A little hit-and-run on yours truly in today’s Canton Repository:
SAY WHAT? Scouts Inc. analyst Keith Law said during a Jan. 2 chat on ESPN.com that he does not agree with the line of thinking that says Omar Vizquel should be considered for the Hall of Fame because another great defensive shortstop, Ozzie Smith, already is there. “The difference here is that Smith was a far, far better defensive player than Vizquel is,” Law said. Indians fans who saw Vizquel play every day would beg to differ.
Let’s just question someone’s credibility without providing any evidence to back it up. But hey, I’m sure those Cleveland fans who saw Vizquel play (but almost certainly never saw Smith) are unbiased, expert sources.
Hello from Tokyo. Are there defensive metrics to distinguish among a shortstops that you like to use and find relevant and reliable? It just appears most analysts says Ozzie is better than Omar, and that’s that. Where does one start?
The new metrics like OOZ, RZR and Dewan’s +/- are nice for evaluating present players, but don’t really help us when looking at guys who played 20 years ago. I still think the Davenport Translations are about the best we have. You can use Fielding Runs Above Replacement (FRAR), or FRAA, which I tend to prefer, and I use the measure adjusted for league difficulty (FRAR2, FRAA2)
Ozzie: 2511 Games, RAR2 868 (.35/G) , RAA2 287 (.11/G)
Vizquel: 2569 Games, RAR2 653 (.25/G), RAA2 109 (.04/G)
Vizquel is very highly regarded because of his barehanded plays, and making routine plays look really tough….he’s like the shortstop version of Jim Edmonds.
Some other guys, for comparison’s sake.
Trammell: 2139 Games, RAR2 594 (.28/G), 101 RAA2 (.05/G)
Ripken: 2302 Games, RAR2 622 (.27/G), 90 RAA2 (.04/G)
Keith,
People value defense by what they see. And Cleveland fans saw Vizquel’s defense on a daily basis while seeing Ozzie only in highlights. They came to believe Vizquel had to be as good as Ozzie because who could possibly be better.
And, unlike offense, it isn’t as easily measured. So, Vizquel makes all the plays, or so they think, and doesn’t make errors; why isn’t he as good or better?
It’s been a thirty year struggle to get people beyond batting average, imagine what it will take for them not to believe their own eyes.
Keep fighting the fight.
I introduced my fielding system in the Hardball Times 2008 Annual. It compares how a pitcher’s SS does with and without a particular guy. For example, when Jeter is on the field, pitcher’s out rates from SS decline dramatically.
Anyway, Mark Belanger and Ozzie Smith are the runaway leaders. Omar Vizquel is a bit above average.
MGL’s UZR for Vizquel had him at around +8 runs for 1999-2002, per season. And from 2003-2007, he was +8 runs per season.
Fans however LOVE Vizquel, and see him as one of the best fielders today.
When fans see a player that doesn’t make errors and makes athletic/heady plays they automatically bump up the fielding love. Vizquel fits that model.
The Ozzie/Vizquel comparisons got me curious about how the next great shortstop, Troy Tulowitzki, matches up, so I started punching in names of all the shortstops I could think of, past and present, at baseball prospectus and looking at their Rate2 numbers (Rate2 is based, I believe, on the same statistics James was using above; it is, according to BP, adjusted to account for era. Like OPS+, etc., 100 is the average). The following things struck me:
1) As KLaw says, Ozzie is head and shoulders above the rest – his career Rate2 of 112 is higher than any others I found (Lou Boudreau is at 110, Wagner and Rizzuto at 108, all in significantly fewer games), and 7 or 8 points higher than most of the so-called greats. Vizquel is at 104; interestingly, longevity seems not to have hurt either, as their last few years are all around their career average (Vizquel even at 111 last year). Ozzie’s best year, 123, was the best I found; he broke 120 in one other full season. Several others, including Vizquel, hit 120 for a single season.
2) Tulo’s Rate2 last year was 120; we now have the good fortune of being able to watch and see if he is a very good defender who had an exceptional year, or if he really can keep company over the course of a career with the great, and to this point incomparable, Ozzie Smith.
3) I mentioned that Omar and Ozzie’s numbers did not noticeably drop in the closing years of their careers; on the opposite side we have a player like Phil Rizzuto (career Rate2 of 108). Rizzuto’s Rate2 numbers, by season, from 1941 to 1955: 118, 111, 99, 121, 101, 115, 116, 108, 110, 98, 97, 81.
In case people are curious, this was far from exhaustive – I probably punched in about 30 names, including most of the current shortstops and all the famous names that sprang to mind – Wagner, Rizzuto, Reese (102), Aparicio (101), Boudreau, Ripken (104), Trammell (105), Vaughan (107), Banks (106), Cronin (102), Belanger (103), R. Ordonez (107).
I also do not pretend to know anything about how good a measure Rate2 is; it was just convenient for what I was looking at.
Having hammered my head against different fielding stats for a couple of years, I really like Tango’s idea.
I wouldn’t get too excited about BP’s stats though. Their top all-time season in the field over the last 40 years belongs to Orlando Cabrera, 2001, edging out Ozzie’s best (1982) is every category. If you don’t have very nice PBP, it’s tough to know what you’re getting.
Incidentally, doesn’t Stats PBP go back to 1985? Any chance UZR will get extended back that far?