THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Bill’s response was spot-on. We’re talking about 26 voters, and the difference in support in that poll really isn’t much of anything, either.  Rice’s career had ended a bit before Evans’s. I remember something in the Sporting News (I was a subscriber at the time) about the “horrible disgrace” that Rice had to be honored at the same level as Bob Stanley right after the two retired, as for some reason or another the Boston media had soured on Rice.

The voters look at the superficial stats of batting average and home runs, and those favor Rice. Yes, Evans was a better player, without any question, but Rice did more of the things the voters like. Getting the voters to care about walks is still an uphill battle.

It’s more than getting the voters to care about walks.  It’s getting them to perceive correctly players who are good in several aspects of the game instead of guys who really excel in one visible aspect of the game.

My response:

That was a Sporting News poll of each of its team’s correspondant (n=26), which is about 5% of the electorate.

I ran a simulation where we have 500 voters of which 30 give a “yes” to Dewey and 150 gives a “yes” to Rice (the 6% and 30% of your numbers).  And then I randomly select 5% of those voters to see if I could get more votes for Dewey than Rice (i.e., the TSN writers).  It happened twice in 100 tries.

Either (a) the TSN writers are not a representative sample of voters, or (b) time has not been kind to the kind of game Dewey brought, and time is more kind to the flashy numbers of Rice.

You are making way too much of a poll that wasn’t asking the voters if they would vote for the player but rather what their opinion was on the general consensus.  Further, as Wezen-ball puts it, “Jim Rice wasn’t highlighted by the article, so it’s hard to know what the voters in the article were thinking.” Beyond that, Evans was still active and, when polled, was only one season away from a .285 / 20 / 100 season so clearly the writers could have expected some future performance that would have pushed him over 400 HRs and 1500 RBIs, marks he didn’t reach.

@4 Exactly. There is are two questions in play. For the Hall of Fame ballot, it’s, “Do you think this guy should be in the Hall of Fame?” For this poll, it’s “Do you think this guy will go into the Hall of Fame?” They’re not the same question, and won’t produce the same results. And again, Dewey was still active. There’s always that slim chance that he could become an MVP candidate all of the sudden. Rice, not playing, had no chance of that happening.

The poll took place after the 1991 season, which means Evans had his last good season two years earlier, not one.  Plus, he was now with the Orioles playing only 100 games, and would have just had his 40th birthday when the poll was taken.  Talking about Dewey having a “slim” chance at the MVP starting in 1992 is a red herring.  From that standpoint, Willie Bloomquist has a slim chance at the MVP in his career.

A valid point is made that the phrasing of the question is poor enough that the writers are asked of the feelings of other writers, and not of themselves.  That’s the only argument that carries weight.

Jim Rice was not very likable guy among the writers.  Angry man, while the writers liked Dewey.

20 years later, the stats speak for themselves, and personalities mellow.  Rice was a Run Producer, RBI’s change the scoreboard, walks don’t.  Also, during Jim Rice and Ted Williams time, walks were not considered valuable to the fans or owners.  Ted Williams was accused of padding his stats by walking with ROB rather than risk an out driving the runs in.  Ted got booed when he walked (and it was not the pitcher being booed).

Jim Rices performance at the time was measured in terms of HR and RBI, that’s what he got paid for, that’s what he provided.  Nobody got a big contract for OBP in those days.

Evans deserved to be in the HOF as well, he was a great RF’er, but was never considered much of a middle of the order guy in his early years, and it was not until he turned 30 in 1982 that he began to hit HR, kind of like Jose Bautista I guess.  119 OPS+ in his first 10 years in his 20’s, 133 OPS+ in his next 10 years in his 30’s.
He aged better than Rice for some reason.