Who is the greatest Short Stop of all time?

The Game Room
21

Cool, we’ll use that.

22

Actually, he only adds Tommy Leach and Dick Allen to those already named here. (P. 407 of the first edition, Historical Baseball Abstract.)

23

no love for “the scooter” phil rizzuto?

24

He was a really good player, but the best shortstop of all time? He isn’t the second best shortstop to play in the City of New York.

25

Well he is 3rd though.
Jeter
…
Pee Wee Reese
“Scooter”

Maybe Frank Crossetti for fourth? Interesting trivia for Crow. He has the most world series rings of anyone period. After playing on Yanks for 17 years he coach them for another 22 years and accumulated 17 World Series Championships out of 23 tries. My Dad loved Crow but loved especially have Crow and Scooter along with Dickey & Berra pretty much his entire youth and into adulthood. The hand off was pretty amazing especially when you then add DiMaggio to Mantle.

26

Ripken has to have the edge, what with saving baseball, the streak , not to mention fielding in the .990’s % for most of his career.

27

Gosh, I thought it was McGwire and Sosa who saved baseball? That’s what everyone told me in 1998.

Look, Cal Ripken was a nice guy and the streak was cool but nobody saved baseball. Baseball was fine, was always going to be fine. Yes, attendance dropped in 1995; it was still high and it was inevitably going to rise.

Also he fielded .990 only twice in his entire career. (He was a hell of a defensive player, but fielding percentage is not the reason why.)

28

In case anyone cares,

WAR for Shortstops:

  1. Honus Wagner, 134.5; 68% of career games at SS
  2. Alex Rodriguez, 104.6; 54% of carer games at SS
  3. George Davis, 90.2; 57% of career games at SS
  4. Cal Ripken, 89.9; 79% of career games at SS
  5. Robin Yount, 76.9; 54% of career games at SS
  6. Bill Dahlen, 75.9; 86% of career games at SS
  7. Arky Vaughan, 75.9; 85% of career games at SS
  8. Derek Jeter, 70.4; 100% of career games at SS (not a single inning at any other position)
  9. Luke Appling, 69.3; 91% of career games at SS
  10. Barry Larkin, 68.9; 99% of career games at SS (just 3 games at 2B)

Ozzie is at 14th, behind Trammell, Pee Wee and Bobby Wallace. Like Jeter, Ozzie never once played a single inning anywhere other than the 6.

29

This isn’t even a contest. For a 10 year stretch, Honus Wagner was the best offensive player in baseball. He led the league in OPS+ 6 times, also led the league in OBP and SLG a bunch of times. He stole 700 bases.

Cal Ripken Jr. was a great shortstop, one of the top 5 of all time for sure, but he never led the league in any of those categories. Not even once. His best season, OPS/OPS±wise, was 3rd when he won the MVP in 1991. His next best season? 8th. Ripken wasn’t one of the top 5 offensive players in his era, much less the best as Wagner was.