What do you think of these two players:
Player A: 9014 plate appearances, 414 doubles, 416 homers, 1604 RBI, .320 BA, .920 OPS
Player B: 9102 plate appearances, 332 doubles, 348 homers, 1298 RBI, .277 BA, .789 OPS
Look at that difference in OPS–huge, right? Player A drove in a lot more runs with a much higher batting average.
Among players with 9300 to 9700 career plate appearances, the player with the closest OPS to Player A is Al Simmons. The player with the closest OPS to Player B is Ted Simmons. That’s a pretty good representation of those numbers–Player A is a Hall of Famer while Player B is merely “really good”.
So who are these two players really?
Player A is a hypothetical player with Jim Rice‘s home totals doubled.
Player B is a hypothetical player with Jim Rice’s road totals doubled.
Rice did a lot of damage at Fenway Park and a lot less damage on the road.
For most of Rice’s career, Fenway was an extreme hitter’s park, and Rice’s totals show that he took full advantage of that. But imagine if he played somewhere else…one thing’s for sure: he wouldn’t have made the Hall of Fame.
