Stop the Press! After further consideration I may be inclined to reverse my opinion on Jim Rice which I have never done before. I know everyone is riveted to their seats on this. : )

My initial thought on Rice was he was very, very good and a tough case. He probably falls just a hair short on the HOF. My problem was with some of his mediocre years while he was in the prime of his career. He’s got 5 Hall of Fame seasons: (75, 77, 78, 79 and 86 – maybe another) while others (76, 81, 85, 83) are more ordinary. The ordinary ones are occurring in the prime of his career. That, with the fact that 87, 88 and 89 he just fell off. After all, Mattingly had 5 seasons that were “off the charts” and he is not HOF worthy.

Placing him in the context of his era is very important. And while I always recognized him as one of the best offensive players of his era (perhaps scarier than Murray) I thought those ordinary seasons dragged him down. After thinking back to that era I cannot find another player who neatly fits into his era (76-86). Maybe Dave Winfield, Eddie Murray, Ken Singleton, Don Baylor, George Brett, Cecil Cooper, Hal McRae, Reggie Jackson, etc. I focused mainly on Brett and Baylor. Rice was better than Cooper, McRae and Singleton (sorry Kenny) and Jackson, Winfield and Murray are obvious HOFs.

Although Baylor had an incredible 1979 season, that was basically it. He had some other good years but nothing to compete with Rice’s seasons. Rice was better.

Brett is another story. Rice compares favorably to Brett (check out runs created taking into consideration Brett played 5 additional seasons). Although Brett is all-world in terms of his post season production. Regular season wise, Rice was every bit as feared as Brett was. I think I should have emphasized the context a little more. And if Brett is a first ballott Hall of Famer (I have no problem with that) he’s not so much better than Rice where he’s a first ballotter and Rice doesn’t get in.

I don’t like to change my mind – and I normally do not like writers who vote against a player in 1999 only to vote for him 4 years later (what changed in that span?). I think I have to reverse my thoughts on Rice.