Tim Raines’ Missing Information
I want you to know that I don’t have an agenda here. I mean, I know that’s exactly what someone who has an agenda would say, and I know there are people online who push Tim Raines pretty hard every year, but if you can believe it, this actually came out of research focused on David DeJesus. I recognize that Tim Raines was outstanding. When I was younger, I didn’t have much opportunity to watch him, so I don’t have much in the way of loyalty. And based on trends, it looks like Raines will make the Hall of Fame next year, given how close he just came. This post is agenda-less. All I want to do is fill in a gap.
It’s a baserunning gap. When talking about Raines as a deserving Hall-of-Famer, part of the argument is his ability to steal bases. Considered most simply, Raines ranks fifth on the all-time stolen-base list. Considered more nerdily, I examined the last 50 years, and calculated stolen-base value per 600 plate appearances. You can do this using our leaderboards, and Raines came in third, out of more than 1,100 players. Only Vince Coleman and Rickey Henderson are above him. Willie Wilson’s right behind him. Raines’ ability to steal — successfully — was a big part of what made him a star, and this is reflected on his player page, where you see him at 101.5 stolen-base runs above average for his career. If it weren’t for the steals, Raines’ Cooperstown argument would be an awful lot weaker.
Yet, there should be more to this. Just as there’s more to catcher defense than throwing runners out, there’s more to baserunning than just stealing or not stealing. For Raines, however, we don’t have much of a record. There’s value he contributed that isn’t showing up.
As mentioned, on Raines’ player page, we see +101.5 stolen-base runs. We also see +100.6 career baserunning runs, and the reason for this is because we don’t have the other baserunning data — UBR and wGDP — before 2002. In 2002, Raines collected the last 114 plate appearances of his life. So the only non-steal baserunning information we have for Raines captures him as a 42-year-old role player. Presumably, earlier in his career, he did more good than bad, in terms of base advancements and avoiding double plays.
I don’t have an easy way to accurately fill in the gap. But I think we can work to estimate Raines’ non-steal baserunning value. Here’s what we can do. We have more complete baserunning information for the last 14 years. So, covering the last 14 years, I looked for the players who’ve been the best overall base-stealers, in terms of value per 600 plate appearances.
The top 10 players averaged +4.2 stolen-base runs per 600. Those same players averaged +3.3 non-steal baserunning runs per 600. In other words, the non-steal value was 79% of the stealing value. The lowest of the top 10 was at 30%; the highest was at 133%. If you extend to the top 20, then those players averaged +3.5 stolen-base runs per 600, and +3.3 non-steal baserunning runs per 600. So then you’re at 93%. Not a single one of these players had a negative non-steal baserunning value. Good runners are good runners, apparently, in all situations.
I think it’s fair to assume that Raines was also a good runner in all situations. I think it’s fair to assume Raines also contributed a lot of non-stealing baserunning value. That value is missing from his career WAR, but as the above would suggest, that value could be substantial.
Just for the sake of some quick evidence, between 1975 – 2005, 18 players batted at least 10,000 times. Raines had the second-highest rate of runs per opportunity, behind only Henderson. Over Raines’ whole career, he scored about 37% of the time he was on base. The league average was just over 30%. Raines took the extra base 50% of the time, according to Baseball-Reference; the league average was just under 44%. Baseball-Reference also shows that Raines didn’t hit into many double plays, relative to the average, even when you adjust for double-play opportunities. The numbers we have do support the idea that Raines was a valuable baserunner, even when he wasn’t stealing.
Let’s try something real quick. Let’s take all the times Raines was on base, and let’s look at the difference between his rate of runs scored, and the average rate of runs scored. Do that, and you get Raines at +233 baserunning runs, which is more than double what he’s currently getting credit for. This is quick and sloppy, because it doesn’t adjust for teammates, or park environments, or the fact that Raines spent a lot of time batting leadoff. But again, it’s suggestive. There’s more to Raines’ career than we see when we just load a page.
Take Raines’ +101.5 career stolen-base runs. Using the minimum from earlier, 30% of that would be +30.5 non-steal baserunning runs. That works out to an additional 3.2 WAR. But why take the minimum? If you remember, the top 20 base-stealers from the last 14 years contributed 93% of their base-stealing value doing other baserunning stuff. Apply that to Raines and you’re adding 94.4 non-steal baserunning runs, or 9.8 WAR. Add 9.8 to Raines’ displayed 66.4 and you get 76.2. Yesterday’s record-setter for Hall of Fame voter support shows a career WAR of 77.7, and there isn’t much evidence that Ken Griffey Jr. was a great baserunner.
Which is not at all to say that Tim Raines = Ken Griffey Jr. This post is full of estimations, and I’m just taking a shot. It’s also vital to remember that, when it comes to the Hall of Fame, it should be about more than just career statistics, and Griffey was unquestionably an icon. Griffey is one of the most recognizable players in the history of the game. Raines was a really awesome player who wasn’t simultaneously as much a part of the culture. Griffey deserved what he earned. Raines, though, has probably been underrated, even by many of those who’ve complained about his underrated-ness. If you try to fill in Tim Raines’ baserunning gap, what you end up with is an even more valuable player. He made his contributions more quietly, but he sure as hell made them.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Another quick check….Kenny Lofton averaged roughly 2.5 non-SB baserunning runs over the last 6 years of his career:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=246&position=OF
So even if you assume Raines only averaged that much per season over his career, that puts him at about 40-50 extra baserunning runs. Looking at the top baserunners over recent leaderboards, I could easily see 5+ UBR/GIDP runs per season for Raines, consistent with your estimate.
This obviously bolsters Raines’s Hall of Fame case, but I’m still unsure why we have to do that. He possessed two exceptional skills, getting on base and running the bases, compared to his peers at the time. If the Hall of Fame is for the exceptional players, ones who were clearly exceptional in two major facets of the game without being a clear negative in the others, seems to be kind of the definition.
I think this argument only puts him in the Mattingly, Garciaparra category. He had a great stretch (prime) but was done by the age of 32 due to injuries, sickness or whatever (drug issues??).
You can’t compare Raines added benefit without doing it for everyone else. Obviously Raines stands to benefit more, but adjusting for overall stats like “% better than everyone else” means you actually need to include everyone else in the math you do.
Maybe you did that (and Wilson, Coleman etc) are all part of that information but I just misread it.
Anyway, the end result is that while Raines might be more valuable, the overall perception of value will have adjusted too, and again Raines stands to benefit, but not nearly as much as if he were the only one.
For the overwhelming majority of players, it would make little or no difference. Raines was an elite runner. Obviously this would also be something to consider for, say, Rickey Henderson, who I’m sure is missing extra value as well, but you can’t forget sluggers around Raines on the leaderboard should probably *lose* value.
Basically: yeah, almost everyone would move a little bit. Some move up, some move down. Almost no one moves up as much as Raines, on account of his stealing prowess.
I’m assuming the average baseball player adds exactly zero runs on the basepaths. The average HOF candidate is probably slightly negative (a whole bunch of lumbering sluggers in the mix).
Yes, my understanding is that non-stealing baserunning is defined as relative to the average, which is defined as zero. In this respect, it’s different from stealing bases.
SB have value if the player is successful a certain % of time, which I guess is somewhere in the range of 65-70%. And players who aren’t that successful generally stop stealing. So almost all players who steal bases contribute some positive value.
But UBR is different. If a player goes from first to third on a single, he increases the probability of his team’s scoring a run, so he gets some run value. But if he stops at second, he gets negative run value, because on average in that situation some players will go to third. A player who goes to third is above average on that play, because on average a player will go to third only some of the time. But a player who stops at second is below average, for the same reason. The system is set up so that the average is zero.
He already did that with Junior. It’s unlikely many of the players in the HOF would get the same boost. Wilson and Coleman have no shot. The one’s who profile similarly or would benefit are already in (Brock, Morgan, Cobb, Rickey). It may raise the baseline for that profile but still put him closer to Griffey et al in total value. Which is huge.
Great article. My first thought was how Rickey Henderson would come out with this same adjustment. 93% of his 142.7 wSB is 13.3 WAR, taking him to 119.6.
I suspect the player whose HOF case would be boosted most by this missing non-SB baserunning value would actually be Bagwell more than Raines. I’ll admit my bias as an Astros fan growing up but Bagwell was hands down the most aggressive smart baserunner I’ve ever watched and it’s frustrating to this day how many otherwise smart baseball fans don’t seem to appreciate that and only want to compare him to the likes of Frank Thomas and Edgar Martinez. In fact Bagwell was an on base and run scoring machine as much as he was a slugger and his plus baserunning was a huge and overlooked component in that.
No doubt that missing value would benefits Raines as well but relative to his peer group, probably not as much I think.
I doubt Bagwell added more via baserunning than Raines. (You’re competing against all other batters, not just the players who share your defensive position. )
More importantly, there’s no statistical way to boost Bagwell’s case. Statistically, he was already a slam dunk.
A possible missing 8-10 WAR added to Raines’ total takes him from clear HOFer who sometimes doesn’t make it (Grich, Whitaker, Trammell)
Does cocaine help you run faster? Seriously, its ability to keep you from gaining fat is well known, which helps the running game just as using steroids which hep you gain muscle helps the power game. There are some conflicting reports on its affects on performance. Its seems the consensus is that no benefits on endurance are attained.
However, a ncbi report states “It may be that cocaine only affects activities of short duration requiring a burst of high intensity energy output. It is possible that the central nervous stimulatory effect may be more important than its action on peripheral metabolism” Also, the World Anti-Doping Code’s Doping List classifies cocaine as an ‘indirectly acting sympathomimetic agent and a noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor and hence a performance enhancing drug (Davis et al., 2008).
Its curious this tolerance of drugs which can enhance the speed game in baseball, of which amphetamines is another one, but any drug taken that helps power hitters is a crime against humanity
Raines had his worst year with the Expos in 1982 before going to rehab, and improved all his numbers including stolen bases the following season.
Maybe cocaine could make you faster for a brief period of time. It would tend to slow you down over a 23-year career spanning 2,500 games and 10,000 plate appearances.
Good thing Raines (like many other players of his era) learned from his mistake.
I hear lupus makes you run slower.
Timmy Lupus was well below average in all aspects of the game.
I think you’re hitting on something very important. However, I look at the individual season data, it becomes apparent that at some point (about 2 wSB/600) being a better basestealer doesn’t help you in non-stealing situations. Good base stealers are usually very good baserunners otherwise, however, the best of the best basestealers have had difficulty separating themselves from merely above average basestealers in non-steal running value. It very much appears there is upper limit of this BsR-wSB around 5-6 runs/600.
That said we haven’t really had a basestealer as good as Raines in the post-2002 era. Tavares and Hamilton have touched at that level, but they both had/have flaws Raines apperently didn’t. So its possible a guy like Raines or Henderson could have broken out of this limitation.
But if this were to hold in the extreme as well, I think that would mean the simple BsR = wSB + Y*wSB model would be highly flawed. So if we assume Raines was hitting that for about half his career, then it declined slowly to 0, like his wSB, I’d put his BsR-wSB at around 50-60 runs over his career. Still that’s 5-6 WAR and puts him at 71.4-72.4 WAR total. Which still aught to make you a slam dunk HOFer.
Anyway, nice post, very thought provoking.
Walter…man. That’s an excellent point. I just don’t think there was time to bake in regression for the article. But that post was just as thought provoking as the article.
yeah i was thinking a quantile regression would be more appropriate for this
Know what else is missing? A post on Mike Piazza. Having grown up in New York, I planned on taking a stroll down memory lane when I read his post after finally being inducted into the HOF. As of now, I’m stuck with ESPN-type articles on him.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-greatness-of-mike-piazza/
You’re welcome.
That would be *Tim Raines’s*, not *Tim Raines’*.
Raines’ is very much acceptable because it is a proper noun.
Wow, Raines stole 71 bases one year and only scored 61 runs, that almost seems impossible. I know he can’t drive himself in, but that team wasn’t that bad, even in a strike shortened season.