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I'm not sure I can believe people are trying to compare Raines and Morgan. Despite their sim tendencies, Morgan was clearly the better player. Still, I think Raines will enter the hall eventually.

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Yeah, I guess Morgan is the best after WWII. Hornsby's batting stats are insane. He won the stat geek triple crown (AVG/OBP/SLG) seven times, including 6 in a row.

I thought Bill James had Rogers Hornseby in his rankings but now I think I am making that up. I'll look in the morning.

Bill James rates Hornsby 3rd all-time after Morgan and Collins. A lot of people have problems with this... Here is a good read on the subject.

Personnally I think Hornsby is the greatest 2nd baseman of alltime by a longshot

I think Morgan is closer to Hornsby than Raines but I am not good enough at math to manipulate the #'s to prove it!

I don't think you could find any set of numbers in their stats that would put Morgan closer to Hornsby than Raines. The fact is that as much as you don't like it, Morgan and Raines are statistically similar ballplayers. You can say the stats lie as much as you want, the NUMBERS shows that their career numbers are very similar. Numbers during their primes are similar as well. Hornsby's numbers for his career and particularly during his prime are in a whole different stratosphere. No legitimate mathematical manipulation of the stats would ever put Morgan closer to Hornsby than Raines.

As someone mentioned in some thread recently, Hornsby led the league in AVG, OBP, and SLG in the same seasons seven times in his career. He won the traditional triple crown twice. Hit .400 three times. Ended his career with 2930 hits, 301 HRs, over 1000 walks, and a batting line of .358/.434/.577. Would likely have had more home runs and higher SLG if the first third of his career wasn't played during the deadball era, too.

Morgan was probably the best player on a team many consider to be the best in NL history. Raines has been described by Bill James as the best lead off hitter in Nl history. Other things being equal, I believe that if the teams Raines played on had won he would already be in. Plus, Morgan was comfortable and popular with the media, and Raines did have the cocaine thing, while never being a good interview. I like Raines a lot, and I think he deserves HOF status, especially if you want to compare him to the worst players in the HOF already, and argue from that position. However, if you are going to keep the steroid crowd out, then it is only reasonable to keep the rest of the substance using crowd out. IMHO, until a definitive answer to Bonds emerges, nobody should go in to the HOF.

Quote: Originally Posted By doubletruck on 2/15/2010Two things elevated Brock into the Hall of Fame: Eclipsing Wills' SB record by being the first to top 100 and his stardom in three World Series. He was not nearly the equal of Raines or Henderson or Coleman as a base stealer in any season except '74.

Raines just wasn't lucky enough to play on the best team or to score his best moments in the "fame" spotlight. (Although he is famous for supposedly carrying some dope in his uniform pocket.)

It is the Hall of FAME, and some occurrences elevate players above their statistical performance record alone

He did play on the best team of all time- 1998 Yankees. Rock is a no doubt HOF in my books.

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Raines would be a lock if he had put up those stats as a Yankee.

topgun, other than 1984, Tim Raines played more games at second base than he did at center. He was pretty much exclusively a fielder.

Quote: Originally posted by nmchnv on 2/17/2010Raines would be a lock if he had put up those stats as a Yankee.

Or if there wasn't a guy named Rickey Henderson who was essentially a better Raines who played at the exact same time.