This issue came up on the SABR list this week. Someone suggested that batters in the lineup slot ahead of him were helped by his presence. That is, since pitchers knew Rice was up next, they gave good pitches to the current batter. Did batting in front of Rice actually help anyone? I address this below but first I discuss Rice and intentional walks.
My recollection is that Rice was very feared and he was very imposing. So many HRs (and so many long ones) were probably the reason. But he only finished in the top 10 in IBBs 3 times in his career (thanks to Lee Sinins Complete Baseball Encyclopedia). A 5th a tied for 10th and a tied for 9th. Also, he was only tied for 12th in the AL in IBBs from 1975-89. Here are the leaders:
1 George Brett 187
2 Eddie Murray 131
3 Rod Carew 111
4 Ben Oglivie 95
5 Harold Baines 89
6 Wade Boggs 87
T7 Reggie Jackson 85
T7 Ken Singleton 85
T9 Don Baylor 82
T9 Don Mattingly 82
11 Carlton Fisk 78
T12 Kent Hrbek 77
T12 Jim Rice 77
I would expect a feared hitter to rank higher. There are lots of factors that go into IBBs. Maybe he always had someone good behind him (but these other guys might have, too). The guys ahead of him tend to be lefties or switch hitters. Maybe that is the reason (I think there is another interesting issue here about IBBs that I address below after I discuss if batting in front of Rice actually help anyone).
As for how batters in front of him did, I looked at 4 seasons, using Retrosheet, 1977-79 and 1983, arguably his 4 best years. I threw out 1979 since Rice batted 4th all year and Lynn pretty much was the only 3rd place hitter and Lynn did not bat anywhere else.
Let's start with 1977. Rice pretty much batted third. Below are the players who had a significant number of ABs batting both 2nd and in other slots. I show there ABs, AVG, SLG. First I show there stats batting 2nd (in front of Rice) and then the others (combining all ABs not in front of Rice)
Doyle (137-.219-.285) (318-0.248-.318)
Lynn (364-.253-.453) (133-0.278-.428)
Now 1978 (Rice was pretty much 3rd)
Burleson (76-.197-.263) (550-.255-.349)
Lynn (80-.275-.463) (461-.302-.497)
Remy (418-.280-.349) (165-.273-.352)
Now 1983 (Rice was pretty much 3rd)
Boggs (315-.352-.470) (267-.371-.506)
Evans (258-.225-0.419) (212-.255-.458)
Stapleton (54-.259-.352) (488-.246-.365)
It does not look like hitters did alot better in front of Rice than they did elsewhere.
I mentioned the leaders in the AL in IBBs from 1975-89 in my last post. I also just checked the NL. Below are the top 20 in each league. It looks like the AL only had 5 righties while the NL had 10. Also, the top 2 in the NL were righties while in the AL the highest ranked righty was tied for 9th. Seems like a big difference between the two leagues. Also looks like all 10 righties in the AL had more IBBs than the highest ranked AL righty (Baylor). Maybe it is jut a fluke. My apologies if I miss labeled anyone below. I put in R for the righties and nothing for lefites and switch hitters.
AL
1 George Brett 187
2 Eddie Murray 131
3 Rod Carew 111
4 Ben Oglivie 95
5 Harold Baines 89
6 Wade Boggs 87
T7 Reggie Jackson 85
T7 Ken Singleton 85
T9 Don Baylor-R 82
T9 Don Mattingly 82
11 Carlton Fisk-R 78
T12 Kent Hrbek 77
T12 Jim Rice-R 77
T14 Cecil Cooper 73
T14 Fred Lynn 73
16 Mike Hargrove 68
T17 Alvin Davis 67
T17 Robin Yount-R 67
19 Bruce Bochte 65
20 Buddy Bell-R 62
NL
1 Mike Schmidt-R 184
2 Dale Murphy-R 141
3 Dave Parker 139
4 Garry Templeton 134
5 Keith Hernandez 127
6 Ted Simmons 124
7 Jose Cruz 123
8 Bill Madlock-R 112
9 Tim Raines 110
10 Jack Clark-R 104
11 Andre Dawson-R 103
12 Steve Garvey-R 100
13 Gary Carter-R 98
T14 Ron Cey-R 96
T14 Pedro Guerrero-R 96
T14 Leon Durham 96
T14 George Foster-R 96
18 Darryl Strawberry 93
19 Ron Oester 92
20 Dan Driessen 91
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