Tim Raines’s “Hang Around” Time
Posted by Chris J. on January 9, 2008
Through 1987, Tim Raines was one of the best players in the game. Then he was merely a good player. This hurts his HoF chances as many BBWAA members remember him as a journeyman. How good was he then? Well, PI allows you to find out rather easily.
An OPS+ of 115 is nice, but from a corner outfielder it's only nice. However, it isn't just any 115, it's an exceptionally OBP-heavy OPS. (OBP 378, SLG 408). Given that OBP is the more important of the two numbers, Raines was better than his OPS+ suggests.
Oh yeah, OPS also doesn't factor in baserunning. He still stole almost 300 bases at an 80% success rate. That'll add some value. And that's despite including his last few years, where he really was a rotten player for 2 of his final 3 seasons.
In his so-called "hang around" years, Tim Raines provided value for another decade to his teams.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Here's a comparison to Rickey Henderson's "hang around" time. In this case, however, it's the last eight years of Rickey's career, from ages 37 to 44, when he added the last 717 hits, 640 bb, 257 steals, 89 cs, and 576 runs scored to his resume, to the tune of a 99 OPS+. The report compares him to the end careers of selected other players, ages 33 and up.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/D8NJ