Brown: Raines to Hall of Fame is a close call
We’re zeroing in on the Jan. 6 reveal of the BBWAA 2016 Hall of Fame class, one certain to include Ken Griffey Jr. and maybe another player or two. As we lead up to the announcement, CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball scribes are running through the serious candidates one day at a time. Up this time is Tim Raines.
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Tim Raines is one of the best leadoff hitters of all time — he’s 47th all-time in times on base, fifth in stolen bases (and 13th in SB percentage), and 41st in win probability added. His career performance ranks closely with the typical Hall of Fame outfielder. High peak, long and steady duration. And yet, his voting totals have been mediocre at best through eight seasons on the ballot. He’s only got two chances remaining with the Baseball Writers Association of America. If he’s going to make it to Cooperstown without going through an old-timers committee someday, he has to do it soon.
The good news for Raines and Raines fans: He just might make a leap that’s big enough to reach the Hall. Needing a seemingly monumental 20 percent increase over his 2015 totals to achieve 75 percent and induction into the Hall this year, Raines has been getting 80.1 percent of the vote at Ryan Thibs’ Hall of Fame tracker, which has counted 136 of the estimated 450 ballots — about 30 percent — expected to be cast.
Thibs’ tracker gave Raines 60.42 percent of the vote in 2015, with his official total 5.42 percent less. Mike Piazza tracked similarly, with 75.23 percent at Thibs Tracker and 69.9 percent in reality. Jeff Bagwell polled at 60.73 percent and finished with 55.7 percent.
The Hall’s announcement for 2016 comes Wednesday. If history repeats and Raines loses 5 percent from his polling total, he’ll have just enough to reach the 75 percent threshold. If that happens, he’s in. And even if it doesn’t, it bodes well for Raines’s 10th and — gulp — final season on the ballot for 2017.
With about 100 fewer Hall of Fame voters in 2016 after the BBWAA purge of inactive writers, it figures — though it’s not guaranteed — that the composition of the electorate is getting more likely to admit Raines. Considering his total has gone from 22.6 percent in 2009 to 55 percent in 2015, and perhaps somewhere in the 70s this year, it’s a safe assumption that the voters are warming to Raines’s case. And if he’s left just a bit short this time, one more year of discussion almost certainly will put him over the top. The more Raines’s accomplishments are examined, the more obvious it becomes that he was among the great players of all time.
He’s going to make it to Cooperstown. It just might take one more try.
Tim Raines will either make it to Cooperstown, or come up just short in 2016. (Getty Images)
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