I mentioned Maranville once in a debate like this. I don’t know much about him but I know that was poor hitter and made a lot of errors, and I said the same. It turns out he’s considered one of the best defensive shortstops ever. He played from the 1912 to 1935, so in context the error total wasn’t as bad and errors are not a good measurement of defensive ability by themselves.
Fielding is not enough. Shortstops as a rule are damn good fielders. The difference in fielding between him and other solid shortstops is slim. It is not like the other shortstops stand still and wave as ground balls pass by. Almost all the famers played very good defense. That is where the best infielder gravitates.
I’m sorry, I’ll need to show me where I said they did. I can’t find that comment anywhere.
Several points here:
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We’re inducting an approximately equal number of players at each position (it’s not a Hall-of-First-Basemen). If it was all about offense, you wouldn’t have any shortstops at all. (Well, Wagner, and Ripken and Banks.)
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Ozzie could hit a little.
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You know how an announcer sometimes swallows his tongue trying to explain how he just saw the greatest play he had ever seen in his life? Well, let’s assume that those are plays that your average shortstop couldn’t have made–Ozzie came through with one or two of those per week.
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There is objective evidence–range factor, for example–that Ozzie made plays that an average shortstop never even tries to make. You should use modern statistics sometime–they’re pretty good.
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If you add a hit or two per week, a conservative estimate, to Ozzie’s Batting Average, and reduce his fielding to the average shortstop’s level, he would have a pretty impressive batting average, more than high enough to convince you he belongs in the Hall.
Tell that to Ron Santo. 
I understand Maz was a spectacular defensive second baseman, but could ANY second baseman be the most dominant defensive player? I would be shocked if James actually made that statement, unless he was referring specifically to second basemen. You just cannot dominate a game defensively from 2B the way you can at SS or CF or even catcher.
Mazerosky was inducted because of his defense. He hit 260, 2 points under the great and powerful Oz. Maz had Oz beaten in Hr, RBIs and OBP and everything else. So if Maz gets in ,Ozzie should get in. I am sure all the Oz fans have to agree Maz belongs since his offensive stats beat Oz across the board and both were vaunted defensive players.
Ozzie had a much better on base percentage (.337 to .299 for Mazeroski) and their OPS is practically identical (.666 Smith, .667 Mazeroski). Ozzie’s OPS+ is a bit better at 87 to Mazeroski’s 82, although both are subpar. Ozzie walked more than twice as often than Mazeroski while striking out fewer times, he scored and hit more doubles and triples, although that’s less surprising since he played longer. Oh, and he scored far more runs even if you fator out the difference in plate appearances. I think I’m making a mistake in wading into this argument at all, but when you’re posting stuff that is factually incorrect…
I misremembered: he has Maz topping all 2B men, but a few shortstops and a catcher have higher WS totals. Don’t know about CFers.
Looking at career WAR rankings for pitchers, Rollie Fingers is the lowest ranked HOFer elected as a player (excluding Babe Ruth and Satchel Paige for obvious reasons). He clocks in at 331 and Bruce Sutter is at 320.
I never looked at Sutter’s stats before, but how the hell is he in the HOF? He logged 300 saves in 12 seasons. I’ve been saying Lee Smith deserves a plaque all along, but Sutter’s inclusion solidifies that thought.
2B get almost as many chances as SS, and more than a CFer, and on top of that participate in most ground-ball double plays, which Maz was almost certainly the best ever at doing so. Contemporary accounts indicate that the ball never seemed to pause long, if at all, in his hands, but seemed to almost magically zip itself along to first without pause. But BBReference (see above) has Ozzie as about 100 runs better with the glove, so you may have a point. This would make for a good sabermetric research project for someone (document exactly how many “chances”, and thus runs, are out there, ideally, for the taking for each position).
That said, his bat, even accounting for Forbes Field robbing him of a lot of home runs, is probably not enough to give him enough of a total package, but there are arguably worse players in the Hall.
White and Maz are very similar players too-White basically redefined how to play 2B on turf, basically camping out in short RF, esp. for the slower LH sluggers, and like Maz had decent power, a fair BA, and poor plate discipline. He’s 2nd on the linked list above to Maz too.
Perhaps, but I think the reason Sutter is in the HOF and Smith is because Sutter won a Cy Young Award and played a pivotal part in the St. Louis Cardinals’ 1982 World Series victory. Unlike Sutter, there were no showcase events in Smith’s career that would’ve made him stand out.
As for the “worst” player in the Baseball HOF, I’ve always thought a good argument could be made for Roger Bresnahan. Granted, he had a few really good years but during his 17 season career, he only had 8 seasons where he played in 100 games or more. However, my understanding is he’s in the Hall not so much for his career numbers as for the introducing a number of key pieces of catcher’s equipment to the game.
Piggybacking on what RickJay wrote here, but the Cubs of the 1900’s era won 3 straight pennants with very gaudy winning percentages; it would be very odd for such a team to have just one HoFer (that being pitcher 3-Finger Brown), esp. since their offense was excellent (ditto their defense) during that period.
Hehe, I went to high school for a year or two with Wally, and didn’t even know that he played baseball until he admitted using steroids.
Bolding mine.
Except for the part where he became the all time saves leader, which at the time made him a “lock for Cooperstown” according to the baseball media talking heads. Yes, I’m a crusader for Smith’s HOF induction.
And although I think Sutter is probably the worst pitcher in the HOF, McCarthy is probably the worst overall player.
I think he was talking about big moments like a playoff series or pennant race. Otherwise that comment makes no sense for Ozzie either: his work is showcased on countless highlight reels. I don’t remember everybody saying Lee Smith was a lock for the Hall when he became the saves leader, and he’s now a distant third on the list.
Also, how many All-Star game selections do Lee Smith and Sutter have? I thought Sutter had more and was going to mention it as another factor in why he’s in the HOF and Lee Smith isn’t. However, I wasn’t sure.
As for the inclusion of relievers like Sutter and Rollie Fingers and the exclusion of others with seemingly better career stats like Lee Smith, I don’t think there’s much consensus among HOF voters about what makes a Cooperstown-caliber relief pitcher. For a time, the number of saves was considered to be the most significant stat but there seems to be less weight placed on it which is why people like Lee Smith and Jeff Reardon are still not in the Hall. Not that I necessarily think this but many HOF voters seem to be considering factors like All-Star game selections, post-season awards, and how often they were on a team that was in the post-season when evaluating relievers (more so than they would for players at other positions). That’s why Sutter and Fingers got the edge over Lee Smith and Reardon.
All Star appearances:
Sutter - 6
Smith - 7
Sutter did win a Cy Young in 1979 and had 5 top 10 finishes in the award voting. Smith was a Cy Young runner up in 1991 and had 4 top 10 finishes.
Seven for Smith and six for Sutter.
There definitely isn’t. The role of relievers has become more and more specialized now. Closers only appear in save situations and almost never pitch more than an inning, there are eighth-inning guys, various other specialists… it’s hard to compare that straight-up to a reliever from a few decades ago.
I think that voters were not convinced that a large number of one-inning saves was Hall-worthy, so guys like Smith and Reardon are on the outside looking in. Guys who pitched a greater number of innings seem to have had a little more luck. People have become more critical of saves as a statistic, it’s true, and I think that’s good. It’s an easy statistic to inflate, and if your team is up three runs going into the ninth, you don’t need a great closer to finish that off.
Again excluding relief pitchers, I’d say Ray Schalk, who was inducted largely because he didn’t throw the 1919 World Series.
But I can’t say that for sure because Schalk might have been a much better defensive catcher than he appears to be in retrospect.
Catfish Hunter was an amazingly weak choice, and curiously undermentioned in these sorts of discussions. His W-L record isn’t any better than lots of guys in the Luis Tiant class. Luis Tiant was every bit as good as Hunbter and probably a bit better. But Catfish was a big friendly white guy with a good nickname, and he put up some 20-win seasons with good teams.
Bill James, in the Historical Abstract, rates Hunter was one of the 100 best pitchers of all time, but in the bottom half. He wouldn’t make my top hundred. Probably somewhere between 101 and 150. I mean, Jack Morris is a controversial candidate, but how on erth is Catfish better than Morris? Morris was basically Catfish 2.0, won more games, won the World Series with three different teams, was a World Series MVP… I can’t see why Catfish is in when most similar pitchers are not. Orel Hershiser… he has all the same qualifications as Hunter. Kevin Brown was even better, why not him?
Answer from erth: (actually, from Bill James) Catfish’s edge here is the number of 20-win seasons (5, I think) over most of these competitors. Not defending that, but that impressed voters. Me, not so much, and BJ, I think, not so much.