HALL AWAITS EXPO RAINES
Class of 2017 named today
It certainly looks like former Expo Tim Raines is headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
The reaction from Montreal baseball fans will be: What took so long?
The Class of 2017 — voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America — will be announced at 6 p.m. Wednesday and Raines could become only the third player named to the Hall of Fame as an Expo, following Gary Carter (2003) and Andre Dawson (2010). Ryan Thibodaux, who keeps track of publicly released Hall of Fame votes, reported Tuesday that he had seen more than half of this year’s ballots and Raines’s name was on 89.7 per cent of them. A player needs 75 per cent for induction and this is Raines’s 10th and final year of eligibility after getting 69.8 per cent last year.
Seventeen of the more than 400 BBWAA voters work for ESPN and 16 of them have voted for Raines (91 per cent), more than any other player and ahead of Edgar Martinez and Vladimir Guerrero, another former Expo, both with 15 votes. This is Guerrero’s first year of eligibility and it seems unlikely he will make it — although it could be close.
One of the main people behind the push to get Raines into the Hall of Fame is baseball writer Jonah Keri, author of the fantastic book on the Expos titled Up, Up, & Away. He says the reason Raines isn’t already in the Hall has a lot to do with older writers who don’t understand, or really believe in, analytics and rely on the belief that a Hall of Famer needs to have 3,000 hits or 500 home runs. Raines had 2,605 hits and 170 homers, but he also stole 808 bases and had a .385 on-base percentage. To put that in perspective, first-ballot Hall of Famer Willie Mays’s on-base percentage was .384.
“There’s no specific criteria for voting for the Hall of Fame,” Keri said. “So when you’re presented with ambiguity and it’s 75 per cent of the vote, you’re going to get dissenters. Things like: ‘Oh, I’ve got to add up the hits plus walks — and he played for the Expos? I don’t know? (Ken) Griffey feels like a Hall of Famer, I’ll vote for Griffey.’ ”
Keri said the momentum for Raines picked up in recent years because the nature of voters changed and writers who haven’t covered baseball for 10 years no longer have a ballot. Keri added there are 12 new voters this year and all of them voted for Raines.
When asked what has driven him so hard to persuade voters to put Raines on their ballot, Keri said: “First of all, I was born and raised in Montreal as a big Expos fan and Raines was my guy. His rookie season was ’81 and that was the year I turned 7. His best seven seasons arguably were then through ’87, taking me to 13, so they were formative years if you’re a baseball fan.
“Not only was he my favourite player, but it’s the perfect intersection of that and analytics. My dad got me my first Bill James book when I was eight years old, I wrote for Baseball Prospectus, the (book and movie) Moneyball did OK. All that stuff. And Raines is the poster boy when it comes to analytical arguments because he didn’t have 3,000 hits or 500 home runs.”
Nobody saw Raines play more games with the Expos than the team’s former play-by-play announcer Dave Van Horne and it didn’t take him long to realize he was watching a Hall of Fame talent.
“For the 10-year period after breaking in with the Expos, Tim Raines proved to me back then that he was not only a perennial all-star, but he was a potential Hall of Famer even at that time,” Van Horne said. “He could just take over a game in so many ways, primarily with his speed and his bat. Tim had an immediate impact on the National League and certainly on the Expos. That was a very special 10-year period. I’m glad that all of us got to see it up close and personal.”
Michael Farber joined the Montreal Gazette as a sports columnist in 1979, the same year Raines played his first six games with the Expos late in the season as a 19-year-old pinch-runner without getting a single at-bat, but stealing two bases. Raines started out as a second baseman, but didn’t have the hands to be a middle infielder and was moved to left field. Farber, who joined Sports Illustrated in 1994, believes Raines would already be in the Hall of Fame if he had remained in the infield because his numbers would have been compared with second basemen instead of corner outfielders.
“People talk about Raines’s legs, but he was a terrific hitter,” Farber said. “He had a great eye at the plate, too, which is one reason he doesn’t have 3,000 hits — because he walked a lot (1,330 times).”
Raines is considered one of the best leadoff hitters in majorleague history, but he could also hit in the No. 3 spot.
“I don’t know how many players were capable of being the perfect leadoff hitter and the perfect No. 3 hitter in their career, and that was Raines,” said Sportsnet’s Jeff Blair, who covered the Expos for the Montreal Gazette from 198997. “That’s awfully hard … you just don’t find guys like that usually.”
We’ll find out Wednesday if Raines will indeed be inducted into the Hall of Fame on July 30, but we already know former MLB commissioner Bud Selig will be going in after being elected by the veterans committee.
“I think this could be kind of a special Hall of Fame class,” Blair said. “You could have Tim Raines, Vladimir Guerrero and Bud Selig going in on the same day. Bud Selig, the guy who moved the team out of Montreal. This could be the most … I don’t know what you’d call it? Not the most perfect day for Expos fans, but it kind of brings the entire history into perspective.”
(Raines) could just take over a game in so many ways, primarily with his speed and his bat . ... I’m glad all of us got to see it.