My First Cards

This is the only ’81 highlight card that celebrates an entire season, not a specific event.

A crucial moment in that season was on Saturday August 29, 1981, when Tim Raines broke for 2nd base and seconds later broke the record for steals in a season by a rookie.

He’d have done it a couple months earlier if the strike didn’t happen and wipe out 2 months of games. Nonetheless, Raines ended the season with 71 steals in 82 atttempts; a remarkable 85.6% success rate.

It’s even more remarkable than it sounds. He did this in just 88 games. As a rookie. If the strike didn’t happen and we assume he plays in the rest of the Expos games, then he’d get 132 steal attempts in 142 games. If he kept stealing at an 86.5% success rate, he’d have swiped 114 bases in ’81.

Of course, if he got that close to the pe-Rickey record 118 steals, I think he’d have pushed to swipe 5 more. Who wouldn’t? I would.

By the time Tim finished his playing days, he had a career .388 OBP, 1571 runs scored, & ran his way to 5th in steals all-time by stealing bases at the highest success rate in history.

So, does Tim Raines belong in the Hall of Fame?

I think the best way to answer that question is by looking at his combined Total Bases + Steals + Walks (IBE), which is a little statistic I created to help me quantify the production by a player for their team. For now I call it Isolated Bases Earned.

These three stats together (TB + BB + SB), isolate how many bases a player earned without the help of teammates, errors, fielder’s choices, intentional walks, or sac hits. It doesn’t include intentional walks, because that’s more to do with the batter’s reputation on that particular moment instead of their ability.

Now let’s compare Tim Raines IBE to a few Hall of Fame sluggers and hitters and see who went farthest on the base paths on their own—

There’s 26 higher on the list than him, and everyone else in history did worse. This is just showing that Tim Raines fits in perfectly with other Hall of Famers when you think about how much they each produced in terms of how far they got themselves on the basepaths without the help of a teammate.

It doesn’t matter if you hit 20 doubles or if you stole second base 20 times, it’s just different styles of getting there on their own. It doesn’t matter if you smack 20 triples or steal third base 20 times, it’s just different ways to achieve the same result of getting into better scoring position.

By the way, if I calculate correctly, then Tim Raines advanced 1 base every .57 plate appearances. That’s a slightly better average than 1 base for every 2 PA’s, without help. Think about that. That’s impressive.

Among other numbers that put him in a class with Hall of Famers, this IBE stat really nails down my belief that he belongs in Cooperstown. There’s just not many players who can say they touched over 5900 bases without help, but Tim Raines is one of them.