[Mondogarage]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's worth noting that Rice compares favorably to ... Thome

[/ QUOTE ]

This is crazy talk. Thome's career OPS+ is 150. Rice attained that two times and has a career OPS+ of 126. As hitters, they are not on the same plane.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks, next time, please to be taking my comparison in proper context, which is, according to Bill James' ranking of Hall of Fame Monitor Leaders - a metric James developed to look at the likelihood of HOF selection based on what criteria the voters seem to credit more than others.

According to Bill James, Jim Rice is the best hitter currently eligible for the HOF, who is not in the HOF, and is 85th on the all time list, and ranks a few spots above Thome (#85 vs #92). As I said, Thome is still adding to his numbers. Both are well above the cutoff where James indicates players have a high likelihood of getting selected.

Maybe Rice's numbers put him amongst the league leaders in more categories more often than Thome (since Thome was hitting his home runs in years when McGwire, Sosa, Bonds were blowing so far beyond 40 as to make 40 seem meaningless. As point of reference, Thome never finished higher than 4th in MVP voting (once); Rice won the MVP once, finished 3rd twice, and 4th twice. All this means is, there's anecdotal evidence that Rice's accomplishments were thought to be more significant compared to his peers more often than Thome's has been.

Thome is likely to end up in the HOF, but at least in writer's perceptions, I would suggest that the average BBWAA writer probably doesn't consider Thome a better HOF candidate than Rice, though the majority of younger writers probably do.

Raines ranks #175 on that list, and is 10% below the cutoff of having a "good possibility" of being elected.