Why is Phil Rizzuto in the HOF?

[sago]

Originally Posted by tedzan

Some of the comments here are laughable. Most of you never met Phil Rizzuto; or, never saw him play the game



Yes, I saw Phil play from 1947 - 1956. He was great Lead-off guy, who exceeded the "Lead-off constant" associated with Lead-off batters. And, that is
if the lead-off batter in any given inning gets on base, he will score 75 % of the time (barring a double-play). This factor has been a constant in BB.....
since the beginning of the 20th Century.
Here are the words of another Ted (Williams)....who personally told me (in Cooperstown in the 1980's)...... "if Phil Rizzuto played for us (Red SOX) all
those years, we would have been the Champions, instead of the Yankees".

All stats courtesy of baseball-reference.com

If this "constant" is accurate, then Rizzuto falls way below it.

Of his 6719 career PA's, 1710 were leading off an inning. His OBP for those appearances was .335, or 20 points lower than his career average, and if I was not lazy, the math would probably be about .365 for non-leadoff
AB's.

Leading off an inning, he hit .254 for his career. Leading off a game, he hit .266. His career average was .273.

For his career, he scored 877 runs, while reaching base 2365 times, or 37% of the time.

If he scored 75% of the time he reached base when leading off an inning (not factoring in the aforementioned double plays), that means he scored 573 times. That would leave 304 runs for the remaining 5009 plate appearances, even though his BA, and OBP were higher when he did not lead off an inning.

An excellent defensive player, who could bunt. Looking at JAWS, WAR, and other innovative stats, he does not come close to deserving a plaque. Maybe in the broadcasting wing, certainly not as a player.