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**SamtheBravesFan** · 01-21-2013, 05:08 PM

I know it was the dead ball era, but that's an awful lot of "lower" doubles seasons. I know he was very important, but at the moment, I don't see an overwhelming reason to take him over McGriff. So I'm picking Fred.

**chicagowhitesox1173** · 01-21-2013, 05:17 PM

I like Sam Rice and I think he's a bit underrated but Fred McGriff would be a first ballot hofer if not for his era.

**pheasant** · 01-21-2013, 05:28 PM

Fred by a mile.

**SavoyBG** · 01-21-2013, 06:03 PM

Originally posted by chicagowhitesox1173 View Post

I like Sam Rice and I think he's a bit underrated but Fred McGriff would be a first ballot hofer if not for his era.

I think Rice is overrated and should not even be in the HOF. A career OPS+ of 112 for a RFer is not HOF worthy.

**Jackaroo Dave** · 01-21-2013, 06:22 PM

The stats presented in detail are all offensive, i.e. batting stats. Rice is 69 runs above average for baserunning, fielding, and dp. McGriff is 69 runs below average. That's a swing of about 14 WAR that isn't broken down in Cowtipper's data, although it's implied by the nearly identical WAR scores.

No doubt, McGriff was the better hitter. But Rice was an outstanding outfielder, as even his traditional fielding stats show, not to mention his reputation. McGriff, on the other hand, shows up as about 120th in fielding runs above average with -34.

Rice was a good baserunner and hit into few dp's. McGriff was not and hit into plenty.

Now 7 years ago, we would have said, "A good fielding center-right fielder vs an average fielding first baseman. That's not enough to make up a difference of over 20 OPS+ points." (as if we had any idea how much the difference was worth in defensive value or how much an ops+ point is worth in terms of runs or wins).

But we have a lot more data now than then. From what I've seen, there doesn't seem to be a dime's worth of difference between them, matched against their respective contemporaries.

**chicagowhitesox1173** · 01-21-2013, 06:32 PM

Originally posted by SavoyBG View Post

I think Rice is overrated and should not even be in the HOF. A career OPS+ of 112 for a RFer is not HOF worthy.

Yeah he's overrated with the ops but I still have to wonder what kind of career stats he would have ended up with if he started at a normal age. I think he was 28 or 29 when he started playing fulltime. He may have ended up with 3700 career hits if he started at a normal age.

**PVNICK** · 01-22-2013, 04:05 AM

Here's something odd: traditional "runs created" has Rice with 2558 and McGriff 2406. I don't know why my eye was drawn to R/RBI but it was. Rice had only 77 more PA in 56 less games, so that wasn't it. I figured Rice played into the 30s so it is just a more offensive era. But moving down we come to AIR which supposedly measures the offense environment. It was 106-105 in Rice's favor. Is one point enough to explain the difference? What is AIR exactly other than something I have seen for years. Is it ballparks. Well Rice played in Griffith Stadium which by all descriptions that made their way to my eyes and ears was no Baker Bowl. If you went that way then Rice is more productive, runs better and played a more demanding position and by all accounts did it well.

We get to evaluating based on raw numbers irrespective of context and McGriff crushes Rise. It is not even close. Despite having less R+RBI-HR version runs created by nearly 150 in over 50 more games in careers that had AIR of 105 and 106 McGriff (or more precisely a team of McGriffs) is considered to create 1 more run/game (6.9-5.9) with a 60 point higher OWP (.662-.602). The OPS+ is not even close 134-112.

We come to WAR it is 48.2 - 48.0 in McGriff's favor. Back to square one.
Rice in his favor did not really start until he was 29. He is giving us these numbers missing several years of the traditional athletic peak for baseball (27-32) and with at least some of that presumably getting up to speed.
I still think McGriff is short changed by his era and people forget from @ 88-93/94 he was a premiere player in his leagues. I give my vote to McGriff because I think he rose higher.

**Jackaroo Dave** · 01-22-2013, 05:36 AM

Originally posted by PVNICK View Post

Here's something odd: traditional "runs created" has Rice with 2558 and McGriff 2406. I don't know why my eye was drawn to R/RBI but it was. Rice had only 77 more PA in 56 less games, so that wasn't it. I figured Rice played into the 30s so it is just a more offensive era. But moving down we come to AIR which supposedly measures the offense environment. It was 106-105 in Rice's favor. Is one point enough to explain the difference? What is AIR exactly other than something I have seen for years. Is it ballparks. Well Rice played in Griffith Stadium which by all descriptions that made their way to my eyes and ears was no Baker Bowl. If you went that way then Rice is more productive, runs better and played a more demanding position and by all accounts did it well.

We get to evaluating based on raw numbers irrespective of context and McGriff crushes Rise. It is not even close. Despite having less R+RBI-HR version runs created by nearly 150 in over 50 more games in careers that had AIR of 105 and 106 McGriff (or more precisely a team of McGriffs) is considered to create 1 more run/game (6.9-5.9) with a 60 point higher OWP (.662-.602). The OPS+ is not even close 134-112.

We come to WAR it is 48.2 - 48.0 in McGriff's favor. Back to square one.
Rice in his favor did not really start until he was 29. He is giving us these numbers missing several years of the traditional athletic peak for baseball (27-32) and with at least some of that presumably getting up to speed.
I still think McGriff is short changed by his era and people forget from @ 88-93/94 he was a premiere player in his leagues. I give my vote to McGriff because I think he rose higher.

I recall when R+RBI-HR was introduced it was called "runs produced." It's not too surprising that Rice did well, because he lost almost nothing in the -HR piece. But subtracting home runs is fallacious anyway. This dings McGriff heavily, because he hit so many more HR. But a homer just IS both a run scored and a run driven in. An ordinary run is a run driven in by someone else, an ordinary RBI is a run scored by someone else.

I believe AIR reflects the relative percentage of runs per game in the batter's playing environment to the overall mean, adjusting for both park and era. So as you'd expect. I think if you hover or click over the tab you'll get a short explanation. I believe the actual calculation is pretty complex, as anything with park factors is.

What I wonder about is McGriff's positional run penalty, which would be high considering the output of his first base contemporaries. But then Ruth was playing right field . . .

Anyway you slice it, nearly 50 WAR after age 27 is a bunch.

**Jackaroo Dave** · 01-22-2013, 05:44 AM

Originally posted by SavoyBG View Post

I think Rice is overrated and should not even be in the HOF. A career OPS+ of 112 for a RFer is not HOF worthy.

That makes me think Ichiro would be an interesting comp for Rice. Both starting late, hitting for average in a sluggers' era, not taking many walks, but just hitting machines, relatively low ops+ center fielders who found themselves in right. good peripherals despite the low BB rate.

Anyway, I wasn't aware that Rice was rated at all any more. He was stuck at about 50% with the writers, then Joe Judge wrote a strong and apparently effective article in Sports Illustrated about him. This was about the time that Glory of Their Times came out, and next year, 1962, I believe, he was inducted by the VC.

**PVNICK** · 01-22-2013, 06:02 AM

Originally posted by Jackaroo Dave View Post

I recall when R+RBI-HR was introduced it was called "runs produced." It's not too surprising that Rice did well, because he lost almost nothing in the -HR piece. But subtracting home runs is fallacious anyway. This dings McGriff heavily, because he hit so many more HR. But a homer just IS both a run scored and a run driven in. An ordinary run is a run driven in by someone else, an ordinary RBI is a run scored by someone else.

I believe AIR reflects the relative percentage of runs per game in the batter's playing environment to the overall mean, adjusting for both park and era. So as you'd expect. I think if you hover or click over the tab you'll get a short explanation. I believe the actual calculation is pretty complex, as anything with park factors is.

What I wonder about is McGriff's positional run penalty, which would be high considering the output of his first base contemporaries. But then Ruth was playing right field . . .

Anyway you slice it, nearly 50 WAR after age 27 is a bunch.

Thanks for the response. Why do you call subtracting out HR a fallacy. The concept was 'runs produced' as you say (it's been so long I forgot and am stuck in the nomenclature du jour). But a solo HR is one one run on the scoreboard despite the HR hitter getting a run and an RBI (ie: 1+1=2 but is only 1 run for the team). Anyway it's really more a curiosity question on something that I just happened to notice but did not put much weight on.

**leecemark** · 01-22-2013, 06:05 AM

--Rice is probably overrated by OPS+. Griffith was a horrible park for power hitters, but Rice wasn't going to be hitting many balls over the fence no matter where he played. He was a good hitter fir average, but hardly a great one by contemporary standards. That where the Ichiro comparison breaks down for me. Ichiro was the best hitter for average of his generation (and maybe the best baserunner and defensive corner outfielder).
Being the best at a significant component of the game makes one far more hall worthy than being pretty good at that same skill.

**leecemark** · 01-22-2013, 06:07 AM

Originally posted by PVNICK View Post

Thanks for the response. Why do you call subtracting out HR a fallacy. The concept was 'runs produced' as you say (it's been so long I forgot and am stuck in the nomenclature du jour). But a solo HR is one one run on the scoreboard despite the HR hitter getting a run and an RBI (ie: 1+1=2 but is only 1 run for the team). Anyway it's really more a curiosity question on something that I just happened to notice but did not put much weight on.

--A HR is a whole run contributed by the batter, while runs or RBI delivered by other means are really half runs (shared wuth the guy who got the other).

**Dude Paskert** · 01-22-2013, 07:00 AM

Very hard to pick, I punted and went with Rice because his skills would have been valuable in most any era of baseball.

**TomBodet** · 01-22-2013, 03:55 PM

Rice: Willie Wilson or Ichiro or Carew Sr. I think he was a terrific player and if anything he's Underrated. He gets short shrift from analysts here and there-but deserves bettet methinks. He's an easy Hof. Not enough pretty walk totals I guess.

I really like Crime Dogg, he should be in too.

Sam Rice	21.05%	4 votes
Fred McGriff	78.95%	15 votes

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Sam Rice vs Fred McGriff

Sam Rice vs Fred McGriff

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