Cooperstown Candidate: Tim Raines

Continuing a series examining the candidates eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The writers' ballots are due by December 31st and the Class of 2013 will be announced in early January.

Tim Raines was a victim of circumstance.

By any measurement, he ranks as the second-best leadoff hitter of all time. The only player in all of baseball history who was better in that role was Rickey Henderson, an inner-circle Hall of Famer. So why hasn't Raines been inducted into Cooperstown yet? Basically one reason:

Tim Raines: Left Fielder, 1979-2003
Rickey Henderson: Left Fielder, 1979-2002

They played the exact same position during the exact same stretch in baseball history. That's rotten luck for Raines, who was overshadowed by Henderson and as a result has spent five years on the ballot without winning the support of even 50% of the baseball writers yet. But he presents a worthy Hall of Fame case in his own right.

Raines was a prototypical leadoff hitter, excelling at both getting on base and wreaking havoc upon his arrival. His career batting average was .294, but even better, his career on-base percentage was .385 (similar to Alex Rodriguez and Willie Mays). He racked up 808 stolen bases in his career, the fifth-highest total of all-time, trailing only four Hall of Famers. He stole at least 70 bases in six consecutive seasons. Even more impressively, he stole at a career success rate of 84.7%, the very best all-time among players with at least 300 attempts (Henderson was at 80.8%).

He peaked very early. The best stretch of his career came during his first seven seasons, from his rookie year in 1981 until 1987. Over this period, he led all of baseball in hits and his cumulative line was .310/.396/.448. He averaged 72 stolen bases, 79 walks, and 103 runs scored per season. All seven of his All-Star Game appearances came during this run and he garnered MVP votes in six of the seven years. He was one of the very best players in baseball.

So his peak was elite -- and so was his career value. There are 19 left fielders in the Hall of Fame and Raines accumulated more Wins Above Replacement than 15 of them. The only four with a higher WAR are Ted Williams, Rickey Henderson, Carl Yastrzemski, and Ed Delahanty (Barry Bonds and Pete Rose also have more, but aren't in the Hall). Even without using WAR, Raines objectively has to rank as one of the ten best players ever at his position.

What Raines has always lacked is career recognition. He never won a Gold Glove in left field or an MVP award, and is in the process of getting snubbed on the Hall of Fame ballot. This is not because of any flaw on his part, but because the ways he accrued his value are vastly underrated by the sport at large. Players are traditionally evaluated by the three offensive statistics of the Triple Crown: hits/batting average, home runs, and runs batted in. Not only are those measurements flawed -- they especially undersell Raines. He drew walks instead of hits, hit doubles and triples instead of home runs, and scored runs instead of driving them in. He simply excelled in low-profile statistics that aren't properly appreciated by baseball.

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate this is to compare Raines to a Hall of Famer who was elected on the first ballot with a stunning 98% of the vote: Tony Gwynn. The comparison is almost perfect because Gwynn was another speedy, low-power corner outfielder who played almost exactly the same number of career games as Raines during the same time frame.

Gwynn: .338 batting average, 3,141 hits, 5 200-hit seasons
Raines: .294 batting average, 2,605 hits, 0 200-hit seasons

Raines failed to reach baseball's holy grail, the 3,000-hit plateau. Because Gwynn did, he was considered a no-brainer Hall of Famer. And rightly so. But:

Gwynn: .388 on-base percentage, 790 walks, 3,955 times on base
Raines: .385 on-base percentage, 1,330 walks, 3,977 times on base

Raines was exactly as good at getting on base as Gwynn -- he just did so via the walk instead of the hit. Walks don't make ESPN highlight clips, though. Convert 400 of Raines' walks to singles and he would have 3,000 hits, making him an instant Hall of Famer alongside Gwynn.

Plus, here's how they performed on the basepaths:

Gwynn: 319 stolen bases, caught 125 times
Raines: 808 stolen bases, caught 146 times

They were about equal players in terms of getting on base, but Raines was far better once they got there. He was caught only a handful more times in his career than Gwynn yet stole almost 500 more bags.

There's really not much more to say about Raines. He could get on base by both hitting for average and drawing walks; he stole an absurd number of bases at an absurdly high percentage. All those skills put together make him one of the best run-scorers ever. In fact, he's one of 70 players in history to score at least 1,500 career runs, and every single post-1900 player on that list who's eligible has been elected to the Hall of Fame -- with just three exceptions. They're all currently on the ballot now: Rafael Palmeiro, Jeff Bagwell, and Raines.

He was just as good as near-unanimous first-ballot Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. He's one of the best left-fielders, leadoff-hitters, base-stealers, and run-scorers of all time. The only player in baseball history who was better at his job was Rickey Freaking Henderson. Yep, keeping Tim Raines out of the Hall of Fame isn't just wrong. It's a bit of a joke.

My Ballot, As of Now:
1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Mike Piazza
4. Craig Biggio
5. Jeff Bagwell
6. Mark McGwire
7. Edgar Martinez
8. Tim Raines

Out: Sammy Sosa, Lee Smith