Comparing the HOF Cases of Omar Vizquel and Luis Aparicio

There was a note in today's San Francisco Chronicle that Giants shortstop Omar Vizquel entered Sunday's game as a pinch-runner and stayed in the game to play short, leaving him just five short of Luis Aparicio's all-time record of games played at the position. The current record is 2,583 games at short by Aparicio, who played for the White Sox, Orioles and Red Sox in an 18-year career.

Aparicio is a member of the Hall of Fame and this seems like a good time to compare and contrast the two Venezuelan shortstops to see which one has been the better player throughout his career and if either or both should be enshrined in Cooperstown.

Little Louie was signed by the White Sox in 1954 and made his Major League debut in 1956. Despite putting up an OPS+ of 71, Aparicio was awarded the Rookie of the Year and was a low-ballot MVP candidate after batting .266 with 21 steals in 152 games.

Fans and voters alike were impressed by Aparicio, as he was a 10-year All-Star selection, received MVP votes in 10 different campaigns and was a nine-time Gold Glove Award winner. Even for his era, Aparicio never put up great offensive numbers, but was consistently among the stolen base leaders. He led the league in steals nine consecutive years and his lifetime total of 506 stolen bases ranked tied for 21st when he retired after the 1973 season.

In the four Hall of Fame scores listed at baseball-reference.com, Aparicio made the grade in only one. In the Hall of Fame Monitor, which attempts to assess how likely (not how deserving) an active player is to make the Hall of Fame, Aparicio totaled 149.5 points. The monitor is scaled so that a score of 100 means a good possibility of being elected to the Hall of Fame and 130 is a virtual cinch.

Despite falling well short of Hall of Fame standards by the other methods (Black Ink, Grey Ink and HOF Standards), Aparicio was elected to Cooperstown in 1984.

BBref also lists similarity scores for each player, which is a comparison of raw statistics to see the 10 players in baseball history most similar to our chosen subject. Aparicio's closest comp is Omar Vizquel, with a score of 927, which is a pretty good match.

Like Aparicio, Vizquel has played for three teams in his career - the Mariners, Indians and Giants. Vizquel shares Aparicio's reputation as an outstanding glove man, as he has won 11 Gold Glove Awards. But Little O has made just three All Star teams in his career, currently in its 20th season. And only once did Vizquel draw any support in the MVP race, as he finished 16th when he batted .333 for the 1999 Indians.

And similarly to Aparicio, Vizquel does not fare well in the four Hall of Fame scores. He, too, qualifies via the Hall of Fame Monitor, which awards scoring on the following basis:

• For Batting Average, 2.5 points for each season over .300, 5.0 for over .350, 15 for over .400. Seasons are not double-counted. I require 100 games in a season to qualify for this bonus.
• For hits, 5 points for each season of 200 or more hits.
• 3 points for each season of 100 RBI's and 3 points for each season of 100 runs.
• 10 points for 50 home runs, 4 points for 40 HR, and 2 points for 30 HR.
• 2 points for 45 doubles and 1 point for 35 doubles.
• 8 points for each MVP award and 3 for each AllStar Game, and 1 point for a Rookie of the Year award.
• 2 points for a gold glove at C, SS, or 2B, and 1 point for any other gold glove.
• 6 points if they were the regular SS or C on a WS team, 5 points for 2B or CF, 3 for 3B, 2 for LF or RF, and 1 for 1B. I don't have the OF distribution, so I give 3 points for OF.
• 5 points if they were the regular SS or C on a League Championship (but not WS) team, 3 points for 2B or CF, 1 for 3B. I don't have the OF distribution, so I give 1 points for OF.
• 2 points if they were the regular SS or C on a Division Championship team (but not WS or LCS), 1 points for 2B, CF, or 3B. I don't have the OF distribution, so I give 1 points for OF.
• 6 points for leading the league in BA, 4 for HR or RBI, 3 for runs scored, 2 for hits or SB, and 1 for doubles and triples.
• 50 points for 3,500 career hits, 40 for 3,000, 15 for 2,500, and 4 for 2,000.
• 30 points for 600 career home runs, 20 for 500, 10 for 400, and 3 for 300.
• 24 points for a lifetime BA over .330, 16 if over .315, and 8 if over .300.
• For tough defensive positions, 60 for 1800 games as a catcher, 45 for 1,600 games, 30 for 1,400, and 15 for 1,200 games caught.
• 30 points for 2100 games at 2B or SS, or 15 for 1,800 games.
• 15 points for 2,000 games at 3B.
• An additional 15 points in the player has more than 2,500 games played at 2B, SS, or 3B.
• Award 15 points if the player's batting average is over .275 and they have 1,500 or more games as a 2B, SS or C.
While Aparicio has a solid 149.5 in the category, Vizquel just nudges past the Hall of Fame floor with a score of 104.5 for his career.

Vizquel has better raw numbers than Aparicio. Omar has a career .274/.340/.358 batting line while Luis checks in at .262/.311/.343 lifetime. But that difference is almost entirely context, as Vizquel has a career OPS+ (which adjusts for ballpark and run-scoring environment) of 84 compared to Aparicio's 82.

Although they are extremely similar ballplayers, Aparicio has two advantages over Vizquel. First are the stolen bases. While Vizquel has a very respectable 381 lifetime thefts, he was not the baserunner that Aparicio was and he does not have the cache of leading the league in steals nine straight seasons.

More importantly, Aparicio played in an era where almost no offense was expected out of a player at shortstop. In the year prior to Aparicio's rookie season, six shortstops played 100 or more games in the American League. The highest on-base percentage was .351 while the home run leader had 11.

Meanwhile, the year before Vizquel broke into the majors, American League shortstops included offensive players like Alan Trammell, Jody Reed, Tony Fernandez, Scott Fletcher and Cal Ripken. And a few years later, Vizquel was competing against Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez at shortstop, who completely blew away what shortstops in the 1950s and 60s were doing.

Alan Trammell, a four-time Gold Glove Award winner, World Series MVP and a much better hitter than Vizquel, has been unable to garner enough votes for the Hall of Fame, because his offensive totals pale next to the big hitters at the position today. It seems unlikely that Vizquel's stellar defense and durability will be able to sway voters that he deserves enshrinement next to Aparicio, even though they are very similar players.

Vizquel will just have to console himself with the fact that he topped Aparicio's marks in Gold Glove Awards and games played. And his lifetime earnings of over $53 million through the 2007 season should help ease the pain, too.