Omar Vizquel

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
Home List of Articles

Omar Vizquel

2021 Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Omar Vizquel

Five facts about Omar Vizquel:

Omar Vizquel played 2,709 games at shortstop in his career. This is the most defensive games at shortstop in major-league history. Vizquel's 2,968 career games played are the 12th-most in major-league history.

Omar Vizquel had 7,676 assists as a shortstop, the third-most in major-league history. He participated in 1,734 double plays at shortstop, the most in major-league history.

Omar Vizquel led his league in fielding percentage by a shortstop six times. His career fielding percentage of .985 is the best by a shortstop in major-league history.

Vizquel won 11 Gold Gloves at shortstop, the second-most in major-league history behind Ozzie Smith.

Omar Vizquel had 2,877 hits in his major-league career. This is the 43rd-most in major-league history. Only two players with more hits in their career than Vizquel have appeared on at least one Hall-of-Fame ballot and are not yet in the Hall of Fame, Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro.

The first two tables below present Omar Vizquel's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1989	SEA	22	143	10.6	14.0	-1.4	-2.6
1990	SEA	23	81	7.1	9.1	-0.6	-1.4
1991	SEA	24	142	13.6	14.0	1.8	0.5
1992	SEA	25	136	14.3	17.2	-0.4	-1.9
1993	SEA	26	158	17.3	19.7	0.6	-1.2
1994	CLE	27	69	7.4	9.2	-0.4	-1.2
1995	CLE	28	136	18.2	15.5	5.4	3.7
1996	CLE	29	151	17.1	17.8	2.1	0.4
1997	CLE	30	153	17.9	17.7	3.1	1.4
1998	CLE	31	151	18.2	18.5	2.7	0.8
1999	CLE	32	144	20.9	16.1	7.6	5.8
2000	CLE	33	156	17.5	18.4	1.9	0.2
2001	CLE	34	155	16.5	17.5	1.7	-0.0
2002	CLE	35	151	19.3	19.8	2.5	0.5
2003	CLE	36	64	8.3	8.1	1.4	0.6
2004	CLE	37	148	16.7	17.5	1.8	0.1
2005	SFN	38	152	17.3	18.1	1.4	-0.3
2006	SFN	39	153	18.0	19.0	1.4	-0.4
2007	SFN	40	145	14.3	16.8	-0.7	-2.1
2008	SFN	41	92	6.7	8.8	-1.1	-1.8
2009	TEX	42	62	5.0	4.2	1.3	0.9
2010	CHA	43	108	9.9	9.8	1.0	0.1
2011	CHA	44	58	4.8	5.9	-0.4	-0.9
2012	TOR	45	60	3.4	4.8	-0.9	-1.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,968	320.2	337.6	31.6	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			57	7.4	7.1	1.5	0.7
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			3,025	327.6	344.7	33.1	0.4

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1989	SEA	22	143	11.5	13.1	0.4	-0.8
1990	SEA	23	81	7.2	9.0	-0.5	-1.3
1991	SEA	24	142	13.3	14.3	1.3	-0.1
1992	SEA	25	136	15.1	16.4	1.3	-0.2
1993	SEA	26	158	17.3	19.7	0.7	-1.1
1994	CLE	27	69	7.6	9.0	-0.0	-0.8
1995	CLE	28	136	16.2	17.5	1.6	-0.1
1996	CLE	29	151	16.9	18.0	1.6	-0.0
1997	CLE	30	153	17.8	17.8	3.0	1.2
1998	CLE	31	151	17.7	19.0	1.6	-0.2
1999	CLE	32	144	19.6	17.3	5.2	3.4
2000	CLE	33	156	17.8	18.1	2.5	0.7
2001	CLE	34	155	15.5	18.5	-0.1	-1.8
2002	CLE	35	151	19.3	19.9	2.4	0.4
2003	CLE	36	64	8.1	8.3	1.1	0.3
2004	CLE	37	148	16.6	17.6	1.6	-0.1
2005	SFN	38	152	17.4	18.0	1.6	-0.1
2006	SFN	39	153	17.7	19.3	0.7	-1.1
2007	SFN	40	145	14.6	16.5	-0.1	-1.6
2008	SFN	41	92	6.6	8.8	-1.1	-1.9
2009	TEX	42	62	4.5	4.7	0.5	0.1
2010	CHA	43	108	9.2	10.5	-0.3	-1.2
2011	CHA	44	58	4.7	6.0	-0.6	-1.1
2012	TOR	45	60	3.6	4.6	-0.5	-0.9
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,968	315.7	342.1	23.6	-8.2
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			57	7.3	7.2	1.3	0.6
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			3,025	323.0	349.3	24.9	-7.7

This is Omar Vizquel's fourth year on the Hall-of-Fame ballot. I have written articles about the Hall-of-Fame candidates every year in which Omar Vizquel has been on the BBWAA ballot. Here is what I wrote about him last year.

Vote Prediction

Vizquel debuted at 37.0% on the Hall-of-Fame ballot and has seen that grow to 42.8% in his second year and 52.6% last year, in his third year on the ballot. At this point, Vizquel seems well positioned to be elected to the Hall of Fame, probably within the next three to four years. Vizquel has his detractors and there is a chance that there are enough of them to keep his ceiling below 75%. But I suspect that is not the case and, even if it is, I suspect that it's too early to be able to determine that yet anyway.

I suspect that Vizquel will see a further boost in his vote total this year, probably at least comparable to last year's gain of 9.8%. I think he'll probably do even a little bit better than that, let's call it a 12.0% gain for an overall vote percentage of 64.6% which, if I am correct, would probably leave him as the top returning vote getter next year.

Player Won-Lost Records and Omar Vizquel

To be perfectly honest, I am not a big fan of Omar Vizquel's Hall-of-Fame candidacy. Nothing against Vizquel. He was a fine player for a long time. So long, in fact, that he was the last major-league player who was older than me. But from a pure statistical value measure, he just wasn't that good for that long.

That said, though, I think that my Player won-lost records highlight what the voters are seeing in him. In my general article about the 2021 Hall-of-Fame ballot, I allowed readers to set their own weights of various aspects of Player won-lost records - wins vs. WOPA (wins over positional average) vs. WORL (wins over replacement level); pWins (tied to team wins) vs. eWins (context-neutral), etc. Using the default weights in the article, Vizquel rates quite poorly, finishing behind several players who nobody thinks of as Hall-of-Fame candidates.

But the point of that was to allow readers to choose their own weights. And there are absolutely weights that one can choose that will bring Omar Vizquel toward the top of the ballot. Some are a little gimmicky: he's the only shortstop on the ballot, so you could get him to the top of the ballot by giving extra weight to shortstops. But some are not so gimmicky at all. Vizquel looks better in pWins - which tie to team performance - than in eWins - which neutralize the context in which a player performed. Some of that was that Vizquel played with very good teammates, especially in Cleveland. But pWins tie to actual wins and I think it's perfectly reasonable to look at actual wins when retroactively evaluating a player's career. And most significantly, Vizquel looks better the lower the baseline against which you compare his wins. He ranks much higher in total pWins than he does in, say, pWORL (pWins over replacement level), and he ranks higher in pWORL than he does in pWOPA (pWins over positional average).

So, for example, if one weights pWins twice as heavily as eWins and gives weights on Wins vs. WORL vs. WOPA vs. WO* (Wins over Star level) of, say, 3, 2, 1, and 0, respectively, here's how the 2021 Hall-of-Fame candidates look.

Choose Weights for Uber-Statistic to Rank 2021 Hall-of-Fame Candidates

Positional Average (Weighted Avg of Options): 0.500 (1-Year) (9-Year) (Long-Run)

Positional Averages for Pitchers (Wgted Avg of Options): 0.500 vs. Different Values for Starting vs. Relief Pitchers: (Empirical) (Based on Pitchers who Do Both)

pWins vs. eWins

Wins vs. Wins over Average vs. Repl. Level vs. Star

Zero out negative values (y/n): WOPA: WORL: WO*:

By Position: C 1B 2B 3B SS LF CF RF
DH PH PR P Off. SP RP

Weights for Postseason: Wins WOPA WORL

Normalize seasons to games (enter 0 to use actual un-normalized totals)

2021 Hall-of-Fame Candidates Ranked by User-Selected Uber Statistic

Rank	Player	Key Stat	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
1	Barry Bonds	5,817.3	466.8	310.6	136.5	174.4	462.8	314.6	127.1	164.9
2	Roger Clemens	4,116.1	316.9	228.6	94.6	131.3	314.8	230.7	90.6	127.2
3	Manny Ramirez	3,814.0	320.0	247.6	60.2	88.9	315.5	252.2	51.6	80.3
4	Gary Sheffield	3,811.3	343.2	288.0	41.0	72.7	342.8	288.4	40.5	72.2
5	Sammy Sosa	3,395.0	316.6	277.5	20.7	50.1	321.0	273.1	29.2	58.6
6	Jeff Kent	3,340.8	301.3	266.1	36.3	63.9	299.2	268.2	32.4	60.1
7	Willie Stargell	3,314.3	295.7	230.0	45.7	71.8	295.7	230.1	46.6	72.8
8	Omar Vizquel	3,245.5	320.2	337.6	-0.3	31.6	315.7	342.1	-8.2	23.6
9	Bobby Abreu	3,242.8	309.4	264.0	29.6	57.9	308.0	265.4	26.4	54.7
10	Andruw Jones	3,107.6	281.1	232.8	40.4	65.7	274.9	238.9	28.2	53.5
11	Torii Hunter	3,075.0	305.7	289.8	9.9	39.1	301.5	294.0	1.7	30.8
12	Scott Rolen	2,926.0	266.5	221.6	39.4	63.1	263.9	224.2	34.0	57.8
13	Reggie Smith	2,880.1	264.7	217.2	33.1	56.9	264.6	217.3	32.9	56.7
14	Aramis Ramirez	2,759.3	266.1	247.7	11.1	36.1	266.5	247.3	12.5	37.4
15	Andy Pettitte	2,598.1	210.6	175.1	41.1	67.4	206.4	179.4	32.9	59.1
16	Todd Helton	2,586.0	247.1	208.7	15.6	37.8	253.0	202.8	27.9	50.0
17	Curt Schilling	2,555.5	205.8	172.8	44.5	69.2	204.5	174.1	42.9	67.6
18	Tim Hudson	2,331.5	197.8	167.5	40.8	64.5	197.0	168.2	40.3	64.1
19	Mark Buehrle	2,132.6	195.0	175.8	23.5	49.0	193.4	177.4	20.8	46.3
20	Nick Swisher	1,873.2	180.2	158.5	14.3	30.8	175.7	163.0	5.0	21.6
21	A.J. Burnett	1,759.1	167.1	172.2	3.8	26.1	169.5	169.8	9.1	31.4
22	Mike Cuddyer	1,717.3	177.0	173.9	-5.0	11.9	177.6	173.3	-2.9	14.0
23	Barry Zito	1,681.7	158.5	166.6	-1.2	20.5	160.6	164.5	3.8	25.5
24	Shane Victorino	1,667.4	153.3	135.7	12.2	26.1	149.9	139.1	5.5	19.4
25	Dan Haren	1,573.0	147.0	144.6	10.0	29.0	147.4	144.3	10.8	29.7
26	Billy Wagner	1,008.1	79.4	50.7	26.5	38.9	75.3	54.8	18.9	31.2

Willie Stargell and Reggie Smith are included (in bold) as an average Hall-of-Famer and a typical non-HOF player in the Hall of Merit, respectively.

Those aren't the weights I would use to construct my Hall-of-Fame ballot (if I had one). But that hardly means those weights are wrong or indefensible. On the contrary, they seem reasonable enough. And they make a pretty solid case for Omar Vizquel as a Hall-of-Famer.

Article last updated: December 8, 2020

2021 Hall of Fame Ballot Series

Home List of Articles