Even discounting being a scumbag, Vizquel’s case is almost entirely based on a stack of Gold Glove awards. Heck, Jeter won like five of those. Vizquel, an 11 time GG winning shortstop, never led the league in dWAR? That’s nuts. And his offensive stats are also worse than I remembered. Only 2 years with OPS+ over 100. His case was always thin and now that analytics are more heavily considered, he could very well lose votes even disregarding his personal issues.
Speaking of great shortstops, I didn’t know Andrelton Simmons had retired. He has to go down as one of the greatest defensive shortstops of all time; it’s too bad he didn’t have had a better career with the bat.
I’ve had insomnia and been sick the last day or so, I’ve been reading all the old Hall of Fame threads. Interesting to see all the arguments for and against Vizquel over the years
I think it is fair to say Vizquel was not comparable to Derek Jeter as a fielder. Baseball Reference feels Vizquel is the ninth most valuable defensive player in the history of MLB by WAR, 31st by Total Zone Runs since 1953 - he was a truly great fielder.
He just wasn’t great enough, IMHO, to be a Hall of Famer, given his bat. (He is frequently compared to Ozzie Smith, which I find silly. They are similar TYPES of players, but Smith was better at both fielding and offense.) And that’s before the… unpleasantness came to light.
Injuries, man.
Half of making it to the Hall of Fame is not getting too injured. Also, don’t get traded to the Angels.
Well, the point really was to say that GG awards are not exactly an optimal way to determine defensive value. Not to say Vizquel was on Jeter’s level. Certainly he was good, but, as you said, not good enough to overcome his light hitting to garner a HOF vote.
Maybe there should be a defensive brilliance wing in the Hall of Fame. Somewhere to recognize players who were among the very best at their positions, but without the all-around numbers for full inclusion. Call it the Belanger room (68 OPS+, ouch.)