Incidentally, thanks to all the loyal readers who pointed out an error in the column in which I ran through my Hall of Fame ballot and made a stirring case for Tim Raines. I wrote that Raines and Barry Bonds were the only players in history with 500 stolen bases, 150 homers and an on-base percentage of .375 or better. I got close to 50 e-mails from readers pointing out that I left out Rickey Henderson and Joe Morgan. You're right. The reason I left them out was that I also left out the other qualifier -- a career batting average of .290 or better. Morgan hit .271 lifetime. Rickey batted .279. Another near-miss: Paul Molitor, who had a .369 OBP but made it in the three other categories.
Stark's initial premise is a classic example of stat cherry picking. Those sets of numbers are just so random it doesn't tell us much about if the player is good. Its a common trick you will see sports writers try to pull from time to time. When making a insightful comment about player X, they will pick what ever numbers they can in any category until they can make player X look unique. Then they can go on to cleverly declare that player x good because he meets this arbitrary set of criteria. There are actually a lot of really good reasons to vote for Tim Rains. I am glad to see Stark did indeed support Raines for the Hall and he did make other good points. I just think something like this is kind of pointless and adds little to the argument.
Random number of the day: Career OPS+ 207 ... How is this for cherry picking? I was just randomly surfing around baseball reference (I love that site) when I saw this. It just looked kind of funny to see a number as big as 207 next to OPS+. Pretty incredible that through out his career he doubled up his peers in OPS. His stat line is a fun one to look over sometime when you have a chance ... just amazing.
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