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Originally Posted by djtestudo
One thing on shortstop defense. It seems that in most cases they fall into one of two catagories. On one end are those with great range and arms, but who tend to have a problem getting the glove on the ball: guys like Renteria, Cabrera, Fucal, and even Tejada (  ). At the other are guys who don't have the same range and arms, but get their glove on just about everything they get to: guys like Jeter, Eckstein, and Cal Ripken Jr.
Sometimes you have to decide what is most important. |
Very true but Vizquel had both man. I truly am blessed as a lover of baseball to say I watched him play for 10+ years, and I seriously doubt I will ever see another SS like him. NOT 1 in that list or off AL or NL, over the same time period could hold a candle to Omar.
I never saw a guy at short be able to dive catch the ball and throw to first in one motion. Much like the perfect swing of JR or Manny, Omar was sheer magic on the diamond. I mean look at like 1998 when he made an unheard of 5 FIVE errors ALL season long..... 149 games started at SS 720 chances and only 5 errors...... or the year 2000 154 games started at SS and 3 THREE freaking errors all season. Only 7 of his seasons did he have double digits in errors and 3 were in his first 5 seasons, only 2 (his first year and 1996) did he have over 15. ONLY IN HIS ROOKIE YEAR DID HE HAVE 20 (HIS MOST IN A SEASON) ERRORS.
The very best Ozzie (who everyone claims was the "gold standard") could manage was 1 ONE year over 100 games started where he had single digits in errors (8 in 1991 with 151 games). Ozzie had 5 years (his first 3 and in '83 and '88) where he had over 20 errors, and he had 5 season of 15-20 errors.
Ozzie Smith was great, and he could do great backflips running out there, but he was no Omar. Granted I didn't see Ozzie on a daily basis like I did Omar.
Even career Fielding pct. show it. Omar is at .983 with 16 years (The highest career average EVER for a SS) and Ozzie is at .978 over 19 years and sits behind Larry Bowa in the NL highest career average.
Also having done research on this there were a few surprises.... Ripken has the highest season fielding percentage with ony 3 THREE errors all season, in 1990, yet lost the gold glove to Ozzie Guillen. Ripken did win it in '91 and '92.
And I was wrong I thought Omar lost to A-Rod a couple times but he didn't between 1993 and 2001 Omar DID win every year.
Anyway, I appologize for the threadjack but it gave me the chance to talk about IMHO the most underrated player between 1990 and present day.