Most overrated baseball player of all time

He and Ron LeFlore are public enemies No. 1 and No. 2 to sabermetricians.

 

John Cangelosi

 

Some of these guys are way past their prime.

Most of these guys never had a prime

 

Nolan Ryan was my favorite baseball player ever. My son is named after him.

And I think Lee's right. Steve Carlton was better than Ryan. But there weren't many others during that time who were, year after year, better than Ryan. I'm struggling right now, in fact, to think of one. I think Ryan deserves to be among the all-time greats simply because of the sustained excellence. I put Ripken in the same category. Both all-time greats.

Gary Carter gets my vote for most overrated.

 

Holy shit, you remember the Ron LeFlore movie. I bow to you...and wish, once again, I'd gone to Toronto.

 

Guy: Hooolly Cow, you huckleberry (sorry, I couldn't resist).

Shortstop and catcher are defensive positions, so you have to factor that in. If you had 100 Hall of Famers and only three were shortstops, something would be wrong. You would be saying few if any of these people are worthy of the Hall of Fame, even though it's probably the hardest position to find a good player. You have to consider shortstops against other shortstops.

Guy, if somebody is a top player at their position for more than five years, they deserve consideration for the Hall of Fame. You mentioned Paul LoDuca as an example of a situation where there wasn't a catcher having a really great year and somebody has to be an All-Star catcher. That might be fine for a year or two, but if somebody is an outstanding player that shows when they are at the top of the game for five years.

I don't know that I would say absolutely that Phil Rizzuto belongs in the Hall of Fame, and Bill James's book (The Politics of Glory) was a really good study of the whole thing. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say there may be a bias because I am short and Italian like the Scooter. When I moved to California in 1992, the first thing I immediately missed was arguing with my father and the second thing was not listening to Phil Rizzuto even though I had heard his stories so many times. A couple of things about the Scooter:

1. Birdscribe says Rizzuto wouldn't sniff the Hall if he played for Pittsburgh. Maybe, but the fact is he was a leadoff hitter and shortstop on Yankee teams which won five straight World Series from 1949 to 1953. He was an important factor on all of those teams, and the only other position player for whom that could really be said was Yogi Berra. Maybe it was bias, but Yankee players and Ted Williams talked about how important he was to those Yankee teams. Before Derek Jeter, Rizzuto was regarded as the best shortstop in Yankee history. That alone causes you to stop and think.

2. World War II took three good years out of what would have been the prime of Phil Rizzuto's career, and I think that deserves some consideration and adjustment. This is different than an injury or misfortune which affects somebody. World War II, in effect, closed down baseball in the sense that it was not the same caliber of major league baseball as it was before WW2, and nowhere near the caliber after WW2 when baseball was integrated. Ted Williams would have easily hit 600 home runs if not affected by WW2 (I'm not even counting the time he was in Korea) and Bob Feller's stats would have been much more impressive.

But Rizzuto lost what would have been his 3rd to 5th year in baseball, and those are usually productive seasons for good players. I'm not saying other players weren't affected, but as far as being considered a Hall of Fame candidate, I can't think of anybody who was affected as much - maybe Enos Slaughter.

3. I know there was a campaign throughout the 70s and 80s for Rizzuto, and it probably took on a louder signifigance because it was New York and because Rizzuto was like your crazy uncle who would say funny things and you couldn't help but laugh at him because he would bring a laugh into your day (My father said about Rizzuto as an announcer - He's so bad, he's good). But you know, if you're a character of the game, maybe being in the Hall reminds people that baseball is a lot of fun.

So that's my tribute to Phil Rizzuto. Go out and have a cannoli today - and if you live somewhere far away from Italian bakeries where they sell cannolis - MOVE.

 

Saying Phil Rizzuto was greatly responsible for the Yankees' pennant runs is like saying Canada was greatly responsible for helping win World War II.

(OK, I stole that line from an e-mail sig someone used to use)

 

So, BYA: Bill James has built an empire on his analysis of baseball and gotten himself into the front office of the Boston Red Sox. In the years before Mazeroski finally was inducted, James campaigned vigorously in print for Maz to be inducted.
But, as usual, you know more than the experts.
I never once said Maz deserved to get in because of the Gold Gloves. I threw that out there because someone -- I think it was you, but I could be wrong -- mentioned some hocus-pocus about the difference between Maz' defense and Oz' defense being that Oz "defined an entire decade" with his defense. You refuse to acknowledge the numbers that are so overwhelming in the construction of Maz' defensive case, because you haven't the intellectual capacity to carry on a legitimate argument. So you fiddle with the argument as it suits you.
Such a tool.

 

How do some of you feel about Ron Santo being left out?

 

Oh, well if he was once the best the Yankees ever had, we must kiss his ass. :
It's not the Yankee Hall of Fame.

Actually, your use of that particular argument backs up what others have said -- that if he played anywhere but New York, he wouldn't have even been considered.

And as much as I respect all veterans of our armed forces, it's really hard to give him credit for what he might have done if not for WWII because we just don't know. Better to give him "fine human being" credit for serving, though I can understand your argument there.