Jaffe: Making the Cooperstown case for Tim Raines

From SABR member Chris Jaffe at The Hardball Times on December 12, 2011:

It’s that time of the year again: Hall of Fame voting season. This month, the decade-long members of the BBWAA fill out their ballots for who belongs in Cooperstown.

There are many candidates on this year’s ballot, and many would make perfectly fine Hall of Famers. Several are doing worse in the BBWAA voting than I’d personally wish them to do (see Trammell, Alan), but one guy particularly strikes me as getting less support than he deserves: Tim Raines.

People have different standards for what constitutes a Hall of Famer, but in general there are too main ways of gauging Hall-worthiness: peak and career value. There are just different way to define greatness, and many Hall of Fame arguments boil down to if a person supports peak or career value in their candidates.

With Raines, though, it shouldn’t make any difference if you prefer peak or if you prefer career. Either way, he is highly qualified for Cooperstown.

Read the full article here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-cooperstown-case-for-tim-raines/



Originally published: December 12, 2011. Last Updated: December 12, 2011.