Hall of Fame Poll: Omar Vizquel

Rumors are that the Owners and Players aren’t going to sit down to negotiate until near the end of the month. We are stuck in this baseball newsless world for a lot longer. I’m trying a TRX class today. I’ve never been the fitness class type. The ‘ra-ra, push it to the limit’, lots of music thing isn’t me. But, WC Fields said you should try everything in life, except for incest and folk dancing.

We come to a former Blue Jays player again, Omar Vizquel. It is his fifth time on the ballot. He was on 49.1% of ballots last year, he’s been in that 40% range each time. I would have never guessed he would get that many votes back when he was playing.

Omar played his last MLB season for us. He was 45 in 2012 and played 60 games in Blue Jays colours, hitting .235/.265/.281 in 163 PA. I have no idea what Alex thought when he signed him. Well, I guess I do have an idea. During that time Alex seemed to think what the team needed was ‘veteran presents’ (every time I say presents not presence I get emails, so just for those people, I’ll say it is a joke). We went through a few of them over the years.

Omar played 24 seasons in the MLB. First, he came up with the Mariners and played six seasons with them, then 11 with Cleveland, four with the Giants, one with the Rangers, two with the White Sox, and then the last one with us.

He hit .272/.336/.352 with 404 steals in 2968 games. He made 3 All-Star teams. He got MVP votes once, but his supporters will point to his 11 Gold Gloves as the reason for him to go to the Hall of Fame.

Omar has a 45.3 bWAR. But it is his 28.4 defensive WAR (10th all-time) that we will buy him votes.

I guess we can pretty positively state that he didn’t take PEDs. Or at least he didn’t gain a bunch of power from them.

The Writers voted other shortstops in because of their defense. Luis Aparicio comes to mind (his stats are here), but then Luis made 13 All-Star teams and was considered the best shortstop of his era. Ozzie Smith was maybe the best defensive player I ever saw (stats here), but he made 15 All-Star teams, and we also thought of him as the best shortstop of his era. I don’t think anyone ever thought of Vizquel that way.

I’m not sure if stories on allegations of domestic abuse costs him votes. Part of his appeal was his ‘good guy’ reputation.

If Baines gets to the Hall, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if Vizquel does, but if it were up to me, I couldn’t put him there. Anyone that plays 24 seasons is a good player.

His career stats are here.