Omar Vizquel played more games at shortstop than any other man in the history of baseball. His career spanned four decades and 24 seasons, over which he won 11 Gold Gloves. Vizquel will be on the Hall of Fame ballot for the seventh time this December and is seeing his chances at the Hall of Fame disappear because of two scandals involving domestic violence and sexual harassment.
Prior to the two “character clause” issues, the center of the debate about Vizquel’s worthiness for a plaque in Cooperstown was between the community of sabermetricians and people who follow their instincts when evaluating a player’s Hall of Fame candidacy. Essentially, it was a WAR test vs. an eye test. Now it’s all about the character clause.
Vizquel, a flashy defensive player at shortstop, was considered the natural heir to the great Ozzie Smith. Omar and Ozzie. Vizquel and the Wizard. The Viz and the Wiz. Ozzie was known for his signature back-flips. Omar was known for his acrobatic play and, in particular, his ability to cleanly field a bouncing ball with his bare right hand and throw to first base in one fluid motion.
In his first year on the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) ballot, the Venezuelan Vizquel got 37% of the vote. That’s far short of the 75% needed to be granted a Cooperstown plaque but it’s a fairly good tally for a first-year candidate. Excluding those still on the ballot, in the history of the Hall of Fame voting, only Steve Garvey, Curt Schilling, and Roger Clemens got more than 37% of the vote on their first ballot without eventually getting elected to the Hall of Fame (Barry Bonds clocked in at 36% in his first year).
As a comparison, Luis Aparicio, a fellow Venezuelan shortstop, got 28% of the vote on his first ballot in 1979. Five years later he was in the Hall of Fame.
Vizquel’s BBWAA Vote Share Craters
In 2019, Vizquel crept up to a 43% tally. In 2020, he received the support of 52.6% of the electorate. In January 2021, however, his vote percentage sagged to 49.1%, a result of the breaking news in December 2020 that his wife Blanca had accused him of multiple instances of domestic violence.
Then, in the summer of 2021, we had more disturbing news about Vizquel’s character. In a civil lawsuit, an autistic man accused Vizquel of sexual harassment. The man was a batboy when Vizquel was the manager of the Birmingham Barons, the AA affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. The details of the allegations are lurid and disgusting.
As a result of the sexual harassment allegations, Vizquel’s support among the voting members of the BBWAA fell off a cliff. He received just 23.9% of the vote, a drop of 25.2%. In the modern history of voting (starting in 1966), Vizquel blew away the record of year-to-year loss in the vote, which had previously belonged to Luis Tiant.
El Tiante got 30.9% in his first year on the ballot (1988) but dropped to 10.5% in 1989, a result of an exceptionally strong list of first-time-eligible players (Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski, Gaylord Perry, and Fergie Jenkins). Only seven players since 1966 have lost as much as 15% of their voting support from one year to the next.
| Player | Year1 | Vote% | Year2 | Vote% | Drop |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Omar Vizquel | 2021 | 49.1% | 2022 | 23.9% | 25.2% |
| Luis Tiant | 1988 | 30.9% | 1989 | 10.5% | 20.4% |
| Maury Wills | 1981 | 40.6% | 1982 | 21.9% | 18.7% |
| Lee Smith | 2013 | 47.8% | 2014 | 29.9% | 17.9% |
| Bucky Walters | 1968 | 23.7% | 1969 | 5.9% | 17.8% |
| Tony Oliva | 1988 | 47.3% | 1989 | 30.2% | 17.1% |
| Mickey Lolich | 1988 | 25.5% | 1989 | 10.5% | 15.0% |
Incidentally, the biggest drop for a player’s BBWAA vote share belongs to Charles “Chief” Bender, who got 44.7% of the vote in 1947 but just 4.1% in 1948. There was a reason for this, however. The Hall instituted a rule change for the 1948 vote, indicating that only players from 1922 to 1946 should be considered. Bender, whose career ended in 1917 with the exception of a one-inning cameo in 1922, wasn’t eligible but got five votes anyway. The right-handed pitcher, a three-time winner of the World Series with the Philadelphia Athletics, was voted into the Hall in 1953 by the Veterans Committee.
Anyway, in the 2023 voting cycle, it got even worse for Omar Vizquel. He received just 19.5% of the vote. It now seems nearly impossible that he’ll clear the 75% in his next four turns on the ballot.
Regarding his performance on the field, Vizquel had a devoted legion of backers who feel like he was the best defensive shortstop not named Ozzie that they ever saw. At the same time, he has always had a large contingent of critics who claim that his defensive prowess was overrated and that he wasn’t nearly proficient enough with the bat to merit a Cooperstown plaque. Despite the prior history that predicted that Vizquel would climb above 75% in upcoming BBWAA votes, the ballots of 2022 and 2023 have changed all of that.
This piece will share a recap of Vizquel’s career and take a deep dive into the baseball arguments for/against his Cooperstown candidacy before circling back to the support he’s lost from the BBWAA writers.
Cooperstown Cred: Omar Vizquel (SS)
7th year on the BBWAA ballot (received 19.5% of the vote in 2023)
- Mariners (1989-93), Indians (1994-2004), Giants (2005-08), Rangers (2009), White Sox (2010-11), Blue Jays (2012)
- Career .272 BA, 404 SB, 82 OPS+, 45.6 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
- 2,877 career hits (5th most ever among MLB shortstops, behind Jeter, Wagner, Ripken, and Yount)
- 11 Gold Gloves, 2nd most ever for a shortstop (Ozzie Smith had 13)
- Career: .9847 fielding percentage (best ever for all MLB shortstops) (min. 1,000 games)
- Led league in fielding percentage 6 times
- 2,709 games played at shortstop (most all-time)
- 1,744 career double plays turned (most for SS all-time)
(cover photo: Cleveland Plain Dealer/Chuck Crow)
Portions of this piece were originally published in October 2017 and have been updated in advance of the 2024 vote.
Omar Vizquel: Early Years
Omar Vizquel was born on April 24, 1967 (one day before the author of this piece, incidentally) in Caracas, Venezuela. The Seattle Mariners signed Vizquel for $2,000 in 1984.
The young switch-hitter spent five seasons in the minor leagues before making his MLB debut with the Seattle Mariners on April 3, 1989, 21 days shy of his 22nd birthday. Vizquel’s debut occurred on the same day as the major league debut of his highly heralded teammate, Ken Griffey Jr.
In his rookie campaign, Vizquel mostly fielded his position well but contributed virtually nothing offensively, hitting .220 with a .273 on-base% and a .261 slugging% (translating to a park-adjusted OPS+ of 50). Based on OPS+ (in which 100 is average and, thus, 50 is WAY below average), it was the second-worst offensive season in the first 14 years of Mariners’ baseball for a player with at least 400 plate appearances, second only to the 1979 campaign of Mario Mendoza.
Because of an injured knee, Vizquel didn’t join the Mariners in 1990 until July 5th. In a half-season in ’90 and a full season in 1991, Vizquel emerged as one of the best defensive shortstops in the game but still contributed very little with the bat. In his first three seasons, with 1,198 plate appearances, the young shortstop managed just a .230 BA, .290 OBP, and .283 SLG, which translates to a woeful OPS+ of 60.
“Little O” quickly gained a reputation for being a slick fielder as a young player. It’s difficult to fully trust defensive metrics (especially prior to 2002) but, according to the “Zone Runs at SS” metric on Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs, Vizquel was a top 4 defensive shortstop in the American League in each year from 1990 to 1993.
Breakthrough Season and Emergence as Defensive Star
In 1992, Omar Vizquel had a mini-breakthrough with the bat, hitting .294. He regressed a bit offensively in 1993, his fifth year in the majors, but his reputation as a sterling defender was growing. It was in ’93 that Vizquel won the first of his nine consecutive Gold Gloves.
The Mariners weren’t a very good team in Omar’s years there but these were the early years of ESPN’s Baseball Tonight, affording fans throughout the nation the opportunity to see his or any other player’s spectacular plays on a nightly basis, including West Coast games in-progress.
In April 1993, the nation got the opportunity to see Vizquel’s signature defensive move on the last out of Chris Bosio’s no-hitter on April 22. Click here to watch Vizquel’s bare-handed catch and throw to preserve the no-no.
Trade to Cleveland
After the ’93 season, Omar Vizquel was traded to Cleveland in exchange for another Latin American shortstop (Dominican-born Felix Fermin) and first baseman Reggie Jefferson. Let’s just say that trade was not a good one for the Mariners.
Vizquel spent 11 productive seasons with the Indians, winning seven Gold Gloves while appearing in the post-season six times and the World Series twice, though his teams never won the Fall Classic. The Indians were a team that was filled with offensive stars (Albert Belle, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Eddie Murray, Kenny Lofton, and Carlos Baerga). Being a solid contributor defensively was just what the doctor ordered and Vizquel was that.
On the 1995 team (which went 100-44 in a strike-shortened season and made it to the World Series before falling to the Atlanta Braves), Vizquel was installed by manager Mike Hargrove as the Tribe’s 2nd-place hitter, Although hardly a star offensively, Vizquel made modest contributions, setting career highs with 6 home runs, 28 doubles, 56 RBI, 87 runs scored and 29 stolen bases. However, in the ’95 post-season, Vizquel struggled mightily with the stick, hitting just .138 in 58 at bats.
In 1996, Vizquel established career highs for his entire slash line (.297 BA/.362 OBP/.417 SLG) while scoring 98 runs. His offensive numbers declined slightly in 1997 but he still contributed 89 runs scored, helped by a career-high 43 stolen bases. The ’97 Indians returned to the Fall Classic but fell short again, this time in 7 Games to the Florida Marlins. Again, the Tribe didn’t get much offensively from their shortstop; Vizquel hit just .233 with a .569 OPS in the playoffs.
All-Star Omar Vizquel
In 1998, with Hargrove skippering the team, Omar Vizquel made his first All-Star squad. With Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Nomar Garciaparra re-defining the position, it was not easy for an American League shortstop to make the Mid-Summer Classic in the late 1990s.
Still, Vizquel made it back in ’99, in which he had the best year offensively in his career, establishing 24-year highs across his slash line (.333 BA/.397 SLG/.436 SLG), along with 42 steals and career bests in hits (191) and runs scored (112). His WAR of 6.0 was good enough for the 11th-best in the entire American League (for both pitchers and position players). For his efforts, Vizquel finished 16th in the MVP voting.
1999 was also the season in which Vizquel welcomed a future Hall of Fame double-play partner in switch-hitter Roberto Alomar. Like Omar, Robby dominated the Gold Glove Awards during this era, winning 10 awards in 11 years between 1991-2001. In the three years that the slick-fielding duo played together (1999-2001), they became the first keystone combination to win three straight Gold Gloves together since the 1970s, when Joe Morgan and Dave Concepcion were each awarded the hardware for four years in a row in the N.L. (1974-77); Bobby Grich and Mark Belanger also did it in the Junior Circuit from 1973 to ’76.
In the years that followed his signature 1999 campaign, Omar was unable to maintain his All-Star batting form and his base-running game declined as well. After averaging .300 with 39 stolen bases per year from 1996-99, he fell to .269 with 15 steals per year from 2000-03. Still, in 2002 he made his third and final All-Star squad in a season in which he set career highs with 14 HR and 72 RBI. However, 2002 was the year that his streak of 9 straight Gold Gloves came to an end (Rodriguez won it in 2002 and ’03).
Final Years in San Francisco, Texas, Chicago, and Toronto
After a solid age-37 campaign (in 2004), Vizquel left the American League, signing a 3-year contract with the San Francisco Giants, where he would win his final two Gold Gloves. He spent four seasons in the City by the Bay before spending his final four seasons bouncing from the Rangers to the White Sox to the Blue Jays.
In his first two seasons with the Giants, besides winning the Gold Glove hardware, Vizquel was respectable offensively. However, starting in 2007, despite still playing well in the field, Little O started to become an offensive liability. Over 6 seasons (as a mostly part-time player), he posted a woeful slash line (.250/.305/.310), which translated to a 63 OPS+. According to Stathead’s Play Index (as ranked by OPS+), Vizquel was the third least effective offensive player in baseball for that six-year period, this for players with at least 1,500 PA.
Vizquel retired after the 2012 season at the tender age of 45.
Making the Hall of Fame Case for Omar Vizquel
I never considered Vizquel to be a Hall of Fame player but many people do. I was struck by a column I read in January 2017, shortly after that year’s vote was announced, in which espn.com’s Jayson Stark said that Vizquel would get a checkmark next to his name on his 2018 Hall of Fame ballot.
Stark’s primary case was, of course, about Vizquel’s defensive prowess, that he was the most sure-handed shortstop of all time. Stark acknowledged that Vizquel’s defensive range statistics showed that he actually wasn’t a modern Ozzie Smith but that “nobody was.” Stark noted that Vizquel had three seasons in which he played at least 140 games and had less than 5 errors, which is more than all other shortstops since 1900 combined.
Stark ultimately did not vote for Vizquel in 2018 (a casualty of the 10-player limit) but his column woke this writer up to the idea that Omar’s Cooperstown candidacy should be taken seriously. With less-stacked ballots, Vizquel did get Stark’s support in 2020 and 2021 but the writer did not vote for him in 2022 because of the domestic violence and sexual harassment allegations.
There are some lists upon which Vizquel sits that speak positively to his Hall of Fame candidacy:
- He’s one of only 22 players to last long enough to accumulate over 12,000 plate appearances. All of the others are in the Hall of Fame except for gambling-tainted Pete Rose, PED-tainted Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez, Adrian Beltre (who will be on the 2024 ballot), and Albert Pujols (2028 ballot).
- Omar is one of 7 position players to win at least 11 Gold Gloves. The only one not in the Hall is Keith Hernandez, who played first base, a much less important position on the defensive spectrum. (Hernandez is Cooperstown-worthy, in my humble opinion).
- Vizquel is one of 11 shortstops to get over 2,500 career hits. All of the others (except for A-Rod) are in the Hall of Fame.
- He had 2,877 career hits. The only players with more who do NOT have a plaque in Cooperstown are either ineligible (Rose), not YET eligible (Ichiro Suzuki, Beltre, Pujols, Miguel Cabrera), or tainted by PEDs (A-Rod, Bonds, and Palmerio). With the election of Harold Baines to the Hall in 2019 by the Today’s Game Committee, Vizquel is the only eligible non-scandal-tainted player with over 2,800 hits who is not in the Hall.
Ozzie v Omar
Anyway, if Ozzie Smith is the most germane comparison for Omar Vizquel, let’s stack up their numbers against each other, remembering of course that, for each, it’s the more difficult to measure defensive skills that are at the core of their greatness. Just going by the hardware, Ozzie finished his career with 13 Gold Glove Awards, two more than Omar’s 11.
First, the offensive profiles:
| Career | PA | Runs | Hits | 2B | HR | RBI | SB | BA | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ozzie Smith | 10778 | 1257 | 2460 | 402 | 28 | 793 | 580 | .262 | .666 |
| Omar Vizquel | 12013 | 1445 | 2877 | 456 | 80 | 951 | 404 | .272 | .688 |
Well, if you just look at that, Omar Vizquel looks pretty good.
Similarity Scores
Omar Vizquel’s offensive statistical profile, in fact, matches up very well in comparison to multiple already-enshrined Hall of Fame shortstops. On Baseball Reference, every player profile contains something called “Similarity Scores.” This was a Bill James invention designed to simply compare the statistical profiles of two players. If you are interested in the details, the methodology is linked here.
Anyway, here is the list of the top 8 players with the most “similar” offensive profiles to Omar Vizquel:
- Luis Aparicio
- Rabbit Maranville
- Ozzie Smith
- Bill Dahlen
- Dave Concepcion
- Luke Appling
- Pee Wee Reese
- Nellie Fox
With the exception of Concepcion and Dahlen (a turn of the 19th-century player), all of the most “similar” players have plaques with their names on them in the Hall of Fame. As for Dahlen, Bill James wrote (in his Bill James Handbook 2019) that he is the best position player who is eligible for the Hall but not in it.
The Case Against Omar Vizquel for the Hall of Fame
With 11 Gold Gloves and nearly 2,900 hits as a shortstop, that should be enough for a Hall of Fame plaque, right? Well, not so fast, there are three major problems.
- Some of the defensive metrics don’t back up Vizquel’s reputation as an all-time premier defender. I realize that this will be a point of contention for many people since defense is more difficult to quantify numerically.
- On balance, he was not helpful to his teams offensively.
- Finally, while the game’s coaches and managers gave Vizquel all of that hardware shaped like a glove, the writers who covered the sport did not accord that same respect when it came time to cast MVP votes. Only once (in 1999) did Vizquel receive any MVP consideration at all. In addition, he only made 3 All-Star teams in 24 years.
We’ll go through each of these objections one at a time, starting with the criticism that his defense wasn’t perhaps as great as our memories of it.
The Basic Defensive Statistics
At the most basic level, there is this: as of the end of the 2022 season, Omar Vizquel’s fielding percentage of .9847 is the best in the history of baseball for shortstops. Considering that the Baseball-Reference page that lists him at #1 only requires 500 games played to be eligible for the list, his spot on top is even more impressive because he maintained that success over the course of 2,709 games.
This statistic is the one that most certainly forms the primary basis for the 11 Gold Gloves.
Vizquel wasn’t as sure-handed in his 20s as he would become later in his career. In his first eight seasons, his fielding percentage was .979, still excellent but only .008 better than the league average. Since turning 30 years of age, however, he posted an astounding .988 fielding percentage. That might seem like a trivial difference, but it isn’t. It’s remarkable.
- 1989-1996: in 1,008 games played, Vizquel committed 95 errors at shortstop.
- 1997-2012: he committed just 88 miscues in 1,701 games at the position.
Range Factor
As we’ve learned over time, there is much more to defensive excellence than not making errors. Omar was never at the top when it comes to metrics that relate to his range factor. Bill James made us aware of Range Factor as early as the 1980s in his annual Baseball Abstract, must-reads for yours truly as a teenager. Unlike most of the modern metrics, Range Factor is pretty simple to understand:
Range Factor per 9 innings = 9 *(putouts + assists)/innings played
In his career, Vizquel’s Range Factor per 9 innings was 4.62. The league average over those 24 seasons was 4.61. This essentially means that Vizquel, over his entire career, was merely “average” when it comes to how many plays per 9 innings he was involved in.
What makes this metric meaningful in conjunction with Fielding Percentage is that a player with a super-high Fielding Percentage but a lower Range Factor can be fairly viewed as a player either with limited range or a cautious player. Having watched many of his games over the years, I’m inclined to view Vizquel as the cautious type.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Many infielders, in a futile attempt to make an impossible play, throw the ball away. Sometimes it’s better to eat it and allow the runner to reach base. My point is that, statistically, a super-high fielding percentage combined with a league-average range factor is indicative of a smart player who makes lots of plays but doesn’t hurt his team by making foolish throws when there’s no chance for an out.
Taking a Deep Dive into WAR
Anyway, advanced metrics available to us now combine these factors into one number. A brief warning to those not statistically inclined: this is a deeper dive into the weeds than I usually go. If that dive is too deep for you, feel free to scroll down to “The Art of the Bunt.”
In the next table, there will be two metrics shown:
- “WAR Runs Fielding”: from Baseball-Reference, the number of runs better or worse than average the player was for all fielding plays. This is one of the five elements that make up a position player’s WAR, the others being batting, base-running, double-play avoidance, and positional adjustment.
- “Defensive WAR”: also from Baseball-Reference, this is a “defense only” Wins Above Replacement calculation, adjusted for each position on the defensive spectrum.
I’m sharing the Top 15 for each category dating back to any player who debuted in 1902 or later. If you’re wondering why I picked the somewhat arbitrary year of 1902, it was to exclude Hall of Famer Bobby Wallace, who debuted in 1894. It’s nothing against Wallace; I just wanted to limit this to the modern game. Also excluded by choosing 1902 instead of 1901 was George McBride, a lifetime .218 hitter who would not have made the top 10 in the defensive metrics and is not germane to this discussion.
| Shortstop Ranks for players debuting since 1902 (min. 3,000 PA and 50% games at SS) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Defensive WAR | WAR Runs Fielding | |||
| 1 | *Ozzie Smith | 44.2 | Mark Belanger | 241 | |
| 2 | Mark Belanger | 39.5 | *Ozzie Smith | 239 | |
| 3 | *Cal Ripken | 35.7 | Andrelton Simmons | 200 | |
| 4 | *Joe Tinker | 34.3 | *Cal Ripken Jr. | 181 | |
| 5 | *Luis Aparicio | 31.9 | *Joe Tinker | 180 | |
| 6 | *Rabbit Maranville | 30.8 | *Luis Aparicio | 149 | |
| 7 | Omar Vizquel | 29.5 | Art Fletcher | 144 | |
| 8 | Art Fletcher | 28.3 | Jack Wilson | 141 | |
| 9 | Andrelton Simmons | 28.1 | Rey Sanchez | 141 | |
| 10 | *Pee Wee Reese | 25.6 | *Travis Jackson | 139 | |
| T11 | Roger Peckinpaugh | 25.0 | *Rabbit Maranville | 130 | |
| T11 | Marty Marion | 25.0 | Marty Marion | 130 | |
| 13 | *Dave Bancroft | 23.5 | Omar Vizquel | 129 | |
| 14 | *Lou Boudreau | 23.4 | *Lou Boudreau | 118 | |
| T15 | Ozzie Guillen | 23.0 | *Pee Wee Reese | 117 | |
| T15 | *Phil Rizzuto | 23.0 | *Phil Rizzuto | 117 | |
| *Hall of Famer |
As an aside, if you’re wondering why Jack Wilson and Rey Sanchez crack the top 15 in WAR Runs Fielding but not in dWAR, it’s because of longevity. The dWAR metric gives players credit merely for playing the position of shortstop. Therefore, the more games you play, the more “position points” you get. However, this does mean that Wilson and Sanchez were really spectacular defensive players and play for play, better than Vizquel (if you believe the metrics).
Longevity is important and most of the players on the Defensive WAR (dWAR) Top 15 list are in the Hall of Fame. Therefore, it’s logical to conclude that Vizquel might belong in Cooperstown as well. Anyway, the numbers here generally back up Vizquel’s defensive reputation but there are some other players on this list who are not Hall of Famers, most notably Mark Belanger. It’s worth a moment to look at that.
The Offensive Record
So, let’s look at a few offensive numbers for the top 7 members of the dWAR leaders, the Hall of Famers on the list, and also two members of Omar Vizquel’s “similarity score” list (Concepcion and Appling). We’ll rank the players by OPS+ (on-base% + slugging% adjusted for ballparks and seasons).
| Player | OPS+ | PA | H | BA | OBP | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *Lou Boudreau | 120 | 7024 | 1779 | .295 | .380 | 63.0 |
| *Luke Appling | 113 | 10254 | 2749 | .310 | .399 | 77.1 |
| *Cal Ripken | 112 | 12883 | 3184 | .276 | .340 | 95.9 |
| *Alan Trammell | 110 | 9376 | 2365 | .285 | .352 | 70.7 |
| *Travis Jackson | 102 | 6681 | 1768 | .291 | .337 | 43.7 |
| *Pee Wee Reese | 99 | 9470 | 2170 | .269 | .366 | 68.2 |
| *Dave Bancroft | 98 | 8249 | 2004 | .279 | .355 | 49.1 |
| *Joe Tinker | 96 | 7153 | 1690 | .262 | .308 | 53.2 |
| *Phil Rizzuto | 93 | 6719 | 1588 | .273 | .351 | 42.0 |
| Dave Concepcion | 88 | 9641 | 2326 | .267 | .322 | 40.1 |
| *Ozzie Smith | 87 | 10778 | 2460 | .262 | .337 | 76.9 |
| *Luis Aparicio | 82 | 11230 | 2677 | .262 | .311 | 55.9 |
| Omar Vizquel | 82 | 12013 | 2877 | .272 | .336 | 45.6 |
| *Rabbit Maranville | 82 | 11254 | 2605 | .258 | .318 | 42.9 |
| Mark Belanger | 68 | 6601 | 1316 | .228 | .300 | 40.9 |
| *Hall of Famer |
First of all, we can see why comparing Mark Belanger to a prospective Hall of Fame shortstop with a defensive resume is not needed. The longtime Orioles shortstop may have won 8 Gold Gloves but a .228 career batting average and 68 OPS+ do not cut it.
What jumps out here regarding our man of the hour is that Vizquel’s 82 OPS+ is really poor but that it’s identical to two Hall of Fame shortstops (Aparicio and Maranville) and just a few ticks below that of the Wizard of Oz. So let’s shorten the list to those at the lower end of the chart with respect to offensive productivity and, if we can conclude that Vizquel is in the same class as the others, then perhaps he belongs in the Hall.
The chart below is a “WAR” chart. It shows each player’s overall WAR, their offensive WAR, and also two key components that go into the offensive component (“runs above or below average batting” and “runs above or below average for base-running.”) The latter includes stolen bases, stolen base success percentage and extra bases taken, such as going from first to third on a single.
I’m adding one other player to the conversation here. It’s the longtime member of the 1970s Oakland A’s dynasty, Bert Campaneris. He, like Vizquel, played a great many years on a team of superstars. Campy’s presence is germane because he is the only Hall of Fame-eligible shortstop in the modern era with a WAR of over 50 who is not enshrined in Cooperstown.
The Components of WAR
| Player | Overall WAR | WAR Runs Above Avg. Batting | WAR Runs Above Avg. Base-Running | WAR Runs Above Ave. Fielding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ozzie Smith | 76.9 | -116.8 | 79.7 | 238.6 |
| Luis Aparicio | 55.9 | -197.6 | 92.3 | 149.0 |
| Bert Campaneris | 53.1 | -71.1 | 57.4 | 62.7 |
| Omar Vizquel | 45.6 | -244.2 | -0.8 | 128.6 |
| Rabbit Maranville | 42.9 | -228.6 | 5.4 | 130.0 |
| Dave Concepcion | 40.1 | -120.1 | 20.2 | 52.0 |
OK, so now we understand, whether you believe in the metrics or not, why WAR puts Omar Vizquel 10 wins below his boyhood idol Aparicio (another Venezuelan product). Aparicio was better as a hitter and much better as a base-runner. Meanwhile, Ozzie Smith was also a superior batsman, a better base-runner, and, of course, the owner of off-the-charts defensive metrics. Hence why Ozzie was a first-ballot Hall of Famer and Vizquel has been the subject of what may now seem to you (the reader) an endless discussion of the topic. It’s also a fair question to ask whether Campaneris (who won three World Series titles) would be a better Hall of Fame choice than Vizquel.
As you can see from this and the previous chart, the player most truly similar to Vizquel is the Hall of Famer Maranville, who is often noted as one of those first half of the 20th century Hall of Famers who probably would not have made it through today’s stacked ballots.
For whatever it’s worth, Bill James, in a recently published series on his website, ranks Vizquel as the 37th-best shortstop of all time, well behind the others on this list. James ranked Ozzie 13th, Campaneris 26th, Aparicio 29th, Maranville 30th, and Concepcion one spot behind Omar at #38.
Other Offensive Ranks
I need to put some perspective on the “WAR runs from batting” number. Omar Vizquel’s negative 244.2 is really, really miserable, almost as miserable as Rabbit’s minus 228.6. Since 1901, there have been 220 shortstops who have accumulated at least 3,000 plate appearances. Of those 220, Vizquel ranks #210 with respect to WAR runs gained or lost due to batting. That’s the 11th to last in 122 years of baseball. That may seem hard to fathom for a man who racked up 2,877 hits but 79% of those hits were singles and Omar made a lot of outs along the way as well.
There are 36 players who finished their careers with between 2,700 and 2,999 hits. Of those 36 players, Vizquel is last in OPS and OPS+, by a lot. He made the most outs in this group.
Of the 20 players with over 12,000 career plate appearances, only he and Barry Bonds failed to make it to 3,000 hits (but Bonds walked 2,558 times in his career, by far the most ever).
2,877 hits put Vizquel in 44th place all-time. The 44th place-holder on the all-time home run list is Jason Giambi, who is one spot behind Dave Kingman. I’m sorry but 2,877 hits are not a legitimate offensive Cooperstown credential, not with an 82 OPS+.
The Base-Running Record
In addition to his woeful offensive record, you might be surprised that Omar Vizquel gets no credit from WAR for his base-running ability, despite his 404 career stolen bases. So, let’s stack him up against the others (excluding Maranville because Caught Stealing statistics are not complete from the years that he played).
| Player | Runs BR | SB | CS | SB% | Extra Bases Taken% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luis Aparicio | 92.3 | 506 | 136 | 78.8% | 56% |
| Ozzie Smith | 79.7 | 580 | 148 | 79.7% | 53% |
| Bert Campaneris | 57.4 | 649 | 199 | 76.5% | 60% |
| Dave Concepcion | 20.2 | 321 | 109 | 74.7% | 49% |
| Omar Vizquel | -0.8 | 404 | 167 | 70.8% | 42% |
Well, here it is in a nutshell. Vizquel was successful only 71% of the time when attempting to steal. Any base-runner who is successful less than 75% of the time is not really helping his team. Aparicio and Ozzie, both near 80%, were assets on the bases in a way that Omar was not.
In addition, taking an extra base was not something that Vizquel excelled at. An Extra Base Taken (XBT) rate of 42% is a really low number for a player with good speed. It does play into the narrative of Vizquel as a somewhat cautious player who did not like to make mistakes, either an error in the field or by getting thrown out on the bases.
Incidentally, it did occur to me that Omar might have been overly cautious on the bases because he spent his best years in an Indians’ lineup that was packed with home run hitters. However, the numbers don’t back up that notion. Vizquel’s rate of extra bases taken was 44% in his 11 years with Cleveland. However, teammate Kenny Lofton had an Extra Bases Taken rate of 58% in 10 years, which included one season in Atlanta. Heck, Jim Thome had an XBT rate of 36% with the Tribe; Manny Ramirez was at 39% and Albert Belle’s was 47%, better than Vizquel’s XBT rate.
The Art of the Bunt
There is one offensive statistic in which Omar Vizquel reigns supreme. As a reader pointed out to me a couple of years ago, Vizquel was the Sultan of Sacrifice. With 256 sacrifice hits (bunts) and 94 sacrifice flies, Vizquel has the most combined sacrifices (350) since 1954, the first year Baseball Reference measures sacrifice flies. Ozzie Smith is a distant second with 277.
Vizquel started 2,181 games while batting either 2nd or 9th. Both batting order positions are the ones in which managers traditionally have employed a bunt to move a runner up a base. With the exception of pitchers hitting in the National League, the sacrifice is slowly becoming extinct because modern metrics generally show that it’s not worth giving up an out to move a runner up one base. Still, Vizquel was asked to do this a lot.
Besides his 256 sacrifice hits (bunts), Vizquel had an additional 151 base hits in his 509 plate appearances defined as having a “bunt” trajectory.
Baseball-Reference’s Stathead has splits for a hit or out trajectory going back to 1988, the year before Vizquel’s debut. During that time 35 players had at least 200 plate appearances that were characterized as bunts. Vizquel’s 151 bunt hits are the 5th most (behind Juan Pierre, Lofton, Brett Butler, and Otis Nixon). However, his batting average on bunts (.592) is the best of the 35. In case you’re curious, Omar is in good company here. Lofton is 2nd best with a .577 average on bunts; Roberto Alomar is 3rd (.572); Craig Biggio is 4th (.544). (Kind of neat that the top three were all teammates in Cleveland).
Of course, we will never know the career batting average on attempted bunts by early players such as Eddie Collins, Willie Keeler, or Phil Rizzuto. We do know, for however you want to value it, that nobody since 1988 was able to accomplish more positive outcomes for his team by bunting than Omar Vizquel.
In 509 career bunt attempts, Vizquel moved the runner up 256 times and got a hit 151 times. That’s a positive outcome in 407 out of 509 tries for a success rate of 80%. That’s superb, the best “positive outcome” success rate of the 35 most frequent bunters.
The Bad News Splits
OK, we’ve established that Omar Vizquel was a superior practitioner in the art of the bunt. The next question I wanted to explore is whether there was some other good news in Vizquel’s splits that show some hidden offensive value in his lowly career .688 OPS.
Baseball Reference lists 40 players with at least 1,500 line drives between 1988-2022. Vizquel achieved a line drive off the bat in 18.1% of his career plate appearances, a solid number, better than all but 7 of the 40 studied players. The bad news is that his 1.599 OPS on line drives is 37th out of the 40 players. The overall MLB average is a 1.729 OPS on line drives.
It gets worse. 44 players have had at least 3,000 ground balls during the relevant 35 years. Vizquel’s batting average on ground balls was just .214, the 3rd lowest out of the 44 players. That’s a very low number for a fast player. By comparison, Ichiro Suzuki hit .286 on ground balls. Even the slow-as-a-turtle Albert Pujols hit .234 on grounders.
As for fly balls, one would not expect good results for Omar because he was not a power hitter. The results, however, are flat-out terrible. Of the 33 players with at least 2,500 fly balls since 1988, Vizquel’s .319 OPS is by far the worst. The 2nd worst number is Orlando Cabrera’s .470. 3rd worst? Jimmy Rollins at .570.
If you widen the study to look at the 225 players with at least 1,500 fly balls, Vizquel’s OPS is still last at .319, 41 points below Neifi Perez’s .360. Vizquel’s batting average on fly balls (.104) is also the lowest out of all of the 225 players. If you add Omar’s 85 sacrifice flies as a “positive outcome” for a fly ball, the “positive outcome rate” is still just 13%, the worst of all 218 players.
The conclusion? Vizquel was the best in the game at producing positive results on bunts but the worst on fly balls. The problem is that bunt plays account for just 4.2% of his career plate appearances while fly balls account for 26.4%, and ground balls 33.1%.
The Accolades Problem:
Summarizing what we’ve discussed, here are the arguments against Omar Vizquel for the Hall of Fame:
- Not a good hitter: his career batting average (.272) and on-base% (.336) were about league average; his slugging % (.352) was poor.
- Not a great base-runner: 404 career steals negated by 171 times caught stealing for a middling 71% success rate.
- Sure-handed defender but one with merely average range: his career Range Factor (putouts + assists) of 4.62 per 9 innings was barely above league average.
- Never in contention for an MVP award and only made three All-Star squads.
Arguing in favor, it comes back once again to these three things:
- 11 Gold Gloves at one of the top two key defensive positions on the diamond.
- Highest fielding percentage at his position in the history of the sport.
- 2,877 hits, which is the most for any eligible player not in Cooperstown already except those tainted by scandal.
It’s the Gold Gloves that are key. They were conferred upon Vizquel by the collective will of the league’s players and coaches.
However, the BBWAA membership never saw fit to give Omar the same level of recognition when it came time to vote for the league’s Most Valuable Player each year. So finally, let’s look at Vizquel’s MVP problem, perhaps the biggest missing piece on his resume.
Never among the Most Valuable
As we’ve seen, in 24 big league seasons, Omar Vizquel’s best offensively was in 1999, when he hit .333, had a .397 on-base%, stole 42 bases, and scored 112 runs. Still, even though he also occupied a key defensive position and was part of a flashy DP combo with Roberto Alomar, when it came time to select the MVP, Vizquel finished just 16th in the voting. He was overshadowed by two of his teammates (Alomar and Manny Ramirez) who finished tied for 3rd.
All in all, Omar’s 16th-place finish put him just ahead of the legendary Matt Stairs, John Jaha, and B.J. Surhoff. Only one of the 28 voting writers conferred an MVP vote to Vizquel. It was Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, who gave him an 8th-place nod. (Incidentally, Grant did not vote for Vizquel in his first two BBWAA ballot appearances but did check his name on the less-stacked ballot of 2020 but withdrew his name in 2021 and 2022).
This is important: 1999 was the only time in his 24-year career that Omar Vizquel received even one MVP vote. Vizquel was considered one of the top 8-to-10 players in his league just once, and only one out of 28 writers had that opinion.
Now, regarding the MVP issue, it is fair to ask if there’s an anti-defensive player bias. So let’s look at that. The chart below shows the number of times that the Hall of Fame shortstops since 1931 have received MVP votes and made the All-Star team. Why 1931? It was the first year that both leagues voted for an MVP without interruption in subsequent years.
I’ve also included Jimmy Rollins, who is on the BBWAA ballot with Vizquel.
We’ll list the players in order of the number of career All-Star appearances.
| Player | All-Star Years | **Gold Gloves | Won MVP | Top 5 MVP | Top 10 MVP | Top 30 MVP | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *Cal Ripken | 19 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 95.9 |
| *Ozzie Smith | 15 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 76.9 |
| *Derek Jeter | 14 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 12 | 71.3 |
| *Barry Larkin | 12 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 70.5 |
| *Luis Aparicio | 10 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 55.9 |
| *Ernie Banks | 11 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 11 | 67.8 |
| *Pee Wee Reese | 10 | NA | 0 | 1 | 8 | 13 | 38.2 |
| *Arky Vaughan | 9 | NA | 0 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 78.0 |
| Dave Concepcion | 9 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 40.1 |
| *Luke Appling | 7 | NA | 0 | 2 | 4 | 11 | 77.1 |
| *Lou Boudreau | 7 | NA | 1 | 3 | 8 | 10 | 63.0 |
| *Joe Cronin | 7 | NA | 0 | 1 | 5 | 8 | 64.1 |
| *Alan Trammell | 6 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 70.7 |
| Bert Campaneris | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 53.1 |
| *Phil Rizzuto | 5 | NA | 1 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 42.0 |
| *Robin Yount | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 77.4 |
| Jimmy Rollins | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 47.6 |
| Omar Vizquel | 3 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 45.6 |
| *Hall of Famer | **Gold Gloves started to be awarded in 1957 |
We can see plainly that Omar Vizquel was never accorded even close to the same level of respect by the writers as other top shortstops in history when it came time to cast MVP votes or by the league managers when it was time to pick All-Stars. It’s not that the writers voting for MVP simply ignored defensive-oriented players. Every single Hall of Fame shortstop since 1931 received some MVP love at least 6 times in their career.
One more look at the Defensive Metrics
So this is the bottom line. The biggest selling point for Omar Vizquel for Cooperstown is his 11 Gold Gloves, which are the 2nd most by any shortstop not named Ozzie Smith. But Gold Glove voting is a mostly subjective process, conducted by the league’s managers and coaches. Using objective methodology, this final chart shows where Vizquel ranked in Defensive WAR (dWAR) during his 11 Gold Glove seasons.
| Year | Def. WAR | Rank | Leader | Def. WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | 2.5 | 2 | John Valentin | 3.1 |
| 1994 | 0.8 | T-8 | Cal Ripken | 2.3 |
| 1995 | 0.9 | 8 | Cal Ripken/John Valentin | 3.0 |
| 1996 | 1.1 | T-7 | Alex Gonzalez/Jose Valentin | 2.2 |
| 1997 | 1.1 | T-7 | Mike Bordick | 2.4 |
| 1998 | 1.7 | T-5 | Mike Bordick/Deivi Cruz | 2.2 |
| 1999 | 2.1 | 3 | Mike Bordick/Rey Sanchez | 2.8 |
| 2000 | 0.8 | T-9 | Rey Sanchez | 2.8 |
| 2001 | 0.2 | T-11 | Rey Sanchez | 2.5 |
| 2005 | 0.8 | T-10 | Jack Wilson | 4.1 |
| 2006 | 1.4 | T-7 | Adam Everett | 4.1 |
Even if you are suspicious of retroactive defensive metrics (as I am), this is an amazing chart and almost impossible to disregard. In the 11 years that Omar Vizquel won a Gold Glove, he never led his league in Defensive WAR and only finished in the top four twice.
If Gold Gloves were handed out based on dWAR, he would have none instead of 11. Incidentally, Vizquel did finish second in dWAR in the A.L. in 1991 & 1992; he was second to Cal Ripken Jr., who won the Gold Glove in both of those years.
OK, so does that mean that dWAR is a useless statistic, or does it mean that Vizquel’s greatness was overrated? Well, by point of comparison, Ozzie Smith (the undisputed gold standard at the position) won the Gold Glove award 13 times. In those 13 seasons, he led the National League in dWAR (among shortstops) 10 times and finished 2nd the other three times. So, based on that information, it’s hard to simply dismiss the defensive metric dWAR as being categorically flawed.
The Wizard was famous for the acrobatic backflips that he performed to delight the crowd before the game. Vizquel also displayed an acrobatic flair in the field and reminded us all (players, coaches, managers, writers, and fans) just a little bit of the great Ozzie. He established his golden reputation early in his career and the reputation stuck with him. And he absolutely was an excellent defensive player.
I don’t profess to be an expert on how dWAR or “Total Zone Runs” are calculated but I think it’s likely that it underrates Vizquel’s sure-handedness, and his extraordinary ability to minimize errors. However, is it also possible that the official scorers throughout the league gave him, based on his reputation, the benefit of the doubt on the borderline “hit or error” scoring decisions? Yes, that’s very possible, even likely.
Vizquel was an excellent defensive player but he wasn’t so great that one can ignore that he was worse than mediocre when it comes to the offensive side of the game and just average as a base-runner.
The “Eye Test”
Despite the less than other-worldly defensive metrics and his obvious shortcomings with the bat, Omar Vizquel did quite well with the voters before his scandals, getting 52.6% on the 2020 ballot, which was the last one before the domestic violence allegation was made against him. That news broke in December 2020, after most writers had sent in their ballots, so he sagged only to 49.1%.
This is a brief sample of some of the things written in favor of Vizquel for the Hall of Fame in the years prior to the news of the domestic violence allegation.
“Yes, my small Hall includes Vizquel. Go ahead and torch me for that, but I believe that longevity matters — especially at the most grueling position on the infield — and there aren’t metrics that can adequately assess the transcendent joy he brought to anyone who watched him play.”
— Andrew Baggarly (The Athletic Bay Area, 12/30/19)
“I have two very simple Hall of Fame criteria: The first is the ‘see’ test. In watching a player for 10 or more years, did I say to myself: ‘I’m looking at a Hall of Famer?’ The four greatest fielding shortstops I ever saw were Vizquel, Ozzie, Luis Aparicio and Mark Belanger. Ozzie had the flair and the back flips, but Vizquel, for me, was the best. Made every play look easy.”
— Bill Madden (New York Daily News, 12/8/17)
“A consummate fielder — I said consummate — fielder, and teamed with Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar to form the best DP combo I ever saw. Yes, I am partial to defensive whizzes, and I refuse to apologize for it.”
— Bob Ryan (Boston Globe, 1/8/18)
“Face it, Vizquel’s was his generation’s Ozzie Smith, or the closest facsimile… Stats are important, and newer metrics that better compare players through different eras are valuable. But they are the sum of a player’s career. If you use numbers alone to shunt Vizquel into that mythical Hall of the Very Good, it’s a fair bet you did not see him play. Sometimes a man is a Hall of Famer because, well, he just is.”
— Henry Schulman (San Francisco Chronicle, 12/26/17)
If the eye test is enough for these writers, that’s fine. They’ve been covering the sport for a long time and have earned their Hall of Fame votes. Their eyes and the opinions formed by them represent a legitimate point of view. But these gentlemen, veteran baseball writers all, are part of a fraternity that almost never considered him one of the top 10 players in the league.
Remember, however, that these comments are part of the historical record that indicated that Vizquel was on track to eventually make the Hall of Fame. But that’s all changed.
Fall from Grace
With the second piece of shocking news regarding Vizquel (the lurid sexual harassment lawsuit) having been revealed in the summer of 2021, Vizquel’s support cratered to 23.9% in 2022 and dropped even further (to 19.5%) in 2023. As we’ve already documented, it’s by far the biggest nosedive in BBWAA support in the modern history of the vote (since 1966). Although neither allegation has been proven, there’s the old “fool me once, fool me twice” mantra that is clearly in play.
“I’m dropping Vizquel while he remains the subject of active litigation as well as an investigation by Major League Baseball. I still believe Vizquel’s on-field performance warrants induction. But he has five more years on the ballot, and I have no problem hitting pause on his candidacy when I consider 10 others deserving. Frankly, this is the course I should have taken all along.”
— Ken Rosenthal (The Athletic, 12/16/21)
“This is Vizquel’s fifth year on the ballot and the first time I have not voted for him. I have been a supporter of his candidacy because, unlike defensive metrics (that I typically don’t trust), I believe he was among the best defensive players to ever handle shortstop. I also believe, offensively, he was what teams wanted in a No. 2 hitter in the era he played… But in light of two ugly reports about his off-field conduct, that character check has switched spots on the ledger. I’m not the moral police. And I know the Hall isn’t filled with choir boys. But there are some offenses that shouldn’t be overlooked.”
— Dan Connolly (The Athletic, 12/28/21)
“In my eyes, Vizquel is one of the best defensive players in history and therefore deserves to be, at some point, in the Hall of Fame. Sadly, I don’t think that time should be next summer… As the father of six children, I do not take these allegations lightly or underestimate them down to a simple ‘they are things that happen in a dressing room.’ Especially if the potential victim is someone with autism. Hoping to have more clarity on the matter, I decided not to vote for Vizquel this year. I reserve the right to change my mind in the future.”
— Enrique Rojas (ESPN Deportes, 12/31/21)
Update for 2023 on Vizquel’s Troubles
On December 27, 2021, after most of the BBWAA writers had made up their minds, Omar Vizquel issued a statement on Twitter in which he declared that “the supposed domestic violence accusations put forth by my now ex-wife Blanca García were disregarded by the judge due to a lack of evidence or any supporting evidence,” adding that García “intentionally used my name and my persona in a defamatory manner but that her allegations were ultimately denied and dismissed.”
Hall of Fame historian Jay Jaffe, in his thoroughly researched piece about Vizquel and his issues, notes that “his statement appears to conflate activity in his divorce proceedings (mainly a matter of dividing up assets) with clearance of domestic abuse (while he was arrested in 2016 on a charge of fourth-degree assault, he was never prosecuted because she declined to testify.” Jaffe also noted that the divorce proceeding was ongoing, as of December 2022.
Regarding the sexual harassment allegation (that he exposed himself to an autistic batboy while managing the minor-league Birmingham Barons), the White Sox and Vizquel reached a confidential settlement with the batboy in June 2022.
Jaffe has many more details about Vizquel’s domestic abuse and sexual harassment cases at the end of his piece about Vizquel, and sums up his thoughts about Vizquel’s Cooperstown candidacy this way:
“While it does not necessarily follow that voters would or should directly connect allegations of domestic violence or sexual harassment against any candidate to the ‘integrity, sportsmanship, [and] character’ clause in the Hall of Fame’s voting instructions, it’s not out of bounds for a voter to do so, viewing such matters as far more serious than, say, PED violations. In that light, it’s understandable why voters might choose to withdraw their previous support, and/or to withhold it even after the cases have been closed. This is all dark stuff, and even for those of us who were prepared to squabble over the shortstop’s statistical qualifications for the remainder of his candidacy, nobody could have imagined his case would take this surreal and disheartening turn.”
— Jay Jaffe, FanGraphs (Dec. 22, 2022)
Conclusion
Omar Vizquel’s support from all of the voters who left his name off the ballot could, of course, return if he’s cleared of the allegations against him. I’m not a BBWAA member but, as someone who writes more about Hall of Fame candidates than all but a couple of them, I never felt that Vizquel was worthy of the Hall based on his performance on the field. In my view, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say “this guy isn’t one of the 10 best players in the league,” virtually ever (the lack of MVP votes), and then say “he’s one of the top 1% of all players in the history of the game.” That is inconsistent.
Vizquel was a very good player and perhaps the most sure-handed shortstop in the history of the game. However, there is statistical evidence that his defensive prowess might be overrated and, with virtually no MVP votes in his entire career and no World Series titles, it’s hard to make a Hall of Fame case.
Having said that, I used to think it was a near certainty that Vizquel had a Cooperstown plaque in his future simply because history has shown us that players who cross the 50% vote barrier eventually get inducted, either via the BBWAA or the Veterans Committee. It’s quite possible, in the absence of the domestic violence and sexual harassment allegations, that Vizquel would have made it into the Hall of Fame this summer or in 2024. That’s not a certainty, of course. He might have run into a sabermetric “wall” of writers such as myself who didn’t believe his numbers matched the reputation.
Regardless, as long as Vizquel has the cloud of these allegations hanging over him, the point is moot. He’s not getting anywhere close to Cooperstown.
Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred at @cooperstowncred.
I have two remarks:
1. John Franco? I can’t find his name mentioned anywhere on your blog. And you claim to be a Mets fan!
2. I’d like to see Bill James in the HOF, for obvious reasons. But my real hero among the sabermetricians is Voros McCracken.
I am among the very few people that can truly appreciate what it’s like to be an innovator of mathematics-based knowledge. For example, I have a pretty good idea of the manner in which Andrew Wiles ended up proving Fermat’s Last Theorem many centuries after it was first noted, that is, I could easily sketch a rough proof of it, and could likely bring myself up to par of actually understanding all the intermediate steps of Wiles’ proof within a year or two of intense study. And although there’s a good chance I could actually understand the proof, there’s no way on this earth I’d be able to do anything similar as original work. And this is why Voros is my hero.
He’s the everyman representative of the geek world. He’s a regular guy, who came up with something so amazing and yet so original, even though it’s something that was literally staring the rest of us in our faces. But only he was sufficiently daring to ask the right questions, and then follow through on his hypothesis, and afterwards do his best to disprove it. (This guy is a natural born abstract mathematician, even if he doesn’t realize it). Voros gives the non-Wileses of the world hope that we could discover/create something so profound, yet not rely on a set of skills and/or knowledge that would take the brightest people years to obtain.
What I’m talking about is FIP, the biggest step forward in separating fielding stats from pitching stats, and which apparently was huge in creating the universe of advanced baseball metrics in which we all now dwell. And I know there are other mental giants (Pete Palmer comes to mind) from whom one might have expected such innovation. But Voros seems like the regular guy
Voros for the HOF
I’d be in favor of Bill James for the Hall of Fame. He revolutionized and pioneered the way people think about baseball. As for John Franco, he’s not a Hall of Famer. I did comment on him briefly in the “History of Relief Pitching Part Four.” You can find that in the “Archives from 2016-2017” or at the bottom of the front page.
I get that batting average is just one indicator. However, somehow you managed to take a .272 batting average and make it seem like a .200 batting average. Something about how you are parsing the numbers seems incomplete. You apparently made no mention of Vizquel’s virtual one to one ratio of walks to strikeouts. That could explain why his other numbers are poorer, he just didn’t strike out that much and instead made contact. For someone who did not strike out a lot, Viquel’s GIDP’s are still below league average while attaining maximum at bats per season with less strikeouts means more contact than almost every other player in the league. But somehow you make that seem like a bad thing.
I think its reasonable to state that Vizquel hit .272 and produced more efficient outs than most other ballplayers, I think that is the question you tap danced around with the Bill James Schrapnel. Even a 71% stolen base percentage, while not spectacular, is still solid and, a statistic that Bill James may never wrap his numbers around because how do we factor in having a stolen base threat at first base every time he is on base, whether he steals or not, as a positive influence for the hitters who follow?
Speaking of OPS. has a speed value ever been assigned to OPS. Is a 750 OPS for a fast runner the same as an .800 OPS for a slow runner? Is there a speed offset in general? What about a hitter who moves three runners over, or two runners over on a sacrifice, those are still considered one sacrifice, no? Why is that fair? Why is it fair to not assess even a sliver of OPS to successful sacrifices? Stats apparently don’t subtract extra for too many GIDP’s, and they don’t credit solid sacrifice work offensively, these are two biases that favor the power hitter over the non-power hitter. Maybe one day we can tweak those stats and suddenly Maybe Vizquel’s OPS reaches .700 OPS mark and maybe overall OPs for power hitters drops a bit because of the extra double plays they hit into.
As somebody who watched Omar Vizquel play, I never felt like, oh no, Omar is up to bat. But there were other hitters, pure hit and miss hitters who hit for a lower average, who I thought that way of.
Hi Alessandro, you make a good point that an OPS of X for a fast runner is theoretically more valuable than an OPS of X for a slow runner. That’s true and that’s also where the Base-Running component of WAR comes in. Omar’s problem is that he was a fast runner but he didn’t perform like a fast runner on the bases. In the piece, when comparing the fast last-hitting shortstops (Ozzie, Omar, Campy, Concepcion and Aparicio) he had the lowest SB% and extra bases taken %.
You bring up another good point on the strikeout-to-walk ratio. True thing. Also true that Ozzie’s and Aparicio’s K-BB ratios were better but Campy’s and Davey’s were worse.
As for the lack of DP’s, DP avoidance is the last measured component of WAR on every player’s Baseball Reference page. I don’t usually get into it because it’s a small component. It’s small, but it’s there. If you ever wondered why Jim Rice’s WAR is under 50, DP’s are the reason.
Anyway, Omar is credited with being 9.0 runs “above average” in DP avoidance. That’s behind Ozzie (23.5), Aparicio (17.6), and Campy (16.3) and ahead of Concepcion (-10.8).
As for your final point about productive outs, such as a ground ball to second base to move a runner along, there is an “Advanced Stat” on Baseball Reference for this. It refers to a “productive out” as “advancing any runner with 0 outs” or “driving in any baserunner with the 2nd out of the inning,”
Ozzie 48%
Campy 42%
Omar 40%
Concepcion 39%
Aparicio 38%
The league average during Vizquel’s years in MLB was 33%, so he did about 7% better. That’s good but not a Hall of Fame credential.
Having said all this, I admire your passion for Vizquel. To you, he’s a Hall of Famer, and a lot of people agree with you. My guess is that he has a better than 90% chance of eventually making it into the Hall. If he can’t break through the sabermetric wall in the BBWAA (like Jack Morris and Lee Smith couldn’t), he’ll be a very popular pick with the Veterans Committee. They’ll see 25 years of service, 2.877 hits, 11 Gold Gloves, and best fielding percentage and that will be enough.
Alessandro, I’d wager a lot of money that more players, managers and coaches agree with your point of view than mine. It will take awhile but Omar Vizquel will be in the Hall of Fame eventually.
“…it’s hard to make a Hall of Fame case.”
“Having said that, I still think it’s very likely that Vizquel has a Cooperstown plaque in his future.”
Both points are valid, unfortunately. That’s not a slight against Vizquel but rather the direction in which the HOF is headed.
“Headed”?
Besides how do you take in consideration the many years he played with elegance,charisma and style?.He rose baseball as an entertainment.
Vizquel is the sort of player whose legacy is harmed by playing in the steroid era. Sure, he was only 16th in MVP voting in 1999, but several of the players ahead of him were juiced. And while his batting numbers look paltry compared to league-leaders, it is important to recognize how some of those leaders were achieving their numbers. I really don’t think Vizquel was as poor an offensive player as is suggested. It’s hard to compete when so many peers, not to mention pitchers, were taking unfair advantage. A lot has been written about denying steroid users entry into the hall, but much less about adjusting the way we think about performance of non-users who competed against them.
Vizquel should be in the Hall of Fame ..not doubt about it …
First Really Hot Take:
In his Prime, Mark Belanger was the greatest fielding of all time! Given his height and arm length he made more plays than Ozzie did even though Ozzie was the master to diving for the ball getting the out.
And yes, Omar’s HOF feels a lot like he is 90% there compared to Aparicio, Smith, Tinker, etc. (Tinker defensive WAR better and was the shortstop on one of the most dominant defensive teams ever. Hard to see issues on his values) And he is closest Rabbit Maranville who was probably a mediocre HOF choice. And not only his Vizquel career totals good but not HOF, his career peak values are even more limited in which there was only one season of 6.0, another of 4.0, and of host ~3.0+.
Someday, MLB will be just as embarrassed about having paid so much attention and respect to the Wanks who groove over sabermetrics as they are about the steroid scandal. Omar to the Hall.
Why are we even considering a guy who had an 82 OPS+, and statistically rated as an average fielder? Why are we even THINKING about it? Because he was smooth and flashy, handsome and a team leader? Because he hung around a long time? Rusty Staub matched those credentials (well, maybe not handsome, but awfully cute and lovable), and he didn’t get much consideration, and he could HIT! Keith Hernandez was the best defender at the position that handles the ball the most, won an MVP, came in second for another, and is the only untainted guy in MLB history to be in the top 3 in OBP for seven years who is not in the Hall….Don Mattingly is not in the hall, Lance Berkman had a 144 OPS+, was a good fielder, and didn’t make it off the first ballot! At the same time a RELIEF PITCHER, who only pitched 1200 innings in his entire career, gets in unanimously! These voters are not qualified! Nobody should get in the hall because he hung around a long time…that goes for Rick Dempsey, Jesse Orosco, and dozens of other journeymen. Omar was a journeyman, a good team player, who kept himself in shape, put fannies in the seats, and hung around for a long time. He was NOT a great, hall of fame player. Brian Giles WAS one of the best CFers ever, Bernie Williams was an excellent player for a long time, offensively and defensively. So was Kenny Lofton. All of them have a case, though they are borderline (not Berkman…he should have been a shoe-in.) There is no case for Omar, except popularity……drop the subject NOW, and save the votes for Jeff Kent and other borderline guys with good cases.
Joey you have no idea what you are saying,11 gold gloves and look carefully at 1991 and 1992 when the it was given to Carl Ripken, yeah he was great and iron man, but did he really deserve the 1991 and 1992 Gold Glove.
Study the game and look at it carefully and you will see.
Look and see who has won that many gold gloves and not be in the hall of fame or has that many hits and not in the hall of fame, also look at the amount of years (that means Sacrifice and Hard work no matter how you put it) only true baseball players know about this
There have been a lot of great, slick fielding shortstops who could not hit above .230 so their career was based on being a bench player. Yes, hitting .272 versus .230 is significant. But beyond that, Viquel’s walks to strikeouts RATIO is excellent. So the final complaint is the .688 OPS. But this is a bogus stat because moving a runner over matters. If we added up every runner Omar Vizquel moved over while making an out, he probably moved 600 runners over in his career, way beyond what anyone else has done. Viquel owns the modern day record with 350 combo sac flies and sac hits. But, this means if he had a sac hit with the bases loaded and moved up all three runners, he only got one sacrifice. If he purposely hit the ball to the first baseman so the runner on first reached second, he got nothing but an out. Getting on base from his hustle that caused an error, no credit. You add it all up, and if he was just given a fraction of a hit every time he moved a runner over, his effective OPS would have been .725, which would have very acceptable to go along with his 11 Gold Gloves.
And finally, the statistic that has been used to reduce the bunt to an alleged negative stat is flawed. You can’t directly compare 100 at bats with a runner at first, no outs, and the hitter hits away, with another stat of one out, a runner at second base. It can’t be done for one simple reason. The purpose of the bunt is not to get a hit, it’s to take a potentially bad at bat based on personal match ups, and convert it into something positive, especially if the player on deck has a good history with the pitcher. Whereas a power hitter who has trouble with a pitcher may try to get a walk, but otherwise would whiff and not advance the runner at all. And even with a walk if the pitcher is pitching a good game, and the next hitter hits into a double play, it may in part be caused by the slower runner at first.
The conclusion is, to punish a player now, for being able to move a runner over back in the day, is unfair. What if Vizquel had never bunted and instead hit .250 in all of his bunt attempt and move the runner over attempts? He probably has at least 600 of those, maybe as many as a thousand. If Vizquel had never bunted he probably gets his 3,000 hits and this would not even be a discussion.
A player to compare Vizquel to is Brandon Phillips. Phillips chose a poor walks to strikeouts ratio and no desire to move a runner over and his WAR is not that good. Yet people mistakenly think Phillips was the better hitter than Vizquel. Through age 39, Vizquel had an Offensive War of 35.1, Phillips through age 37, had an offensive war of 26.5. Phillips was considered a power hitter who had a lower Offensive War than Vizquel because he tried to muscle through as many RBI”s as possible while striking out way more than walking.
If Phillips had played an equivalent amount of games to Vizquel through age 39, I am estimating Phillips would have reached around a 30 to 31 O War, still well below Vizquel’s 35.1 OWAR.
Omar moved a lot of runners over because he was TOLD to bunt. Giving up an out for a base is not worth it, unless the person batting is a poor hitter and a good sacrifice bunter, which is what Omar was for most of his career. Even if he never bunted into a double play, or forced a man at second with his bunt, it would be similar to a base stealer with a 50% success rate…yeah, you get a base, but you also give up an out. If you research early baseball, you will see that the sacrifice bunt was never meant to be what it has become, except in the case of a squeeze play. In early baseball, the idea was to try to bunt for a base hit, by disguising it until the last second, and running as you bunt the ball, knowing that if you aren’t successful, at least you moved the runner over, but you were making every effort to get on base. Nowadays, batters “give themselves up” by squaring around early, and giving it away. I love it when it turns into a double play….Omar’s case as an offensive player has no merit…at best, he is an average offensive shortstop for his career, with one excellent year thrown in. His argument comes down to his glove. He was not Ozzie Smith at short, or even Rey Ordonez. He falls short.
and yet, a player with a career OPS that was .52 higher than Viquel, Brandon Phillips, Phillips had a lower overall Offensive WAR than Omar Vizquel and it wasn’t even that close.
That’s because of a couple of factors. WAR is a cumulative stat. Omar played has 5000 more plate appearances than Brandon, and played seven more years, so he had a lot more time to build up WAR numbers. WAR is not my favorite stat…nobody seems to know what or how, it measures. i prefer to concentrate on the traditional stats, and their park and league-adjusted adjusted equivalents. OPS is a problem because it weighs the slugging percentage more heavily than the On Base Percentage, but OBP is a much more important stat (it correlates much higher with run production than any other traditional stat). Brandon’s OBP is 16 points higher than Brandon’s, which negates a lot of Brandon’s edge in OPS. OPS+ might be a better way of judging them. 82 for Omar, 90 for Brandon. Take away the artificial slugging percentage advantage, and they are about even offensively, although Omar played for a much longer time, and deserves credit for that. But neither is a Hall of Fame candidate, IMHO.
The great shortstops of the era were A-Rod, Jeter, and Garciaparra (even though Nomar played only six years at short, and A-Rod moved to third to accommodate Jeter). These guys were VERY GOOD or GREAT offensive players, and two were outstanding glove men as well (Jeter being the weak link defensively, due to poor positioning early in his career). Jimmy Rollins won four gold gloves and an MVP award, had a long career, and a higher OPS+ than Brandon or Omar. Miguel Tejada also won an MVP and a GG, and had a long career, and had the same OPS+ as Brandon. Did Omar earn so many more outs with his glove than these other fine players that he makes up for his much lower OPS+? The defensive stats sure say he didn’t. Watching him, i didn’t think so, although he was flashy with that bare-handed thing. If you are looking for another HOF candidate at short, try Hanley Ramirez, with his 124 OPS+. (Omar’s is 82…100 is an average offensive player)
I know EXACTLY what I am saying. Keith Hernandez won 11 gold gloves, AND THE DEFENSIVE STATISTICS BACK IT UP….unlike Omar, who was an over-rated defender, as the stats prove, was and far below average offensively. Keith was the MVP once, and came in second once. He was one of the top three offensive players in his league for an 8 year period (’79-86), and is generally regarded as the best-ever defender at his position (Omar is not in the top five)…and Keith is not in the hall. Jim Kaat won the gold glove 16 times and is not in the hall. The gold glove has the worst voting system of all the major prizes, and it is common for players who don’t deserve it to win it. Sacrifice and hard work are not the reasons people are in the hall of fame. RESULTS are the reason. Omar hung around a long time, ans was a good all around shortstop and team leader, with one excellent year, but he just doesn’t measure up to reasonable HOF standards. Johnny Damon had about the same number of hits as Omar, was a good defender in center field, and a much better all around hitter than Omar, and HE is not in the hall. Did Omar deserve the GG in 2006, when the league range factor was 4.41, and his was 4.18? The hall of fame should not be a popularity contest, as it has become. Entrance should be primarily based on a player’s baseball abilities, especially at his ten year peak.
You pick the two defensive positions on the diamond that are probably considered the oddball positions when it comes to gold gloves. Starting pitchers only pitch ever fourth of fifth game, and first basemen don’t have to make that many throws because they are on the base that collects the most outs, and you then compare those two positions to the MOST DIFFICULT position on the diamond. I don’t see the equivalency. Unless you can prove that Hernandez was saving dozens of errant throws above and beyond other first baseman, first base is where slower players are generally put.
Then, to make matters even more off kilter, you refuse to acknowledge that Hernandez basically wore out 10 YEARS before Vizquel did when Vizquel was the one playing the toughest position on the diamond and Hernandez was playing the one position where a player can be hid other than catcher as they become less mobile.
Both Vizquel and Hernandez should be in the Hall of Fame. I wonder if there is some bias against Hernandez because he sort of fell off at an age when most Hall of Famers are still in their prime and have been known to have at least one or two more solid seasons.
I know EXACTLY what I am saying. Keith Hernandez had 11 gold DESERVED gold gloves (the defensive stats support this). He was generally regarded as the best defensive first basemen EVER. Omar is nowhere NEAR the best defensive shortstop ever…he was not the best defensive shortstop of his time…Keith was among the three best OFFENSIVE players in the league SEVEN times, and was very good several other years. And he is not in the hall. The total number of hits someone has is not impressive, when he didn’t hit for power or draw walks. Omar’s OBP proves that he was not a hugely productive player, and his OPS+ proves that he was considerable BELOW AVERAGE offensive player for his career. Hanging around a long time and making sacrifices don’t make you a hall of fame candidate, if you don’t have the output to back it up. Rusty Staub played about as long as Omar, and was miles ahead of him offensively, but is not in the hall. Jim Kaat won 16 gold gloves and he is not in the hall. Modern day defensive stats are pretty reliable. They defy Omar’s reputation as a defensive wizard. I think he was flashy, but just about average overall as a defensive player, and his offense is way below average. There are five dozen guys who deserve the hall more than him. Johnny Damon was a terrific lead off hitter, and a fine defensive center fielder who had the same number of hits as Omar, only he hit with some power as well, and he is not in the hall…didn’t even make it off the first ballot.
Cal Ripken is in the hall of fame because he was a very good fielding shortstop who hit over 400 home runs, and won two MVPs. His career OPS+ was 112. Three times in his career it was more than 140. Compre that to Omar’s career OPS+ of 82. he only got on the high side of 100 (an average offensive output) TWICE, with a high of 111. There is no comparison. Cal also broke Lou Gehrig’s iron man streak, a record no one eve thought would be broken.
Keith was to third base what Brooks Robinson was to third base in his time. Hubie Brooks played third base for the Mets when Keith came there in 1984, replacing an out-of-position Dave Kingman at first base. Hubie said he could play two steps closer to third when Keith came to the team, which means the shortstop could play three steps closer to third, and the second baseman could play FOUR steps closer to the left side of the infield. Wally Backman, the 2nd baseman used to regularly take hard hit balls up the middle (over the bag, or even to the left of second base), and turn them into ground outs, because Hernandez’s range to his right was so good that Wally could play way over by second base. Keith also revolutionized charging the sac bunt, turning many of them into DPS or force outs. He never missed a short hop, even from odd positions. His ability to dive for liners and pick them was unparalled He was just a little weak on pop-ups down the line. You had to see him play. He was almost as impressive as Ozzie, making WOW plays every other game, at least. He may have not made the hall because he got caught with cocaine once, and the media were making a big deal about that kind of thing then….also, his career numbers were lacking in any particular category that voters of the time would recognize. I only mentioned him and Jim Kaat because the other commenter asked who else won so many gold gloves and is not in the hall.
What it comes down to is this….how much did you help your team at your position? How great was your peak? How long did you keep it up? Keith was the best offensive first baseman in his league for most of a decade, and he was the best defensive player at his position ever. The MVP voting backs it up. He was an above average offensive player in his other years. Let’s assume Omar was as good a shortstop as the gold gloves indicate, even though the defensive stats don’t back it up. Was he that much better than his competition with his glove that it made up for his lack of offense when compared to his best contemporaries? I don’t think he was. He trails them by a LOT. HE did hang around for a long time, and deserves some consideration for that, but duration is not enough, IMHO.
Ok, that was an interesting defense of how Keith at first base affected the rest of the infield. Although he still had to get back to first base to get those throws, so he could only play so far off the line before his infielders would have to delay making their throws to first so he could get back in time. Omar usually had a power hitter in left field with average range at best. I think he played closer to third knowing that any ball that went up the middle would only go for a single because usually the Indians had an excellent centerfielder. So Omar may have given up some “up the middle” range to prevent pulled hits going for doubles because of the slower left fielder and turning potential doubles into outs.
But you don’t seem to want to discuss how Omar Vizquel, with an OPS that was 52 points LOWER than Brandon Phillips, when Phillip routinely hit 2nd, 3rd or even fourth in the line-up, could have an OPs that was 52 points higher than Vizquel while Vizquel still had a HIGHER yearly Offensive WAR than Phillips.
Of course Omar is not going to to get MVP votes from the New York sportswriters while they are busy casting votes for Derek Jeter and their other favorite Yankees. Also keep in mind the World Series teams Omar played with had many, multiple HOF quality players. Plenty of personalities to overshadow a quiet Visquel. Looking at straight stats, if Joe Tinker and Pee Wee Reese are in, Omar exceeds them. Granted Tinker is from the dead ball era. Sometimes I think he is in the HOF, simply because of a poem. Regarding Ozzie, his plaque credits him with doing backflips. Hurray! I never knew backflips were a criteria for the HOF. Ozzie exceeds Omar by only two Gold Glove Awards. Omar is greatly deserving. Please, let’s stop doing statistical gymnastics as a method of finding ways to keep him out.
No gymnastics. You say back flips are not a criterion for the hall of fame. Neither are gold gloves, which are the least dependable measure of fielding excellence. The voting system for the gold glove is notoriously flawed. Modern defensive statistics are much more reliable, and Omar’s stats are only average for a shortstop. Jeter’s stats showed him to be one of the worst fielders in MLB history, even though he seemed fine from observation. But the problem was his positioning….he played too shallow, and lost range because of this. When he made adjustments, his stats showed the improvement he gained. But Jeter has the excellent offensive stats plus the longevity. His case is solid. Ozzie’s fielding stats are off the charts, his reputation as a fielder was that of the best ever at any position, and he was a better offensive player than Omar when compared to the time he played. Omar’s OPS+ is 82, Ozzie’s was 87, and Ozzie was the better baserunner as well, playing on a team that was built on baserunning.
As far as Brandon Phillips vs Omar, neither was a great offensive player. Both, in fact, have below average OPS+ numbers. Jeter’s career OPS+ is 117, and his best years were in the 130s! I don’t refer to OPS much as a viable comparison tool because it is not park adjusted or league adjusted, like OPS+ is. They are both too much influenced by the slugging number, which is less important that the On base number….but this we can take into account by noting the ratio between the raw OBP number and the raw Slugging Percentage number.
Brandon had more power than Omar, but got on base less frequently (only .320 career OBP…..Omar’s is .336, on a significantly longer career). Omar’s WAR is higher, primarily, because WAR is a CUMULATIVE stat, not an average. It adds up over time. So someone who has a 4 WAR each year for 20 seasons will have a higher WAR than someone who had a 7 WAR for ten seasons (80-70). But the guy with the 70 WAR was clearly the much better player at their peaks. No one seems to be able to explain exactly how WAR is measured, so I shy away from it, and take it with a bit of a grain of salt. Neither player has a great case for the Hall of Fame, but Omar should be on the ballot because of his long career, but I wouldn’t vote for him…unless there came a year where he had little or no competition.
Ozzie was ROBBED of the MVP in ’87. This was a time when RBI and homers weighed heavy in a voters mind. Andre Dawson had 49 and 137 on a last place Cubs team. Ozzie had zero and 75 on a pennant winner. Ozzie clubbed 40 doubles to Dawson’s 24 and outscored him 104 to 90. Andre swapped 11 bags while Smith stole 43. Here’s a surprise, Smith walked 89 times to Dawson’s 32 which gave the Wiz the OBP winner .392 to .328. No need to bring up defense, as we know where that stands. So in closing I hope I made a good argument that 1987’s MVP voting was a sham. Nothing against The Hawk but the Wiz was robbed in ’87. Any thoughts?
1987 was such an aberration offensively, so many monster years with the bat. I agree that Dawson was not a good MVP choice that year but an understandable one. 49 HR was a LOT in those days.
Besides Ozzie, think about the other great candidates:
Tony Gwynn: .370/.447/.510, 56 steals, 119 runs
Eric Davis: .293/.399/.593, 37 HR, 100 RBI, 50 steals, 120 runs
Dale Murphy: .295/.417/.580, 44 HR, 105 RBI, 115 runs
Tim Raines: .330/.429/..526, 50 steals, 123 runs (and didn’t debut until May)
I could justify any of them, including Ozzie.
Bill James railed against the Dawson choice. Not only are the candidates you mention more deserving, but so were Jack Clark, Darryl Strawberry, Mike Schmidt, and Pedro Guerrero, by a lot. Voters back then were stuck on RBI numbers, never thinking that RBIs have a whole lot to do with who gets on base in front of you. In ’85, for instance, Don Mattingly and George Brett had very similar numbers when it came to HRs, BA and RBI’s, but Donnie had 30 more RBI’s so he got the award in a landslide. James figured out that Donnie got to the plate with about 100 more runners on base than George (235-330 or something like that). About half of Donnie’s rbis were Rickey Henderson, who batted in front of him that year…not a bad baserunner, that Rickey. Andre’s .328 OBP means he was making a huge amount of outs, probably among the league leaders. I don’t have the OPS+ numbers, but even with all those home runs, and the fact that he played in one of the best offensive parks in the league, his OPS number rates tenth among the people we mentioned, trailing the top players by more than 100 points. Andre’s OBP trailed Jack Clark’s by 137 points, and Tony Gwynn’s by 119 points. Andre was a fine fielder and baserunner, but so were Darryl, Eric, Andre, Ozzie, Dale, and Tim.
24 years playing short stop at high level, 11 golden gloves, highest fielding % ever, 272 batting average… enough for me… if sabermetric is as good as you think Minnie Minoso should be in HOF and he is not… that’s why baseball writers should not elect players to the HOF.. are killing legends
Minnie has a much better case than Omar. He was not allowed to play full time due to the color line until he was 25 years ols, so he missed some of his prime years. Yet he had a remarkable 17 year career anyway, with an amazing 130 OPS+ (higher than Keith Hernandez or Don Mattingly), and several deserved gold gloves. He should have been a clear choice. I don’t know if it’s too late for the Veteran’s Committee to do him justice.
One of the problems with the HOF is that there are no real objective criteria. 24 years is a long time. I think Rusty Staub played about as long, and I think his case is better than Omar’s. He could hit. Highest fielding percentage is not really a great criteria…range factor is much more important, and Omar’s range factors are average for his career. Some guys are sure-handed, but there are a lot of balls that they don’t get to…..and judgment of what is or is not an errror is kind of subjective. The gold glove category has the worst of all designs for voting. It is notorious for making some bad choices. Advanced sabermetrics show that Omar was not an outstanding fielder for his career. He was very solid, but should not have won any gold gloves. He was far below average as an offensive player, with one exceptional year. He was a team leader, and a popular guy in Cleveland. So if longevity, popularity, and solid defense, and leadership are your criteria, then he should enter the hall. If outstanding play is your main criteria, then he should not.
One last comment: K to BB rate is virtually meaningless. An out is an out is an out. Strike outs are better than ground balls that become double plays. There is some minor value to moving runners over, but it has to be proven, not assumed. One of the reasons that a person might have a decent ratio of Balls put in play to DPs is that he batted in the lower part of the order, so he had fewer runners on base ahead of him. If there is no one on first when you come to the plate, you probably won’t ground in to a double play. But if you bat third, fourth, or fifth in the lineup, after the set up men, you have a very good chance of seeing a teammate on first when you bat.
big problem in player comparisons is era in which one plays — up until maybe ’50’s hitting was better, but pitching has dominated for long time, as there aren’t many players hitting .330 anymore … gloves are way better, too … it’s realy difficult to be objective or subjective in electing one to h.o.f.
Statistics are quantitative and useful, but not qualitative. Baseball’s reputation has been marred by 4 major events that are at the core of the game’s integrity 1) the 1919 Black Sox, 2) Pete Rose’s betting scandal, 3) the Astros 2017-2018 sign stealing scandal and 4) PED’s/steroids. Of these 4 scandals, PED’s impact statistics by directly enhancing a player’s physicality and performance. The steroid era (late 1980’s through early 2000’s) is the period in which Omar played most of his games. It is bewildering how enamored fans and the press are with offensive batting statistics when many players during this era used PED’s. Other shortstops may have used PED’s to augment their offensive statistics. Mr. Vizquel faced pitchers who probably used PED’s. Moreover, it is bewildering that fans and the press diminish players’ statistics for using PED’s when considering entrance into the Hall of Fame, yet they are unwilling to augment statistics for players who were most definitely clean. Mr. Vizquel was clean and brings credibility to the Hall of Fame in an era of deceptiveness and cheating, and integrity to a sport that desperately needs it. He would be a tremendous role model, advocate and ambassador for the game.
You state your case well, but how do you know he was clean? When Jose Canseco said that 80% of players were using steroids, everyone thought he was exaggerating, but I know of a former NYC pitcher who thought he was being conservative, and that the true percentage was more like 90%. The owners knew it. The owners encouraged it. There was no clear rule against it (steroids were legal in the Dominican, where baseball was concentrating it’s recruiting….7 major league shortstops came from ONE DR Republic town at the same time). There was no testing program. Congress got involved to cover up war reporting. The truth is that steroids were being used since the late 60s, at least…according to pitcher and pitching coach Tom House….they were called by another name. It is also true that even role model Hank Aaron admitted to using performance enhancing drugs (Greenies) in the 70s. It was part of the game….let it go. Anyone who got caught cheating SINCE 2003, that’s a different story. The ball was juiced in the late 90s and early 2000s, which was a more important reason that offense went up…..also bad pitching. Omar was not as valuable a player as Rusty Staub, who was also popular and played a long career. Harold Baines was similar as well. The Pete Rose scandal is minor….it does not reflect on the basic integrity of the game, because only ONE player was caught, and he was punished severely….it is minor. Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb were caught in a bigger betting scandal thn Rose, and it was covered up.
An icon for a baseball nation. The guy is an institution for venezuelans players. 24 seasons says a lot about a plyer.
If you dont get to the hall of fame with 11 gold gloves…apaga la luz y vamonos. Doesn’t matter if you are not an MVP as long as you are a player that is always in the roster because is key in defense, we know defense dont get MVPs.
His defense was overblown. His offense is way below the average player’s. His image is not important. The Hall continues to elect marginal players while ignoring some many really great players. Eleven gold gloves did not get Keith Hernandez to the Hall, and he was a GREAT offensive player. And his defense was NOT overblown. Modern day defensive stats show he was every bit as good as his reputation, while the same stats show that Omar was not much above average defensively, at best.
And that bare-handed play rarely got him an out he couldn’t get by catching the ball normally, then throwing it.
I remember the ’87 season. In addition to those sluggers, Jack Clark was flat-out running away with the MVP Award until a late-season injury took him out. He still finished third, behind Dawson and Smith.
Dawson was a bad choice. Clark,s Obp was about 100 points better, but people are hung up on BAtting averages
Daddy sez……..figures lie and liars figure………..Sooooo looking at this from the sidelines…..what is the criteria to win a Golden Glove…stats? War? etc….Gloves are given by men who have leathered necks, squinting eyes and sat on the bench…watching thousands of games, hundreds of players….A 38/39 year old shortstop goes to a new league, new parks, new players, new pitchers, etc. Do skeptical Managers and Coaches look at a player and say…”hey I will vote for that old guy cause he did stuff years ago in the Jr circuit”…probably not. But they did. Ask yourself..why….. why would he command accolades from that group?..at his age….cause none of that had to do with anything…. but their eyes and experience told them …he’s special…he’s above all…he plays the game the best at his (arguably toughest) position….HOF worthy being one-dimensional? ask a Manager how important defense at that position (vs other 8) impacts the game….do they consider that a one-dimensional aspect of the game… or more…HOF?…Vizquel…..I say.. life isn’t black and white like statistics…YES
the Gold glove award voting is badly designed. It goes to who gets the most first place votes. So, if there are 16 voters, and four rank him first, but the other twelve think he should be near the bottom, he will receive the award over a guy who three voters think is best and the other 13 think is second best. It’s not a good system. Defensive stats are more reliable at predicting who is the best fielder. About 20 years ago, advanced defensive stats showed Derek Jeter to be the worst fielding shortstop ever, much to the surprise of many. He seemed to do the job well….but it turned out that his positioning was bad, and a lot more graound balls were getting through than should have. Guess what? He changed his positioning (moved further back), and sure enough, his stats improved.
If he hadn’t played with successful Indian teams, I don’t think he would have had as much consideration as he has now.
Absolutely. Phil Rizzuto was the same way, and it took many decades before the old timers group put him in there…he is not considered a great candidate. Phil and Omar are similar in that each had one great year….only Phil actually won the MVP in that year, but their cases are based on their glove work. The thing is, The Scooter really was a great glove man, and the stats back it up. Not so with Omar. but Omar had a much longer career. The guy they missed was Vern Stephens, the shortstop for Boston at the time, who had one year where he hit 39 homers and batted in 139 runs, tying his teammate Ted Williams for the league lead! He had a much better bat than most HOF shortstops, and his defensive stats are right up there with Rizzuto’s! Yet he never made it off the first year of eligibility……Like Lance Berkman and Kevin Brown, the ridiculous voters allowed truly great players to be dismissed right away, while giving the nod to guys who were just a little above average……
Sorry, Stephens batted in 159 runs that year…..the highest total for the next 40+ years……
Omar Vizquel may be hands down the best shortstop in history. But are stats alone enough to gain a place in the hall of Fame or anywhere else? If so then he wins a place. But at some point professional athletes must be held to a higher standard as they are role models for the upcoming youth in the world. They are looked up to and idolized. So at some point they must be held accountable for their actions off of the field and their character must be taken into consideration. Any everyday citizen has to be held accountable, a hall of famer should most definitely be held accountable. At the collegiate level all awards are based on achievements but more so on character. As the mother of the batboy that worked for the barons I can say that for me personally, his character and actions aff of the field should be taken into consideration. Is this what we want the next generation to be seen as ok and acceptable behavior? If so, it will become not only acceptable behavior but it will become normal behavior. And in my opinion no person should be treated in the manner in which Omar treats others. It isn’t acceptable and far from ok or normal. Just please think of the kids that look up to these athletes and ask yourself if this is what kind of person that should be idolized as one of the best that’s ever been. It comes as a package , athleticism and character , in my opinion, his character has not shown to be worthy of the vote.
Thanks
Jana Smith
I agree that Omar should not be in the HALL. But not for the reason you give. I don’t think he was a good enough player. But I’m not going to condemn a man based on one unsubstantiated rumor.
I find an immense amount of logic in what you said. All with exception of your claim of said ‘rumor’. Assuming you are meaning the incidents that occured in Birmingham, I can assure you all they did in fact , occur. I suppose the allegations by his wife were that as well? And the other bat boy from another team also? Just rumors? If he were an ordinary citizen, say like your next door neighbor , or little league coach, every one would have serious issues I’m sure. But the hall, no worries no integrity needed. Is that what we have become this day in time ? ?
Re-read this; although many think Omar was hurt by his time: I disagree. Omar playing with PED users helped him because people literally use the line: “well if it were not for the PED users he’d be a lot better!” it’s argumentation which makes some intuitive sense, with the privilege of being entirely unprovable.
Omar was a solid defensive shortstop for a long time, he won a lot of Gold Gloves which allowed him to keep getting plate appearances late into his 40s (which is unusual). As a result he also got a lot of hits. Historically shortstops with a lot of hits and a lot of Gold Gloves got into the Hall of Fame.
I think Omar still has a decent shot at the hall, but it may take a decade more
I am not going to write a big story here, all I have to say is with the HOF inductees lately, Omar surely deserves to be in. It gets worse and worse each year. There are probably 5 people inducted in the last 5 years that made everybody laugh.
The allegations against Omar Vizquel are just that: Allegations. They should have no bearing as to his Hall-Worthiness.
What do you say about a guy who was not among the best while active, but those “best players” (A-Rod, Tejada) turned out to be Roiders and a third (Garciaparra) could not stay off the DL, could not stay at SS, and could not stay in the game all due to accumulated injuries (compared to the durable Vizquel)?
Let’s look at the shortstops not in the HOF that are candidates. Was Jimmy Rollins a better player than Vizquel? Was Cecil Travis? Was Jim Fregosi? Was Dave Concepcion? Was Bert Campaneris? Was Nomar Garciaparra (in a much shorter career)? If we’re extending it to 2Bmen wou were Glove Men, is Vizquel a more worthy selection than Frank White (given that Mazeroski is in the HOF)?
Vizquel had 2,877 hits. He was in the big leagues at a young age and was able to play as a reserve infielder until age 45. That’s a sign of a great player; a guy that comes to the majors young and can stay long after his prime. If there were no strike, how many hits would he have had lifetime? What if he had been able to hang on to reach 3,000 hits?
Subjectively, I think that Rollins and Garciaparra have better cases amongst the non-roiders. But neither of them had the staying power of Vizquel. He’s borderline. There are other candidates I would pick, but I would not object to Vizquel’s induction.
No one should be in the Hall because they didn’t take steroids. And we have no proof that Omar DIDN’T take them. I think he probably did. I think the vast majority of players during that time did experiment with them. Even in later years, when athletes are tested for ‘roids, there are two strategies: 1) take them at low doses so they don’t meet the (pretty high) threshold needed to get you in trouble, and 2) scientists are constantly inventing NEW steroids that are not on the banned list, and marketing them to athletes, who can take them without impunity. From conversations with pro athletes, I think that these kinds of drugs are still widely in use. If Omar had made 3000 hits, my opinion is that he should have be the first player to reach that milestone who clearly has no reason to be considered even an average offensive player. His OPS+ of 82 confirms this….18% below average offensively for his career. In answer to your questions: Was Fregosi a better player than Omar? His OPS+ was 113. Omar’s once again, was 82. Cecil Travis’s OPS+ was 108. Concepcion’s was 88. Campaneris 89, Frank White: 85, Mazeroski 84…..so ALL of them were better offensive players than Omar, given the context of their times…And all were better defensive players using advanced metrics, I’d bet. Mazeroski was a poor choice for the hall. Willie Randolph and especially Bobby Grich, were much better players