Phil Rizzuto, the Yankees shortstop of the '40s and '50s and the oldest living Hall of Famer, died today at 89. Anyone who needs a reminder of how divided Seamheads were over the Scooter's 1994 election to the Hall can check out the scathing review the New York Times did on a Bill James book that raised questions about Rizzuto's Cooperstown credentials.
The crux of James' argument was that it was odd how Rizzuto got in, especially when his numbers were compared to to those of a fellow American League shortstop of the same vintage named Vern Stephens -- who never got a single Hall of Fame vote.
Related:
Phil Rizzuto, 89, Yankees shortstop (Associated Press)
Phil Rizzuto career statistics (baseball-reference.com)
Vern Stephens career statistics (baseball-reference.com)
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4 comments:
Bill James is right. Rizzuto has no business in the hall. He got on base decently but only scored 100 runs twice in spite of playing for a powerhouse team.
His stats are solid but on the side of ordinary.
He's in there because of the Yankee centric nature of the voters, period.
Since when has runs scored been a legitimate measure of a player's quality? Getting on base is entirely within his power - scoring is up to the players that come after him.
Would it not follow that a player who gets on base within his own power, and gets farther (i.e., steals, hits for extra bases), will be in position to score more runs?
Runs scored has much more of an individual compotent to it than RBI, and thus it might be a legitimate measure, but it's more legitimate measure than RBI, just as on-base percentage is more legitimate than batting average.
(And yes, there's all the fandangled stuff, eQa, VORP and what-not, which I like, but tend to shun for argument's sake, since you have to use terms that people understand.)
But nobody's using RBI to critique Rizzuto.
Yeah, you're right about runs and they are better than RBI - but still mind-numbingly irrelevent. You can single, steal second, and move to third on a groundout, but if the next two batters strike out and pop up, how didn't you do your job? You did everything you could've, unless you're expecting guys to steal home.
Me, I couldn't care less about RBI or runs scored and anyone who does is a statistical nitwit.
And no, I'm not one of those VORP guys either.
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