Top 20 All-Time Stats Show Jim Rice Should Be in Baseball's Hall of Fame

With former Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice coming agonizingly close to making the Baseball Hall of Fame in this his fourteenth, and second-to-last, year of eligibility, the debate has ignited once again over his candidacy. Joe Sheehan of the Baseball Prospectus offers a view of the case against Rice in an article at SI.com, as has Rob Neyer in his blog at ESPN.com.

With respect to Sheehan, Neyer, other stat geeks, and most importantly the 28 percent of baseball sports writers who voted against Rice, they need to think again--and take a more objective look at the numbers.

Based on three key statistical tests of a slugger, Jim Rice not only deserves to be in the Hall-he resoundingly deserves it. Contrary to the impression from his fourteen years lingering at the doors to Cooperstown, Rice is not just a player hovering near the threshold of qualification for the Hall, he is a once dominant-slugger who is solidly over that threshold, based on his statistics.

Numbers don't lie. In Rice's case, the three key numbers are the number of times he led his league in total bases, his superlative seasonal average for total bases, and his equally strong seasonal average for RBIs. RBIs may be capricious, but total bases are not. They possibly correlate more strongly than any other stat to a slugger's impact. They make a definitive case for Rice's entry in the Hall.

Statistic No. 1 - Leading the League in Total Bases

Players Who Led Their League in Total Bases Four or More Times
Hank Aaron - 8 times
Roger Hornsby - 7
Babe Ruth - 6
Stan Musial - 6
Ted Williams - 5
Alex Rodriguez - 4
Lou Gehrig - 4
Chuck Klein - 4
Jim Rice - 4

Leading the league in total bases in one of the gold standards of excellence in Major League Baseball. Only eight players have ever led their leagues in total bases four or more times. Look at the group in the list above. Those are not just Hall of Famers, those are the greatest of Hall of Famers-Ruth, Aaron, Hornsby, Williams, Musial, Gehrig, and eventually A-Rod. The only exception is Chuck Klein, who is nonetheless a bona fide member of the Hall of Fame, which Rice, alone on that list, is not.