Dick Allen: A Better Jim Rice

So yesterday's Ken Boyer vs. Ron Santo post got me thinking about another debate between a borderline Hall of Fame guy and a recent inductee. With Jim Rice's place in the Hall of Fame secure, Dick Allen deserves a plaque as well. And if there's only room for one of them, well, then it should be Allen no question.

But Rice is in, and Allen is not. The voters deemed Jim Ed worthy of a berth in Cooperstown. How they did not come to the same conclusion with Allen is beyond my comprehension. I mean, if Jim Rice is a Hall of Famer (which he is, even if many feel that he shouldn't be), then Dick Allen is absolutely, positively a no-brainer Hall of Famer. Rice made it into Cooperstown on his hitting and his hitting alone, and the numbers clearly show that Allen was a better baseball player. At the very least, Allen was a better hitter and more deserving candidate, essentially Jim Rice 2.0.

Let me explain. The similarities between the two as men and ballplayers are numerous. Both were tempestuous African American stars aggravated by the racist cities and times in which they played; mercurial sluggers with few friends in the media and stands; intense players worn down by the even more intense fans and press corps that all but suffocated them. Rice paid dearly for his surly demeanor, languishing on the writer's ballot for the full 15 years before he finally squeezed through Cooperstown's doors in his final year of eligibility. Allen, an even more polarizing figure, never came close to induction and is still waiting for the call.

Both were powerfully built righthanded sluggers with vicious swings that put the fear of God into opposing pitchers. Rice cracked 382 home runs, topping 40 once and winning three home run crowns. Allen socked 351, also exceeding 40 once and leading the league twice. Each was named AL MVP during the 1970s--Allen in 1972 and Rice six years later. Neither won a championship and both will be forever linked with teams that endured historic late season collapses (the '64 Phillies and '78 Red Sox) even though both enjoyed exceptional individual campaigns as their teams crumbled around them.

Rice played 16 years, one more than Allen, but because the former DH'ed and had better luck with injuries he was able to squeeze an additional 340 games out of his career. Thus, his counting numbers surpass Allen's in virtually every category except for walks and steals. Allen was much better at his peak though, with three seasons of at least 7.5 bWAR compared to Rice's one. Their numbers are remarkable similar on a 162-game basis:

Allen: 102 R 171 H 30 3B 7 3B 33 HR 104 RBI .292/.378/.534 313 TB
Rice: 97 R 190 H 29 2B 6 3B 30 HR 113 RBI .298/.352/.502 315 TB

Both burst on the scene with monster rookie seasons at the age of 22 (Allen copped Rookie of the Year honors and Rice would have too had he not debuted the same year as Fred Lynn), beginning a run of excellence that lasted over a decade until they dropped off dramatically before their 35th birthdays. Rice lost his lifetime .300 average, finishing at .298 like Mickey Mantle, and fell short of other notable milestones such as 400 homers, 1,500 RBI and 2,500 hits. Allen also fell short of 400 dingers, barely making it to 350, and failing to reach even 2,000 hits.

Allen last 3 years: .246/.334/.410  32 HR  142 RBI  0.5 bWAR
Rice last 3 years:  .263/.330/.395  31 HR  162 RBI  0.0 bWAR

For a long time it looked as though that sudden, steep decline was going to keep Rice out of the Hall. With Allen it's even more pronounced, leaving his counting numbers well short of what many consider Hall of Fame quality from an outfielder.

But Allen's career totals are close to Rice's, and his slash stats are much better. Allen walked a lot--much more than Rice, who rarely took a free pass unless it was intentional. So while Rice outhit Allen .298 to .292 for their careers, Allen has the much higher on-base percentage at .378 to Rice's .352. That advantage, combined with the former's 32 point edge in slugging percentage, means Allen was a far better hitter over the course of their careers. The numbers bear this out, as Allen's .912 OPS, .400 wOBA and 156 OPS+ dwarf Rice's .854, .375 and 128.  Allen also far outpaces Rice in batting runs above average, with 435 to Rice's 297, and outranks him by almost 25 offensive WAR, which combines hitting and baserunning. Allen was an above average baserunner while Rice was below average, but that's not enough to explain the huge gap in their offensive production.

Rice has no excuse, as he benefitted from batting in the middle of Boston's fearsome lineups and playing half his games in baseball's best hitter's park at the time. Allen did not enjoy these same advantages. He played in the National League, which everyone knows was the superior league during the 1960s and '70s (read: more competitive), and did not enjoy the same level of supporting talent or the perks of playing in Fenway.

This is apparent in their neutralized numbers. Rice's barely change, as his friendly home park negated the difficulties of playing the offense-suppressed 1970s and '80s. Allen's figures improve considerably, however. His batting line jumps to .307/.396/.561, raising his OPS to more than 100 points higher than Rice's. He's also credited with 378 homers, 1,261 RBI, nearly 2,000 hits and almost 1,000 walks. Still borderline numbers, but more comparable to Rice's at least.

 There's not much point comparing their defense because frankly, both were terrible. If Rice had been good he wouldn't have DH'ed so much, but in his defense the Red Sox already had a tremendous left fielder in Carl Yastrzemski when he arrived. Rice eventually turned himself into a halfway decent defender as he learned to handle the Green Monster, but never came close to matching the defensive prowess of his predecessor. Allen butchered every position he played; third base, first base and left field, but his offense was especially valuable during his time at the hot corner. The difference between a bad defender and a worse defender is not enough to compensate for the huge disparity in their hitting.

Even though Rice played the equivalent of two more full seasons and played better defense, Allen comes out significantly ahead in WAR. Baseball Reference, Baseball Prospectus, and FanGraphs all credit him with roughly 60 for his career, about 10 more than Rice. Based on his Hall of Stats rating of 115, Allen is a worthy Hall of Famer. With a score of just 82, Rice is decidedly not.

And yet, nearly 40 years after his last game, Allen is still on the outside looking in. Blame the writers for stiffing him, the fans for not supporting his candidacy, and Allen for being a giant jerk, but Richie's waited long enough. His omission from the Hall is one of Cooperstown's most glaring oversights. How could they pass over a hitter who was so great, Hall of Fame caliber for 15 years, for so long?

Allen made many enemies and they've kept him from coming anywhere close to induction. He never even received 20 percent of the vote in any of his 14 years on the ballot. Based on his on-field accomplishments, Allen should have been inducted long ago, and had he been a swell, stand-up guy like Dale Murphy he probably would have.  Rice didn't have a lot of friends either, but eventually stances softened on him as people came around to seeing what a great hitter he had been. When is that going to happen with Allen? Will it ever?

Sabermetrics punched Bert Blyleven's ticket to the Hall of Fame, and with the same concerted effort Allen could get there one day as well. Unfortunately there just doesn't seem to be that same level of support for him. The grudges against him aren't going away. Who's clamoring for Dick Allen to take his rightful place in the Hall of Fame? Not very many, it seems, and if they're out there they're not being vocal enough. Allen might not seem like a Hall of Famer at first glance, but once you do a little digging it becomes as clear as day. He was one of the best hitters of not just his era, but baseball history. The Hall of Fame is a lesser place without him.

They say time heals most wounds, and in this writer's opinion enough time has passed to forgive Allen for his personal flaws and let bygones be bygones. The Wampum Walloper was baseball's best hitter for more than a decade, on par with contemporaries Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, and Willie McCovey, and deserves to be commemorated in Cooperstown for it. Allen's in his early 70s now, and he might not be around much longer. Better to induct him while he's still alive and able to enjoy it, lest the Hall waits too long to open its doors to him a la Ron Santo. The ceremony will be long overdue, of course, but better late than never.

Parker vs Rice Redux

When people argue for a player's Hall of Fame candidacy, a common tactic they use is to compare said player to lesser players already enshrined in Cooperstown. For example, if Bill Mazeroski and Joe Gordon are in, then Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker should be no-brainers. If Ron Santo is in, then really Dick Allen should be, too. Gotta put Jeff Bagwell and Fred McGriff in if you're going to have a Hall of Fame with Jim Bottomley and Ray Schalk, right?

Since making it into the Hall of Fame by the skin of his teeth in 2009--his last chance on the writer's ballot--Jim Rice has frequently been used in such arguments. It's no secret that he's generally thought of as one of the weaker players to be inducted in recent memory. JAWS rates Rice as the 27th best left fielder of all-time and below 14 of the 18 that have attained Hall of Fame status. He falls short of decidedly non-HOFers like Jose Cruz, Roy White and Luis Gonzalez, who was just booted off the ballot after tallying a mere five votes in his debut.

For a long time, Rice was a borderline candidate who typically polled in the 50-60 percent range. But once the issues of the steroid era came to light in the mid-2000s, people suddenly had more appreciation for what Rice had done as a natural slugger during the offensively depressed 1970s and 80s. Writers who stuck it to Rice for being such a jerk to the media during his playing days eventually came around, and that was just enough to sneak him into the Hall.

So where am I going with this? Well, now that Jim Rice is in the Hall of Fame, shouldn't Dave Parker? Look how close their numbers are:

Rice: 1,249 R, 79 3B, 382 HR, 1,451 RBI, 670 BB .298/.352/.502, 128 OPS+, 47.2 bWAR
Parker 1,272 R, 75 3B, 339 HR, 1,493 RBI, 683 BB .290/.339/.471, 121 OPS+, 40 bWAR

You'd be hard-pressed to find two players with careers that overlapped so perfectly. Parker broke in one year before Rice did but they both became stars in 1975, when they finished third in their leagues' respective MVP voting (Rice also finished second in the Rookie of the Year to teammate/fellow outfielder Fred Lynn, who took home MVP honors). They fell off a bit in 1976 but were both very good, then embarked upon a three-year stretch of dominance as they came into their primes.

Both were arguably the best players in baseball in the last three years of the 1970s, followed by substantial drop-offs in the early 80s. They bounced back to produce several more good years in the mid-80s, but by the end of the decade they were old and washed-up. Rice retired in 1989, Parker two years later. Neither one was able to match the brilliance of the men they replaced: Yaz in Boston and Roberto Clemente in Pittsburgh.

The similarities don't end there. They each led the league in games played once, hits once, slugging percentage twice, OPS once. Both were named MVP in 1978 and finished near the top on several other occasions (four other top-five finishes for Parker, five for Rice). Parker racked up 3.19 MVP shares, just a hair more than Rice's 3.15.   Rice made eight All-Star teams, Parker made seven. Parker won three Silver Sluggers, Rice received two. It's no wonder Parker rates as the tenth most similar player to Rice on Baseball-Reference.

One key difference is that Parker actually played a bit more than Rice, appearing in nearly 400 more games (about two and a half seasons worth) and logged an additional 1,100 plate appearances. Parker played past his 40th birthday, whereas Rice had his last good season at 33 and retired at 36. Parker's longevity helped him accumulate 2,712 hits, of which 940 went for extra bases. But seeing as how Parker was worth -0.4 bWAR over his last six seasons, he could certainly be accused of hanging on too long a la Craig Biggio.

One point in Parker's favor is that he won two World Series rings, which is two more than Rice ever won. And while Parker's postseason resume is pretty poor (.647 OPS in October), he did bat .345 in the 1979 Fall Classic to help Pittsburgh prevail over the Baltimore Orioles in seven games. In his early years, Parker could run a bit (154 career steals) and earned a good defensive reputation, winning three straight Gold Gloves from 1977-'79 while flashing a powerful arm. Rice learned to play the Green Monster over time, but never mastered it like his predecessor Carl Yastrzemski. He was never a threat on the basepaths either. Rice was the better hitter, but Parker was the more complete player. He was baseball's fourth-most valuable player from 1975-1979, behind only Mike Schmidt, George Brett and George Foster.

So why is one in the Hall of Fame while the other never even got 25 percent of the vote? Rice made enemies in the press, but so did Ted Williams. Writers never gave Mickey Mantle much love in the first half of his career. Time heals most wounds, and Rice's talent was undeniable. Parker's problem was that a combination of injuries, weight problems, and cocaine use sabotaged his career in the first half of the 1980s, when his performance drastically declined (.281/.319/.431 from 1980-84). He got a reputation for not caring about the game, and for squandering his immense potential.

Nothing in life is sadder than wasted potential. The feeling is that Parker needed a few more good years to solidify his case, but that his off-field issues prevented him from doing so. Parker was very much a black mark on the game, and the writers shunned him for it.

My other thought is that Rice has more impressive power numbers, which always catch the eye and confirm the belief that he was one of the strongest and most feared hitters of his era. He also spent his entire career with one team, whereas Parker bounced around during the second half of his career. Rice had continuity in the nation's most baseball-crazed city. Parker played in depressed smaller markets known as Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

Rice also hit traditional benchmarks more often. He reached 100 RBI eight times, 20 homers 11 times and 200 hits four times. He also batted better than .300 seven times and was a .300 career hitter up until his final season. Parker had just four 100 RBI campaigns, one 200-hit season and topped out at 34 home runs, when Rice reached 39 on four separate occasions. Parker did win two batting titles, but batted just .264 over his last six years and ended up with a lower career average than Rice.

I'm not saying I think Parker should be in the Hall of Fame. Despite what he says, he shouldn't be. JAWS puts Parker 36th among rightfielders, behind the likes of Bobby Bonds, Jack Clark, Brian Giles, Tony Oliva, and Rocky Colavito. He falls short in the position's established standards for peak and career value. He was just up for election on last fall's Expansion Era ballot and failed to get in, and there aren't many people championing his case.

But now that Rice (and Andre Dawson) is in, it's very hard to justify Parker's absence. Rice is a more qualified candidate for the Hall of Fame, but only slightly. Rice's Hall of Fame score is 43 (the average Hall of Famer's is 50), and Parker's is 42. More than any other statistic, that one shows just how close they really were.

Best Offensive Baseball Season of the 1970s

This was an extremely close call because of Joe Morgan's huge 1976 season.  I probably should have just flipped a coin, because they both have their merits.  Sabermetric fans will probably prefer Morgan's season because of his superior OBP, OPS and OPS+, but in the end he just didn't have the counting numbers to compete.

1978 Jim Rice (7.0 bWAR)

'78 marked the middle of Jim Rice's three year peak (he led the league in total bases each season) at the end of the decade, a time when he was unquestionably the best righthanded hitter in baseball as well as the most intimidating slugger in the game.  He'd come up as one of the hyped Gold Dust Twins along with Fred Lynn in 1974, and the following season they finished 1-2 in the Rookie of the Year balloting while leading Boston back to its first World Series since the Impossible Dream team.  Unfortunately, Rice injured his wrist when he was hit by a pitch during the last week of the regular season and missed the playoffs entirely.  Since five of the games against the Big Red Machine during the Fall Classic were decided by just one run, it's fair to say that a player of Rice's caliber probably could have swung the outcome in at least one of them with a timely hit (or home run) and therefore could have ended Boston's World Series drought three decades sooner.  But alas, we will never know how a healthy Rice could have impacted the series.

Fast forward three years, and Rice had established himself as an elite slugger and MVP candidate.  Coming off a monster season the year before, he celebrated his 25th birthday before the season began and was just coming into his prime.  He burst out of the gate and never looked back, helping carry the offensive load for the potent Red Sox lineup hampered by down seasons from Butch Hobson, George Scott and Carl Yastrzemski.  They needed every  little bit that Rice could give them, and he didn't disappoint.  Like Jacoby Ellsbury last year, he did all he could to salvage his team's September collapse but in the end it just wasn't enough; the star-crossed Sox won 99 games but fell to their archrivals during the 163rd game of the season, during which Rice contributed an RBI single.  Although the Bombers got the best of Boston in the standings, the Red Sox slugger edged Yankee ace Ron Guidry (25-3, 8.5 bWAR and a tidy 1.74 ERA) in the American League Most Valuable Player race.  When it was all said and done, Rice ranked first among all major league hitters with 213 hits, 15 triples, 46 longballs, 139 ribbies, a gaudy .600 slugging percentage, and 406 total bases.  His .970 OPS and 157 OPS+ were also tops in the Junior Circuit.

Rice made the cover of Sporting News,
back when that actually meant something

Rice is lucky the voters selected him over Guidry for the MVP award, because I'm not so sure he'd be in the Hall of Fame without it.  Granted, he did finish in the top five on five other occassions, but I feel like he needed the hardware to validate his dominance.  Because he didn't quite have the longevity to hit major milestones (he fell short of 400 homers, 1,500 RBI and a .300 average), the main argument of his case was that for a brief while, he was probably the best hitter in baseball.  That claim would have been tough to back up without an MVP award to reflect his greatness.  Even so, I think he did enough otherwise to merit his enshrinement in Cooperstown;  for a dozen seasons from '75 to '86 he batted .304/.356/.520 and averaged 29 home runs and 106 RBI per season.  Those are some damn good numbers, especially given their context.

Here are some more stats from his masterpiece

-Jim Ed played in all 163 games that season, an achievement that allowed him to compile some truly extraordinary counting numbers.  For example, he topped the majors in plate appearances, with 746, and at-bats, with 677.
-Whiffed a career high 126 times
-Few took advantage of Fenway's friendly confines better than Rice, who slugged 28 home runs and triple slashed .361/.416/.690 there, good for a 1.105 OPS. 
-His 406 total bases were the most by an American Leaguer since Joe DiMaggio accumulated 418 all the way back in 1937.  No American Leaguer has eclipsed 400 total bases since (Albert Belle missed by a measly single in 1998), but Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Luis Gonzalez, Larry Walker, and Todd Helton have all done it in the Senior Circuit.

-Belted 23 homers in each half of the season, but don't let that fool you.  He was a streaky hitter who did the majority of his damage in May and August, and managed to clear the fences just once in July!
-Interestingly enough, he had 13 triples at the All-Star break, but recorded only two afterwards.  While we're talking three-baggers, he recorded 15 the year before, too.  Those are a lot of triples for a slugger, considering Alex Rodriguez (fast enough to steal 46 bases one time) has just 29 for his career, and Albert Pujols has only 15.
-Was a veritable bargain with a $125,000 salary (equivalent to 434 grand and some change in 2012) according to the Bill James Historical Abstract.  The following year, he made more than four times as much
-He was no Yaz in left, but '78 ranks as one of his best seasons with the leather.  He was worth one dWAR and played all three outfield positions.  He also spent 49 games as the Designated Hitter, which undoubtedly kept him fresh enough to play every game