Was Jose Mesa there?

Vizquel is gonna be elected to the Hall of Fame, isn't he?

Yes, and Trammel and Whittaker never will.

It was really a ridiculous ceremony. I'm an A's fan, so I guess I wasn't going to appreciate it the same way to begin with, but most games played at shortstop, while kind of interesting and fun, really strikes me as kind of a dubious accomplishment to promote so wholeheartedly. They started the ceremonial stuff at like 7:05 and didn't get the game started until 7:30. It was stupid. And the way they just lauded Vizquel. "Perhaps the greatest defensive shortstop ever." "One of the true all-time greats." Really? Really?


Look, I've enjoyed Vizquel's career, and I'll grant that he's probably the greatest defensive shortstop of my short lifetime. And he makes the game look fun and I can appreciate all that. (Really, as a baseball play, he is a lot of fun to watch, and generally pretty great at what he does). But the way he's been celebrated as his career winds down just strikes me as over the top.

Prior to Omar, we had to put up with a year and a half of Neifi. By comparison, Omar seems like Honus Wagner.

I do agree that the most games played thing has been way overplayed. As have Vizquel's HOF candidacy. He was an above-average player who played for a very long-time, but did not accumulate nearly enough career value to merit serious HOF consideration.

If we were talking about future Hall of Famers from this era, I wouldn't even have considered Vizquel as a possibility. Now all these articles pop up implying that he's pretty much a lock? Wow. I think of him the same way I viewed the careers of guys like Andres Galarraga, Ellis Burks, or Moises Alou - very good players; even all stars at their best - but not deserving of any real consideration for the HOF.

But at least this whole issue isn't as stupid as a debate I often hear when people bring up future NBA Hall of Famers - Robert Horry. Dude's a career role player (bench guy for most of his career) who never had a single season where he was considered a star by even the most generous definition of the word. But he's got a bunch of rings because he happened to be teammates with the likes of Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobilli. It's an absolutely ridiculous argument. Vizquel has Horry beat hands down...

Bob Boone was at one time the all-time leader for most games at catcher, and is still in second place, only one game behind the leader. He was a more valuable hitter compared to his position than Vizquel, and if he wasn't considered one of the best defensive catchers ever, he was thought of as one of the best of his era. Where's the "Bob Boone for the Hall" movement?

Where's the "Bob Boone for the Hall" movement?

Maybe some voters don't support the Bob Boones of the world because they don't care for red asses.

Bob Boone was frequently called a future Hall of Famer while he was playing.

I do agree that the most games played thing has been way overplayed. As have Vizquel's HOF candidacy. He was an above-average player who played for a very long-time, but did not accumulate nearly enough career value to merit serious HOF consideration.

Vizquel's serious HOF consideration is NOT hard to understand:

2,587 games at SS, 11 gold gloves (and counting? he's won the last 2), 84 OPS+

There are only 4 reasonable comps for Vizquel in my mind:

Ozzie Smith, 2511 games at SS, 13 gold gloves, 87 OPS+
Luis Aparicio, 2583 games at SS, 9 gold gloves, 82 OPS+
Dave Concepcion, 2178 games at SS, 5 gold gloves, 88 OPS+
Rabbit Maranville, 2153 games at SS, pre-gold glove but great rep, 82 OPS+

3 of those guys have been elected by the writers and Concepcion gets fairly serious consideration (and Vizquel has 6 more gold gloves).

You might disagree with the writers' criteria but they have always elected great defensive SS (or those with such a rep) who play a lot of games there. It would be completely consistent for Vizquel to be elected and it would be very difficult to build a good case why Ozzie, Aparicio and Maranville should be in but Omar out.

You can also argue that the writers are inconsistent in that they only seem to extend that courtesy to SS, not C, 2B, 3B and CF. You'd be right but what you gonna do.

I never said that I didn't "understand" the reasons behind Vizquel's support, rather that I implied that I rejected them.

Also, a few quick points quick points:

1) Aparicio and Maranville are widely acknowledged as two of the weakest selections by writers. The 1954 ballot in particular is strange--Maranville got more votes than Dimaggio);

2) Concepcion never got over 20% of the vote in 15 years on the ballot--I'm not sure that really qualifies as "serious consideration." Rather, evidence of a devoted following that never really gained any momentum.

3) Vizquel is nowhere near Smith's equal defensively, as implied by a comparison of their Gold Gloves. Moreover, Smith was a vastly more prolific and effective basestealer (580 SB at 79% versus 381 SB at 71%), which distinguishes them further than the difference in OPS+ would imply.

Of the five shortstops you listed, only Smith should have merited serious HOF consideration (and he's somewhat marginal, IMHO). Aparicio and Maranville should never have gotten elected, Concepcion was rightly denied, and Vizquel should be denied.

I believe Maranville's election was believed to be "too bad he's dying/dead" (I forget which). Also DiMaggio wasn't retired 5 years yet, and I think there was a little confusion on how to handle that. Plenty of odd-looking vote totals in that era.

Aparicio got in at a time when voters seemed to think steals were remarkably valuable, but they aren't quite as fooled anymore.

The pace of Ozzie's election was a bit silly, but he was on good teams and the backflips were fun.

Ozzie also got into the Hall of Merit, but the other 2 are lucky if they get a vote (in fact, we like Concepcion a little more than either). Ozzie does have a lot of underlying stuff that seems just enough.
I doubt we'd ever vote Vizquel in, but we haven't looked at it yet so who knows.

Omar Vizquel may be a bit overrated. Still, who'd have thought that when Bart traded the Omar Vizquel card with the head cut out for Milhaus' Carl Yaztremski that he'd be as good as he's been?

Bob Boone was frequently called a future Hall of Famer while he was playing.

Not frequently, but every now and then- certainly never with the intensity that Viz has been getting.

Also Boone was quite a bit worse a hitter, especially relative to position than Viz (don't believe me? BPRo says Boone was some 96 runs worse relative to position for his career.)

I remember reading one writer, who didn't think Boone was a HOFer, write towards the end of Boone's career that Boone was going to get a lot more HOF votes than the average fan would expect... 5-6 years later? Didn't happen.

Boone, like Viz, was NEVER a great player, but he had some good years, and was reasonably productive (ie deserved his job) for a very long time.

B-Ref has him at -20.5 batting wins. That's pretty impressive. In 19 seasons, voters have given him a total of three MVP votes.

Edit: That MVP Share has him at #1,440.

I never said that I didn't "understand" the reasons behind Vizquel's support, rather that I implied that I rejected them.

I quoted you but didn't mean to pick just on you. #4, #6, #7 are in the same vein as have been several posts here over the last several weeks.

As to your points:

#1 -- they're not considered weak by the voters. Well, at least not generally.

#2 -- he stayed on the ballot, that's pretty good. And of course he's 400 games at SS and 6 gold gloves behind Vizquel.

#3 -- how do you think the voters measure defense? Reputation and gold gloves as near as I can tell. Ozzie's considered the best defender of all-time -- but near as I can tell it's either Vizquel or Aparicio who's #2 (in reputation terms). It will be interesting how many start to cite win shares or Dewan's numbers -- although if they behave per usual, they'll only use those when the support the argument they want to make anyway.

It's very easy to come up with arguments that Vizquel shouldn't be in, around here that's preaching to the choir while shooting fish in a barrel. It's easy to come up with arguments against Maranville, Aparicio, Perez, Sutter, Eckersley, Gossage, Rice, Puckett, Sutton and a few others too. It's easy to come up with arguments against the notion of Smith, Ryan, Puckett and Winfield being easy first-ballot selections. Yet here we are.

Most games played at SS. 2nd most gold gloves of all time. Writers love milestones like that. The main argument against him, from their perspective, will be the low number of AS games and being just the 4th/5th best SS in the AL during most of his career. But Nomar won't be in competition for HoF recognition; I'm not sure Tejada will be either and AROD may well have more games as a non-SS by then or at least the Yankees hope so (he's got roughly half as many games at 3B as SS) though the writers will probably still view him as a "SS". Anyway, it's possible he'll be seen as the 2nd best SS next to Jeter.

15 years is a long time and while there's going to be quite a backlog to get through, there's still a very good chance that the voters are gonna look at the ballot one year and, like Gossage, Sutter and (unless I forgot someone) Rice next year, Vizquel's gonna be the only guy there that even smells of an HoFer in their eyes.

Gotta love that mixed metaphor.

I think that we might be talking past each other and conflating two distinct questions:

1) Does Vizquel deserve to be in the HOF?
2) Will the writers elect Vizquel to the HOF?

On #1, the consensus on BTF seems to lean toward no. On #2, it's speculative but it's more complicated than just lining up their OPS+ and gold gloves and calling the shortstops equal. To summarize the main objections:

- Maranville was elected 50+ years ago when he was on his death bed.
- Smith was widely regarded as the best defensive shortstop ever--Vizquel has merely been considered the best defensive shortstop since Smith. And Smith was a superior hitter and baserunner.
- Finally, Aparicio accumulated a lot of black ink (9 time AL SB leader), receiving a lot more All Star and MVP recognition even though the two were fairly even offensively.

(unless I forgot someone) Rice next year

Rickey Henderson debuts on next year's ballot. Although I fully expect Rice to join him in getting elected.