Quote:
Originally Posted by rats60
Well, I saw Edgar go 2 for 23 with 0 RBI in the 1995 ALCS. So why should we ignore that and act like he was some great clutch hitter because he had a big series against the Yankees? He stunk against the Indians and the Mariners lost the series.
I saw Vizquel play, he wasn't some great shortstop. He was reliable, but he didn't have great range. Ozzie Smith had great range. That is why he led NL SS in assists 8 times in 11 seasons. Vizquel never led the league, ever. He finished top 3 once. I guess we just have different memories, but mine are backed by stats. I would rather have a guy with great range than a high fielding percentage. That produces more outs and saves more runs. We will just have to agree to disagree.
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The comment made concerning Omar V is totally out to lunch. I must of seen more than a hundred of his games, and regarded him, like most, as one of the very best if not THE BEST fielding shortstops in the game in his era. Dan O'Dowd, Cleveland's GM at the time agreed completely with that assessment on MLB Now just yesterday, as does Jim Thome, who was there with Omar in Cleveland. What the defensive stats (which have never been as reliable as those on the offensive side) do not show is what percentage of balls hit in Omar's area he successfully fielded. The absolute number of those balls is influenced by several factors beyond his control, including whether the Indians' pitching staff threw more flyballs than groundballs versus the league average, or struck out a greater percentage of hitters, as well as the dimensions of the foul territory versus that in other parks (obviously, a park which has significantly larger foul territory will produce a higher number of foul outs, thereby reducing the number of other forms of outs that can potentially occur). Watching him, along with probably hundreds of other games during that period, there was no question whatsoever concerning his tremendous range, sure-handedness and throwing arm.
As to Edgar, he may have been one-dimensional, but don't kid yourselves--that one dimension--hitting--is substantially more important with regard to runs than base running or defense. Exhibit A: Ted Williams, a slow to average baserunner, led the league in runs scored six times (due to his tremendous hitting and enormous number of walks--his lifetime on base percentage of .482 is the highest of all time). Joe DiMaggio, also a great hitter (though not matching Williams in this respect) and a substantially faster base runner, led the league in runs scored once.
The only problem I have with Edgar is that while his qualitative stats are very impressive, the quantitative stats fall a bit short. 309 HR's--where are the other 150 or so? 1200-some RBI's--seems like 300 or more are missing in action.
Good thread and interesting, thought-provoking posts,
Larry