Like Ozzie it was an absolute pleasure to watch him play shortstop. That’s hall of fame worthy. Brooks Robinson’s bat was no better
Facing a DH as a closer means exactly nothing. How many times will a closer face a pitcher hitting in the ninth with the game on the line?
Meh. That’s a pretty low standard, honestly. It was also a pleasure to watch Nomar Garciaparra play. And he had a much higher ceiling than Vizquel did and actually put up some serious numbers and HE doesn’t deserve to be in the HOF, either.
By this metric neither do Brooks or Ozzie. Sometimes you just gotta watch ‘em play
I did watch Vizquel play. I watched a lot of him, actually. He was a good player. I never once viewed him as a HOFer, though.
For the third time he’s every bit as deserving as Ozzie and Brooks
Ok to be fair Ozzie had a lot more WAR so I retract that one. I get Viizquel not making it, I just felt like he was watching him
Ok just ignore me. Brooks had much better hitting stats too LOL
Despite their careers overlapping a bit, I feel like they both played in different eras. Not only did Smith have a higher OPS+, but the average hitting SS was worse than during Omar's career. Ozzie kills Omar on the basepaths. I think those two things put Ozzie well ahead even if we were to assume their defense was equal (and I wouldn't)
It looks like Beltran will eventually get in. I guess his cheating against known rules wasn't as bad as their cheating against unwritten rules.
I was surprised that he got not a single vote. Yet guys like Carlos Gonzalez, Adam Jones, Brian McCann and Russell Martin got votes. The HOF ballot is always an interesting adventure into "what were they thinking?"
