Monday, December 24, 2012

Good Idea/Bad Idea:It Was a Big Rock

Welcome to a Christmas Edition of my Hall of Fame Good Idea/Bad Idea series.  The player I want to look at today is none other than a man named for a certain type of white powder.  No, his nickname wasn't snow, it was Rock.  That's right, we're looking at Rock Raines.

Before we get started, let me say that Raines was probably undervalued during his time because he wasn't very flashy.  I have a feeling like if he played today he would be looked at differently.  And I'm not just talking about the cocaine thing.

Good Idea: Rock stole a lot of bases, but did so at an extremely high rate.  He stole over 800 bases at an almost 85% rate, which is nearly unheard of.  He also got on base at a 385 clip and has the best rate for any player that has more than 15 years in the bigs.  He had a 126 wRC+ and a 361 wOBA, which are pretty good numbers, especially for a guy that didn't hit for a ton of power.  Certainly a better choice than Andre Dawson IMO.  His biggest comp, obviously, is going to be to Rickey Henderson.  Lets look at them really quick:

Raines- 85% success rate at steals, 126 wRC+, 361 wOBA, 385 OBP
Rickey- 81% success rate at steals, 132 wRC+, 372 wOBA, 401 OBP

Rickey had a little higher in most stats, but it was pretty close.  Rickey was more powerful, no doubt, but otherwise were fairly equal hitters.  If Rickey's in, Rock should be in.

Bad Idea: All of Rock Raines' stats seem to be...ok.  If he were to be elected, he would be in a class with left fielders.  He would be included in a class with Ted Williams, Ralph Kiner and Carl Yastrzemski.  He doesn't quite belong with those guys.  He might be better than Brock and a couple of others, but that doesn't mean he belongs.  He had a lot of PA, but still didn't get 3000 hits, or 1000 RBI.  I know he was a leadoff hitter, but you'd think he'd have more RBI just due to the fact he played over 20 years.  Want a better stat?  Fine.  After 20+ years, he was only worth about 70 WAR.  Which is around 3.5 a year.  It's good, but not that great.  Sorry, no dice.

Verdict: No.  He gets a -39 on my scale, absolutely the lowest for a LF.  Sorry Rock, you were an exciting player, but not an all time great.

No comments:

Post a Comment