The HOM perspective on Scooter:

These days, he finishes in our mid-backlog, between the low 20s and high 30s. He is commonly grouped with players who share a similar profile, such as Dave Bancroft and David Concepcion. It seems to me that his candidacy depends, to an important degree, on how much war credit he gets.

As the Rob Neyer blog entry that I posted on another thread pointed out, Rizzuto was never the same offensive player after returning from WWII.

"Rizzuto was never the same offensive player after returning from WWII."

I can't value the importance of this sentence, when 1950 is on the same player's CV.

I have no problem with Rizzuto being in Cooperstown. Some metrics suggest that he really was special on defense and I haven't seen strong evidence to the contrary.

His first two seasons show a fairly decent hitter (96, 103 OPS+). Considering his defense and speed and position, he was a good young player. I realize he was 23 as a rookie, not 20, but if you start with his 23-24 performance and project him to improve a bit, that's a heck of a player.

Since he DID dramatically improve his plate discipline in midcareer, I think the shape of his career could have been very different had he not missed the 25-27 seasons.

>So of course the Rizzuto backers are going to point out his seven World Series titles and special skills, such as the ability to bunt,

Well, the entire article is about his offense. This is ridiculous. The man was among the great SS gloves of his time and probably of all-time. An A+ glove who is just ever so slightly above the position average with the bat can play on my team any time.

Not to mention, Gebeloff's little study probably underestimates his offense too, in the sense (as Juan V. mentioned) that Rizutto missed 3 years during WWII and these 3 years probably would have been better than his own career average years.

In short, his HoF/HoM case does indeed rest on "war credit"...and his glove. As to his offense, was Ozzie Smith a HoFer with the bat?

who're we kidding here?

Scooter's in the Hall solely because of his career as a broadcaster, encompassing:

1. staying in the public eye

2. being identified with the Yankees

3. being lovable


his actual playing career had little, if anything, to do with it


and, as James pointed out, he ain't the worst player in there

Nope, not the worst player in Cooperstown (close but not worst). I won't lose any sleep over him being in there, but any objective observer understands he wouldn't have gotten in if he played for any other team. Without all of the whining from Steinbrenner and the NY media no one would have thought twice about his absence from the HoF.

C'mon, he's not even close to being the worst player. Does LargeBill know who else is in there?

Just among SSs you've got Travis Jackson. 211 career WS, and a peak of 24. Rizzuto gets 231 while missing 3 years in WWII, and with a peak of 34. Jackson is a B+ glove, pretty good. Rizzuto is an A+. Not close.

And Jackson played 1656 ML games, a little more than 1300 of them at SS, and washed out at age 33 with an OPS+ of 50. Rizzuto played 5 more ML games, all but 9 of them at SS while, oh yes, missing 3 years during WWII. He was a regular SS at ages 35 and 36. Not. Close.

If not for the war (and barring injury) Phil coulda/woulda played 14 years as a ML SS, an all-time great glove with an OPS+ of 93. Ozzie Smith was a regular ML SS for 16 years, an all-time great glove with an OPS+ of 87. Phil is a hell of a lot more like Ozzie than Travis Jackson.

I mean, I'm not even that big of a Phil Rizzuto fan. I hate the f'ing Yankees. And if it was up to me I wouldn't have put him in the HoF either. But the disrespect for his playing career is nothing if not hyperbolic.