportunities they stack up this way:

Wilson 8.3
Coleman 6.9
Raines 6.1
Henderson 4.2

More handicapping:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/tomorrows-cooperstown-election-results-today/

Looks like BTF readers are smart people:
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/2008_bbtf_hof_results/

Me:

I know you try to stay away from HOF debates now (perhaps in 12 months you will, after Rice will likely be elected), but are you surprised at the lack of votes Raines received? He compares favorably to Gwynn, Boggs, and Molitor. While those guys have nice rounded numbers and were voted in on the first try, does it make you feel that we haven’t made a dent with the mainstream? Will the obliteration of batting average help the cause of sabermetrics?

Bill James:

1) Rice doesn’t have anything to do with my staying away from Hall of Fame arguments.  I started that years before I started working for the Red Sox.

2) I’m disappointed Raines didn’t do better, not really surprised.  Obliterating batting average wouldn’t help at all. . .Raines, after all, did win a batting title; that’s one of his positives.

3) What did Raines get. . .24%?  There are a hundred people in the Hall of Fame who started out lower than 5%.  MAYBE this means that we’re not getting through--but maybe, without us, he would have started out at 14%.  Who knows?

4) I try to stay out of Hall of Fame debates because I try to worry about what is true, rather than what people THINK is true.  What the writers think, how they think. . ..I don’t know.

The writers who didn’t vote for Raines (partial list):

http://raines30.com/voters.shtml

John McHale (RIP) on Tim Raines:

http://www.canada.com/topics/sports/story.html?id=dedf220c-34ea-4a0a-ab9f-8d36f6522a9c&k=50070&p=2

McHale took an active hand in helping a young Tim Raines shake free of the curse of cocaine. Raines went on to become one of the best leadoff hitters and baserunners in baseball and is now on the Hall of Fame ballot.

“I owe my entire career to John McHale,” Raines said recently. “It’s more than that. Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to keep going. I grew up. I became a man, thanks to him.”

McHale drove Raines to and from his doctor’s appointments and also babysat his son, Tim Jr.

“I was a young kid,” Raines said. “A lot of GMs, you know, could have kicked me to the curb. I might never have had the chance to be in the big leagues again. I think he realized I was kind of lost.”

McHale explained: “I was emotionally involved because you see a young man being destroyed. Fortunately, Tim Raines had the courage to accept the training and rehab and it turned out be a great victory for him.”

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=8bf7d370-7919-4217-b273-2ec8dbaf3b50

Raines, who cleaned up and had a fine long career, later credited McHale’s personal connection with him for pulling him back from the brink.

One day in that period McHale, a devout Catholic and a wise man, mused on the responsibility baseball owes to unsophisticated young men: “We pluck these kids out of the backwoods, and suddenly they’re rich, they’re famous, flying around, and pretty girls are saying ‘Here, Tim, try this.’ No wonder they get in trouble. We have almost a parental responsibility to help these kids.”

I’ve unearthed an SI article from 1984 on Tim Raines:
http://raines30.com/c83.shtml

It really captures his personality at that moment in time.  You can get a great sense as to why Montrealers loved him.

Carlos Beltran in his career has 270 SB and 37 CS.  That’s a 87.9% success rate, and with 300+ opps, enough to give him the lead (so far).  Have the Mets publicized this?

From 1984-1987, Raines is 265 SB 33 CS (5 less SB and 4 less CS).  That’s 88.9%.

On my computer at home, I have baserunner picked off data. I have it broken down by Pickoff CS, Pickoff Error, and Pickoff Not CS. When I get home I’ll take a look at Raines and Beltran’s pickoff data. From 1951 to 2007 here are the leaders in SB% (Minimum 200 SB Attempts)

1. Carlos Beltran, 250 SB 34 CS .880
2. Tim Raines 808 SB 146 CS .847
3. Eric Davis 349 SB 66 CS .841
4. Willie Wilson 668 SB 134 CS .833
5. Barry Larkin 379 SB 77 CS .831
6. Tony Womack 363 SB 74 CS .831
7. Davey Lopes 557 SB 114 CS .830
8. Carl Crawford 277 SB 57 CS .829
9. Stan Javier 246 SB 51 CS .828
10. Doug Glanville 168 SB 36 CS .824

Here is what SB% looks like if you include pickoffs. Here is how I broke down the categories:

SB = SB + Pickoff Error Not CS
CS = CS Not Pickoff + CS Pickoff + Pickoff Not CS

The categories are mutually exclusive:

If you use this definition of SB%, only 11 players with at least 200 career attempts top 80% from 1954 to 2007.

1. Carlos Beltran .852 (253/297)
2. Tim Raines .837 (825/986)
3. Willie Wilson .833 (691/830)
4. Eric Davis .828 (361/436)
5. Stan Javier .827 (253/306)
6. Barry Larkin .822 (398/484)
7. Doug Glanville .812 (173/213)
8. Carl Crawford .808 (287/355)
9. Tony Womack .807 (390/483)
10. Davey Lopes .807 (581/720)
11. Ichiro Suzuki .803 (285/355)

Beltran was picked off 19 times (9 CS). He has 3 Pickoff Errors where he wasn’t CS. Raines was picked off 50 times (35 CS). He has 19 Pickoff Errors where he wasn’t CS.

No other player comes close to matching Rickey Henderson’s 160 career Pickoffs (72 CS). Bert Campaneris is 2nd with 89 Pickoffs (20 CS). Then it’s Vince Coleman 3rd with 70 Pickoffs (20 Cs).

On MLB Network they frequently show a clip of Henderson setting the all-time career steal mark. He says something like “now I am the greatest base stealer of all-time” Is he really the greatest basestealer? I thought I would compare his basestealing runs to Tim Raines, who has 598 fewer bases than Henderson. The categories I included in basestealing runs were SB, CS, Pickoffs, Pickoff Errors, and Balks drawn. I used the linear weight values from my full baseruns equations, so the LW values differ for each year and league.

Despite stealing 600 more bases than Raines, Henderson only has 12 more basestealing runs than Raines. Henderson has 105 SB runs and Raines has 93 SB runs. Here are their career numbers (Henderson listed first and Raines listed 2nd):

SB runs, SB, CS, PKO, PKE, BK, PKO (incl PKCS)

105, 1406, 335, 88, 36, 71, 160
93, 808, 146, 15, 19, 21, 50

Look how few times Raines was picked-off compared to Henderson. Rickey was picked off 3 times more often than Raines was. (The reason I lumped together pickoff CS and a regular CS together is that there run value is approximately the same).