Is Jim Rice a Hall of Famer

Probably the hottest debate surrounding the Hall of Fame selection this year is the electability of Jim Rice. I will present the fact to you off data I gleemed off of www.baseball-reference.com.

First the positives. According to Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor, Rice is 89th all time just ahead of Duke Snider and behind Gary Sheffield. The most similar players listed on the site stats wise who are in the Hall of Fame are Orlando Cepeda, Duke Snider, Billy Williams, and Willie Stargell. Rice is 29th in career MVP voting credited with 3.15 shares winning the 1978 MVP. His career batting average of .298 is the same as Mickey Mantle and Barry Bonds. He has more career total bases than Joe Dimaggio.

Now the negatives. It would be inaccurate to label him as primarily a DH as he played 1503 of 2089 career games in the outfield. But it would be accurate to label him as a fielder with poor range even though he played half his games in Fenway Park with its miniscule left field. His range factor was 1.84 in a league where the average was about 2.16 plays a game. He was a poor postseason hitter with a career average of .225 in 3 series. His .352 on base percentage is the same as Rafael Furcal. He was painfully slow as he got older and finished 6th all time in grounding into double plays.

The I don't knows. He has 295 Adjusted Batting Runs in his career, more than Harold Baines, less than Jose Canseco. He was on 2 pennant winning teams both who lost in the World Series.

Comparing the visible stats:
Rice .298 avg 382 hr 1451 rbi
Cepeda .297 avg 417 hr 1365 rbi
Snider .295 avg 358 hr 1333 rbi
Williams .290 avg 434 hr 1475 rbi
Stargel .282 avg 475 hr 1540 rbi

Is Reggie Bush a Bust?

Watching the Saints vs. Bucs game this weekend I couldn't help but think back to the 06' NFL draft when teams were clamoring for a chance to draft him after an electrifying couple of years at USC. The Houston Texans drafted DL Mario Williams and their GM was basically ridden out of town while Katrina stricken New Orleans cheered wildly when they got Bush. How things change. As of this writing Bush has amassed 1440 yds rushing in 36 games 1557 receiving a grand total of 23 Td's (4 on punt returns) and 13 fumbles. Compare that with his college numbers in 39 games (3169 rush yds, 1301 receiving yds, 38 td's from scrimmage) and his numbers pale in comparison.

At 6'0" and 200-205 lbs Bush is a better receiver than running back. He's a tweener, too short to be a full time receiver, not powerful enough to be a 1st down back. New Orleans has tried to utilize his ability to make defenders miss by putting him in space throwing the ball to him almost 6x a game but his ability to break tackles has been poor. He averages a pedestrian 3.6 yds/carry on the ground and 7.5 yds/catch for his career. In the same 06' draft running back Maurice Jones-Drew from Pac-10 rival UCLA was picked at the tail end of the 2nd round and was considered at 5'6 1/2 208 lbs. to be far too small to be a star in the NFL. All he has done is eclipse Bush's numbers with 2212 yds rushing, 1236 yds receiving and an astounding 35 combined touchdowns. Meanwhile Mario Williams has also been more productive with 26.5 sacks and 141 tackes in 43 games for Houston. Thus far the only bigger bust than Bush is the one on his girlfriend Kim Kardashian. Reggie we are still waiting......