Posted by MikeT23 on 8/23/2013 5:46:00 PM (view original):
Mattingly, at his peak, best player in baseball.
Raines, at his peak, standing on 2nd hoping somebody gets a hit.
Maybe. Mattingly's peak was what, 4 years, though? And after that he had 2 more decent seasons. The rest of his career he's a league-average 1st basemen, at best. Raines was well above average for 15 years, and the next few he was still very good but didn't play full time. I'd have to say that Raines was quite obviously more valuable over the course of his career, and it really isn't particularly close.
As far as HOF consideration, Raines is one of the top 2 base thieves of all time. His career success rate was 84.7% Even Rickey was only successful 80.8% of the time.
And FWIW, Coleman stole at 80.9%.