Once upon a time, technically not long ago but in what seems like another universe, Jim Rice was generally regarded as a prime candidate in the Hall of Very Good; someone on the outside looking into the halls of Cooperstown. Has anything changed? Are Jim Ed’s chances any better after the proverbial shit splattered against the fan for so many modern players in George Mitchell’s report? While we don’t know how far the tentacles of amphetamines (greenies) extended into the Red Sox lineups in the 70’s and 80’s, we do know that most of the banned substances currently on the radar screen of the authorities were not very commonplace during the bulk of Rice’s career. Therefore, in the eyes of the voters, Jim Rice will be “clean”.

Several people believe that this will finally be the year that Rice gets the nod. Dan Shaughnessy thinks so. I’d say his chances are probably something like 66%. But, does he deserve it? I had always been in the camp that believed he shouldn’t quite make it (although I’d have been very happy for Rice and the Sox if he did make it, and it certainly wouldn’t have discredited the Hall any more than some of the other travesties in and out of Cooperstown). However, should the voters look at Rice in a different light, now that some heavy stones have been unturned and so many indiscretions revealed?

Baseball-Reference.com has a neat little tool that compares a player’s stats against a historical database, and comes up with the 10 most similar players based on those numbers. When you try this with Jim Rice, the 10 players BR spits out are as follows:

1) Orlando Cepeda
2) Andres Galarraga
3) Ellis Burks
4) Duke Snider
5) Joe Carter
6) Dave Parker
7) Billy Williams
8) Moises Alou
9) Willie Stargell
10) Luis Gonzalez

Now, I’m going to do something to pare this list down a bit. I’m going to remove any player who had the majority of their plate appearances after 1990. Please understand that this is not me making any kind of assumptions about these player’s conditioning techniques, but simply running an experiment by factoring out certain sample from a population that some considered “tainted”. After doing that, we are left with the following players (listed with their EqA and WARP3 as determined by Baseball Prospectus):

Cepeda .302, 89.0
Snider .291, 94.0
Parker .285, 85.0
Williams .299, 113.7
Stargell .312, 114.7

4 out of the 5 players above are in the Hall of Fame (3 of them are slam dunks); the exception is Dave Parker, who, like Rice, suffers from certain perception issues that may not have dissipated in the minds of the voters.

For comparison purposes, the EqA number is a decent all-encompassing rate stat, while WARP3 is a good compilation metric, both are explained on the Prospectus glossary. Jim Rice weighs in at .294 and 83.2, which is slightly favorable to Dave Parker’s totals (Parker had slightly higher compilations due to a longer career), and slightly less favorable to Hall of Famers Duke Snider and Orlando Cepeda. The other two guys were clearly better HoF candidates than Rice.

This is obviously a crude analysis, and I’ve seen many more performed by others, and only one common conclusion can be drawn: the guy is still borderline, and it still isn’t a clear cut Yes or No. Even when you heavily discount the numbers of the modern day slugger, Rice still shares a waiting room with the likes of Andre Dawson, Dale Murphy, and our namesake, Dwight Evans. If you see or hear anyone claiming that Rice’s exclusion is “a travesty”, there is probably a Red Sox bias at work.

Whatever happens with Rice, whether he is in or out, only this is certain: a lot of folks are going to disagree. Me? I’m teetering on the fence here, but if I had a vote, would he get it? He’s borderline, his career was shortened due to injuries, and he spent his entire career on one team. I have a soft spot for candidates like this, and while I don’t place much emphasis on the steroid issue, my appreciation of his accomplishments has increased just a tad.

Yes. Just barely, he’d get my vote.

(As would Andre Dawson and Dwight Evans)