The Baseball Hall of Fame recently announced their 2014 Veterans' ballot. One player on the ballot is long-time Cincinnati Reds shortstop, Dave Concepcion.

The first table below presents Dave Concepcion's career as measured by Player won-lost records.

Dave Concepcion Basic Player Won-Lost Records
												Value Decomposition
Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWin Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWOPA	eWORL
1970	CIN	22	101	8.4	8.2	0.507	0.4	1.1	7.7	9.0	0.463	-0.3	0.4
1971	CIN	23	130	10.1	11.4	0.470	-0.2	0.6	10.1	11.4	0.470	-0.2	0.6
1972	CIN	24	119	11.5	11.5	0.500	0.4	1.3	10.8	12.2	0.469	-0.3	0.6
1973	CIN	25	89	13.5	10.2	0.569	2.3	3.3	12.8	10.8	0.542	1.7	2.7
1974	CIN	26	160	23.1	19.1	0.547	2.8	4.4	22.2	20.0	0.526	1.9	3.5
1975	CIN	27	140	17.8	15.2	0.540	2.1	3.4	17.1	15.9	0.517	1.3	2.6
1976	CIN	28	152	20.3	17.3	0.540	2.1	3.5	19.5	18.1	0.519	1.3	2.7
1977	CIN	29	156	18.1	17.7	0.505	1.0	2.5	18.6	17.2	0.519	1.5	3.0
1978	CIN	30	153	21.0	18.8	0.528	1.8	3.3	20.2	19.6	0.508	1.0	2.5
1979	CIN	31	149	21.7	17.9	0.548	2.7	4.2	21.6	18.0	0.545	2.6	4.1
1980	CIN	32	156	19.9	18.3	0.522	1.5	3.0	18.6	19.6	0.486	0.2	1.6
1981	CIN	33	106	16.2	12.8	0.559	2.2	3.4	15.4	13.6	0.531	1.4	2.5
1982	CIN	34	147	17.8	17.9	0.500	0.5	1.8	18.5	17.2	0.519	1.2	2.5
1983	CIN	35	143	14.9	16.9	0.469	-0.7	0.4	14.8	17.0	0.465	-0.9	0.3
1984	CIN	36	154	14.8	17.1	0.465	-0.7	0.5	15.1	16.7	0.475	-0.4	0.8
1985	CIN	37	155	18.8	18.6	0.503	0.7	2.1	17.5	19.8	0.469	-0.5	0.9
1986	CIN	38	89	9.3	10.2	0.477	-0.3	0.5	9.7	9.9	0.493	0.1	0.8
1987	CIN	39	104	8.6	8.9	0.493	-0.2	0.5	8.4	9.1	0.480	-0.4	0.3
1988	CIN	40	84	4.0	6.0	0.402	-0.9	-0.5	4.4	5.6	0.435	-0.6	-0.2
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,487	289.9	273.8	0.514	17.3	39.2	282.9	280.8	0.502	10.3	32.1
			------	------	------				------	------
PostSeason (career)			34	3.6	3.3	0.516		0.5	3.6	3.3	0.525		0.6
			------	------	------	------		------	------	------	------		------
COMBINED			2,521	293.5	277.1	0.514		39.7	286.5	284.1	0.502		32.7

Dave Concepcion's Hall of Fame Case

Dave Concepcion lasted for the maximum fifteen years on the BBWAA Hall-of-Fame ballot. He has some obvious credentials for a Hall-of-Fame case: 9 All-Star games (5-time starter), 5 Gold Gloves, played in 4 World Series. But probably the most common argument cited in support of Concepcion's Hall-of-Fame case was this: Dave Concepcion was the best major-league shortstop of the 1970s.

Was he?

The next table shows the top 10 players in (context-neutral, teammate-adjusted) wins over positional average earned at shortstop from 1970 - 1979.

	Top 10 Shortstops of the 1970s
	eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	eWOPA
Bert Campaneris	167.6	165.4	0.503	9.5
Dave Concepcion	158.2	151.7	0.511	9.4
Toby Harrah	101.2	92.6	0.522	8.9
Chris Speier	154.2	152.9	0.502	6.9
Roy Smalley III	82.7	81.5	0.504	4.7
Mark Belanger	137.8	143.9	0.489	3.5
Garry Templeton	68.3	66.7	0.506	3.4
Freddie Patek	150.9	160.2	0.485	3.0
Bud Harrelson	96.7	99.1	0.494	2.8
Rick Burleson	101.6	107.0	0.487	2.6

Player won-lost records at least agree with the basic premise: Dave Concepcion was the best shortstop in the major-leagues over the 1970s. Although it is a very close battle between Concepcion and Bert Campaneris - who was, perhaps, slightly worse in slightly more playing time - and Toby Harrah - who was, perhaps, slightly better in slightly less playing time. Whether that's enough to make a Hall-of-Fame case is a subjective question left to the reader.

Dave Concepcion's Fielding

Another key element of Dave Concepcion's Hall-of-Fame case, frequently cited by his supporters, is his fielding. He won 5 Gold Gloves and looks even better than that by some statistical fielding measures.

The next table lists the top ten players in career net (context-neutral, teammate-adjusted) fielding wins at shortstop.

		Top 10 Shortstops: Career Net Fielding Wins
		eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	Net Wins
1	Ozzie Smith	118.6	103.7	0.533	14.9
2	Pee Wee Reese	88.6	76.9	0.535	11.7
3	Lou Boudreau	71.6	60.6	0.542	11.0
4	Mark Belanger	76.6	66.5	0.535	10.1
5	Cal Ripken	92.8	84.8	0.523	8.0
6	Tim Foli	67.4	60.7	0.526	6.6
7	Alan Trammell	82.5	76.1	0.520	6.4
8	Andrelton Simmons	38.9	32.6	0.544	6.3
9	Rabbit Maranville	72.9	67.0	0.521	5.9
10	Eddie R. Miller	71.9	66.2	0.521	5.7

Dave Concepcion ranks 9th all-time in net fielding wins at shortstop over the seasons for which I have calculated Player won-lost records (mostly complete since 1947 with some data before then). His fielding record, as measured by Player won-lost record, is probably most similar to the two players immediately ahead of him here, Luis Aparicio and Omar Vizquel, both of whom added a few extra years at shortstop past their defensive primees relative to Concepcion.

The next table compares Concepcion to Aparicio and Vizquel, in terms of fielding won-lost record as a shortstop, through age 37, the last season (1985) for which Concepcion was primarily a shortstop. In contrast, Aparicio played regularly as a shortstop through age 39 (and, in fact, never played any defensive position except shortstop in his major-league career). Vizquel was exclusively a shortstop through age 41 before finishing his career with four seasons as a utility infielder.

	Net Fielding Wins at shortstop thru Age 37
	eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	Net Wins
Luis Aparicio	102.7	97.7	0.512	5.0
Omar Vizquel	81.9	78.4	0.511	3.6
Dave Concepcion	87.7	82.0	0.517	5.7

So, defensively, Dave Concepcion matches up reasonably well (but somewhat below, due to career length) with Luis Aparicio and Omar Vizquel. Aparicio is in the Hall of Fame and, while not eligible yet, Vizquel definitely has Hall-of-Fame supporters.

Is that enough to qualify Dave Concepcion for the Hall of Fame?

I lean no, but he definitely had an excellent career and certainly deserves to be remembered as a vital cog in one of the all-time great baseball dynasties, the Big Red Machine.



All articles are written so that they pull data directly from the most recent version of the Player won-lost database. Hence, any numbers cited within these articles should automatically incorporate the most recent update to Player won-lost records. In some cases, however, the accompanying text may have been written based on previous versions of Player won-lost records. I apologize if this results in non-sensical text in any cases.

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