Posted By:
davidcyclebackMy opinion is Ozzie Smith was the best fielder (perhaps ever) at a key fielding position, so belongs in the Hall. Comparing his batting numbers to the power numbers of shortstops in the steroids era is not determinant.
People who use the steroids era feats to judge past players are going about it wrong. It's like using the numbers from your video game to revise history.
I also think people who don't take into consideration fielding, especially at shortstop and catcher, are going about it wrong. Judging Ozzie Smith by his batting average or home runs alone shows the ignorance of the judger. At Smith's peak and given the chance, the majority of managers would picked Ozzie Smith as their short stop. Sure, some might have picked Cal Rikpen Jr-- to put at first, because Ozzie Smith is at short stop.
I remember in 1990s, they polled managers who would be the one player they would pick to build a team around. The most picked player was Barry Larkin. Larkin didn't have anything near the hitting numbers of Griffey, Thomas, Belle or Piazza, but the manager's majority opinion was you build a good team around a good young short stop. Their second, third and fourth picks may have been Griffey Piazza and Thomas, but they would have started with Barry Larkin.
I always consider the above almost Zen-like story when people retroactively use batting statistics only to judge players. I believe that the majority of the those managers might say the batting stat hounds might be able to create a good video game, but they haven't the foggiest idea how to assemble a good baseball team. They might pick Frank Thomas over Omar Vizquel as short stop, as Frank hit more home runs.