When It Raines, It Pours
December 27, 2007 by Geoff Young
Filed under Hall of Fame, Personalities, Stats and Analysis
Dan McLaughlin has a nice article up at Hardball Times (full disclosure: I contribute to THT) on the Hall of Fame worthiness of Tim Raines. In it, Dan compares Raines to other great “tablesetters” — guys whose skills were best suited to the top of the order — throughout baseball history.
The most important finding is that Raines hangs pretty well with his contemporaries — Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, and Paul Molitor. I didn’t get to see Henderson and Molitor play much until later in their careers, but I watched a lot of Gwynn and Raines. As a huge Gwynn fan, I find myself agreeing with Dan that if he’s in, Raines has to be there as well.
Seems to me the best argument anyone can make against Raines is that he didn’t reach the magical 3000-hit plateau, which is silly. Lou Brock hit that milestone, but I like to believe that the voters would have elected him in even if he hadn’t. And you know what? Raines was a better player than Brock.
