Luis Aparicio was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984 in his sixth year of eligibility. The first table below presents Luis Aparicio's career as measured by Player won-lost records.

Luis Aparicio Basic Player Won-Lost Records
												Value Decomposition
Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWin Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWOPA	eWORL
1956	CHA	22	152	17.7	17.3	0.506	0.7	2.1	16.9	18.2	0.481	-0.2	1.2
1957	CHA	23	143	18.3	16.8	0.521	1.1	2.5	17.5	17.5	0.500	0.3	1.8
1958	CHA	24	145	18.3	16.9	0.520	1.3	2.6	18.0	17.2	0.510	0.9	2.3
1959	CHA	25	152	20.3	19.2	0.515	0.9	2.4	20.0	19.6	0.505	0.5	2.1
1960	CHA	26	153	21.4	19.1	0.529	1.5	3.1	20.8	19.7	0.513	0.9	2.5
1961	CHA	27	156	19.4	19.4	0.499	0.5	2.2	19.3	19.5	0.497	0.4	2.1
1962	CHA	28	153	17.9	19.1	0.484	-0.2	1.2	17.4	19.6	0.471	-0.7	0.7
1963	BAL	29	146	19.5	20.1	0.492	0.2	1.7	19.1	20.5	0.482	-0.2	1.3
1964	BAL	30	146	21.3	17.5	0.550	2.0	3.5	20.3	18.5	0.522	0.9	2.4
1965	BAL	31	144	18.3	16.8	0.521	1.2	2.6	17.6	17.5	0.501	0.5	1.9
1966	BAL	32	151	20.3	19.3	0.512	1.0	2.5	19.5	20.1	0.492	0.2	1.7
1967	BAL	33	134	15.3	18.0	0.459	-0.7	0.8	15.9	17.4	0.477	-0.1	1.4
1968	CHA	34	157	20.7	20.9	0.499	0.9	2.6	21.0	20.6	0.505	1.1	2.8
1969	CHA	35	156	20.6	21.6	0.488	0.1	1.9	21.6	20.7	0.511	1.0	2.8
1970	CHA	36	146	18.4	18.8	0.496	0.5	2.1	19.1	18.0	0.515	1.2	2.8
1971	BOS	37	125	14.7	15.9	0.480	0.1	1.3	14.4	16.1	0.473	-0.1	1.1
1972	BOS	38	110	13.9	13.0	0.517	1.0	2.1	13.3	13.6	0.495	0.4	1.5
1973	BOS	39	132	16.0	16.9	0.487	0.8	2.1	15.1	17.8	0.459	-0.2	1.2
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,601	332.5	326.5	0.504	12.6	39.2	326.8	332.2	0.496	6.9	33.5
			------	------	------				------	------
PostSeason (career)			10	1.2	1.5	0.429		-0.1	1.2	1.5	0.447		-0.0
			------	------	------	------		------	------	------	------		------
COMBINED			2,611	333.6	328.1	0.504		39.2	328.0	333.7	0.496		33.5

Luis Aparicio and the Hall of Fame

As noted above, Luis Aparicio was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984. Without having surveyed the 341 BBWAA voters who voted for him back in 1984, it's hard to know precisely why he was elected, but, generally speaking, his Hall-of-Fame case seems to rest on three markers: he was a brilliant defensive shortstop, winning 9 Gold Gloves, he was a brilliant base-stealer, leading the American League in stolen bases 9 consecutive seasons (1956 - 1964), and he was the leadoff hitter for two teams which won American League pennants for the first time in more than twenty years.

All three of these arguments tend to be viewed fairly poorly within the general sabermetric community. Defense is important (especially at a key defensive position like shortstop), but Gold Gloves are not necessarily a good measure of actual defensive value (e.g., 5-time Gold Glove winner Derek Jeter). Stolen bases tend to be overrated and their value is frequently offset by the negative value of caught stealings (in which Aparicio led the AL four times). And most sabermetric observers are loath to give extra credit to players for team accomplishments, especially leadoff hitters with below-average on-base percentages (Aparicio actually led the major leagues in outs made in both 1959 and 1966).

Players in Hall of Fame, not Hall of Merit

One example of how Luis Aparicio is viewed by the sabermetric community is the fact that he has not been elected - or come even remotely close to being elected - to the Hall of Merit. In the Hall of Merit's "1984" election - which corresponded to the year when Aparicio was elected to the Hall of Fame - Aparicio finished 59th in Hall-of-Merit voting, appearing on 3 of 55 15-person ballots (one vote each for 8th, 13th, and 15th place).

In a separate article, I looked at the Hall of Fame and Player won-lost records. In that article, I included a table showing career Player won-lost records for all players in the Hall of Fame but not the Hall of Merit. That table is reproduced next.

		Players in the Hall of Fame, but not the Hall of Merit (debuting since 1928)
Player	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
Luis Aparicio	2,601	332.5	326.5	12.6	39.2	326.8	332.2	6.9	33.5
Tony Perez	2,773	307.0	256.4	14.8	37.7	303.7	259.7	11.5	34.4
Jim Rice	2,089	281.7	249.5	10.7	33.0	278.3	252.9	7.4	29.6
Harold Baines	2,822	278.2	259.6	3.8	30.7	279.2	258.5	4.8	31.7
Phil Rizzuto	1,661	204.8	179.6	15.1	30.6	194.7	189.7	5.0	20.5
Catfish Hunter	515	210.0	193.2	12.6	30.4	205.1	198.0	7.7	25.5
Trevor Hoffman	1,034	100.7	62.3	19.5	30.3	91.5	71.6	10.2	21.1
Orlando Cepeda	2,124	248.8	207.2	9.7	29.0	248.9	207.1	9.8	29.1
Red Schoendienst	2,215	261.5	251.2	8.0	28.9	256.8	255.9	3.3	24.1
Jack Morris	568	224.0	208.6	7.7	28.7	218.9	213.7	2.6	23.6
Lee Smith	1,021	111.3	78.2	16.9	28.6	101.2	88.3	6.8	18.6
Lefty Gomez	323	149.4	125.8	15.5	27.5	140.5	134.7	6.6	18.6
Bill Mazeroski	2,163	245.6	247.7	4.9	24.7	242.7	250.6	2.0	21.9
Kirby Puckett	1,783	236.7	219.2	6.0	23.7	237.2	218.6	6.6	24.3
Dizzy Dean	242	95.2	69.2	15.5	22.9	90.1	74.3	10.4	17.8
Bruce Sutter	661	88.3	62.6	13.6	22.8	79.6	71.3	4.8	14.1
Ernie Lombardi	1,834	159.2	147.6	9.1	22.1	163.1	143.6	13.0	26.0
George Kell	1,795	217.0	201.2	3.9	20.7	219.4	198.8	6.4	23.2
Lou Brock	2,614	343.4	333.0	-8.6	18.6	349.5	326.9	-2.5	24.7
Chuck Klein	1,423	188.5	178.7	-2.0	13.7	198.8	168.4	8.3	24.0
Al Lopez	1,911	137.6	145.3	-1.0	10.8	137.5	145.4	-1.1	10.7
Rick Ferrell	1,640	130.8	138.8	-1.3	9.9	136.6	133.0	4.5	15.7
Bobby Cox	220	19.5	20.6	-0.7	1.0	19.1	20.9	-1.1	0.6
Whitey Herzog	631	51.6	55.5	-3.8	0.7	53.2	53.9	-2.3	2.3
Sparky Anderson	152	14.0	16.2	-0.9	0.3	13.4	16.8	-1.5	-0.3
Tony LaRussa	131	4.9	5.6	-0.2	0.3	4.8	5.7	-0.2	0.2
Walter Alston	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Tommy Lasorda	26	2.0	3.6	-0.8	-0.5	2.2	3.3	-0.5	-0.2
	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
Average	1,320.4	165.9	151.5	6.4	20.2	164.0	153.4	4.6	18.4

Luis Aparicio ranks first in pWins over replacement level (pWORL) among all players in the Hall of Fame but not the Hall of Merit for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records.

Of course, in theory, if the sorting of players via Hall-of-Merit voting and Player won-lost records matched up perfectly, then one could, perhaps, argue that the player with the most pWORL in the Hall of Fame, but not the Hall of Merit, was merely the best player not actually qualified for the Hall of Merit. It seems unlikely, however, that the Hall-of-Merit membership would line up so perfectly with Player won-lost records. Comparisons to a couple of fellow Hall-of-Famers who are also in the Hall of Merit may be instructive in understanding what Player won-lost records are seeing that Hall-of-Merit voters may be missing.

Luis Aparicio vs. Ozzie Smith

The shorthand Hall-of-Fame cases for Luis Aparicio and Ozzie Smith are pretty similar: brilliant defensive shortstop, excellent baserunner, player whose batting rises to the level of "not a complete zero" in his best seasons. That said, Smith beats Aparicio fairly handily in traditional Hall-of-Fame markers: 15 - 10 in All-Star games (not counting extra appearances in years when there were two All-Star games), 13 - 9 in Gold Gloves, even 3 - 2 in World Series appearances. And, indeed, Ozzie Smith was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility with 91.7% of the vote; Aparicio was elected in his sixth year of eligibility with 84.6% of the vote.

Looking at their career Player won-lost records may be instructive.

	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWin Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWOPA	eWORL
Luis Aparicio, career	2,601	332.5	326.5	0.504	12.6	39.2	326.8	332.2	0.496	6.9	33.5
Ozzie Smith, career	2,573	335.8	310.4	0.520	21.2	45.9	329.0	317.3	0.509	14.4	39.1

	Decomposition of eWORL
	Wins over Average
	Batting	Baserunning	Fielding	Position	Replacement	eWORL
Luis Aparicio	-13.8	4.0	2.3	13.8	27.2	33.5
Ozzie Smith	-9.5	2.7	7.5	12.8	25.7	39.1

Ozzie Smith was a better batter and fielder than Luis Aparicio over the course of their careers. Aparicio makes up some of that with better baserunning, he makes up some of it from the fact that shortstops were worse hitters on average during Aparicio's career than during Smith's (Smith's career coincided with the careers of Cal Ripken, Robin Yount, and Alan Trammell, among others), and he makes up some of the remaining difference in extra "replacement value" thanks to 452 more plate appearances and 621 more innings at shortstop for Aparicio in his career compared to Ozzie Smith.

Given a choice, I'd take Ozzie Smith. But being worse than Ozzie Smith is not an automatic disqualifier for the Hall of Fame.

Luis Aparicio vs. Ron Santo

Ron Santo is viewed by sabermetric observers as an obvious Hall-of-Famer who nevertheless took 32 years (and his own death) to finally be elected to the Hall of Fame. Luis Aparicio is viewed by sabermetric observers as obviously undeserving of the Hall of Fame who was nevertheless elected to the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA.

I think that a comparison of Aparicio and Santo using Player won-lost records helps to explain the difference in Hall-of-Fame voters' reactions to these two players. The next table compares the career records of Luis Aparicio and Ron Santo.

	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWin Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWOPA	eWORL
Luis Aparicio, career	2,601	332.5	326.5	0.504	12.6	39.2	326.8	332.2	0.496	6.9	33.5
Ron Santo, career	2,243	294.2	259.5	0.531	12.7	35.2	298.4	255.2	0.539	17.0	39.5

Ron Santo has two clear advantages over Luis Aparicio as measured by Player won-lost records. First, Santo was better relative to positional average than Aparicio. Aparicio, however, makes much of this back when comparing to a lower replacement level, thanks to 19% more player decisions (because of 16% more games, 20% more plate appearances, and 16% more defensive innings) for Aparicio.

Second, Santo looks much better when controlling for context, so that, even with Aparicio's advantage in player decisions, Santo beats Aparicio by a decisive 6.0 eWins over replacement level.

Most sabermetricians like to compare players to a non-zero baseline, so they tend to prefer comparisons relative to average (e.g., OPS+, ERA+) rather than relative to zero (e.g., career counting stats, such as hits or runs scored). And sabermetricians love to neutralize contexts (again, e.g., OPS+, ERA+). But if you do consider context, the numbers flip, and Aparicio beats Santo by 4.0 in pWins over replacement level. Because of the timing of their performance and the quality of their teammates, Luis Aparicio's performance actually translated into a few more team wins (and two American League pennants) than Ron Santo's performance. It is left to the reader to decide what, if anything, that means regarding the relative Hall-of-Fame worthiness of Aparicio and Santo.

Luis Aparicio's Fielding

Luis Aparicio won 9 Gold Gloves as a shortstop between 1958, the first year that separate Gold Gloves were awarded for the two leagues, and 1970, the last season when Aparicio started at least 140 games at shortstop (when he was 36 years old). The only two shortstops to have won more Gold Gloves are Omar Vizquel (11) and Ozzie Smith (13), who won their first Gold Glove between them seven years after Aparicio retired. So, Aparicio had the most Gold Gloves of any shortstop in major-league history when he retired. Of course, they started awarding Gold Gloves in Aparicio's second major-league season, so players like Joe Tinker and Rabbit Maranville (and even Phil Rizzuto and Pee Wee Reese) had no opportunity to win any Gold Gloves.

Still, at a minimum, Luis Aparicio was widely regarded as the best fielding shortstop of his generation. Of course, Derek Jeter won five Gold Gloves, so, y'know, they need to be taken with a grain of salt and all of that.

Fielding won-lost records are a more objective measure of players' fielding value. The next table presents the top 25 players in net fielding wins at shortstop among players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records (generally since 1916).

	Career Net Fielding Wins, Shortstop (Context-Neutral, Teammate-Adjusted)
Player	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	Net Wins
Ozzie Smith	118.6	103.7	0.533	14.9
Pee Wee Reese	88.6	76.9	0.535	11.7
Lou Boudreau	71.6	60.6	0.542	11.0
Mark Belanger	76.6	66.5	0.535	10.1
Cal Ripken	92.8	84.8	0.523	8.0
Tim Foli	67.4	60.7	0.526	6.6
Alan Trammell	82.5	76.1	0.520	6.4
Andrelton Simmons	38.9	32.6	0.544	6.3
Rabbit Maranville	72.9	67.0	0.521	5.9
Eddie R. Miller	71.9	66.2	0.521	5.7
Jack Wilson	52.7	47.0	0.529	5.7
Dave Concepcion	90.5	84.8	0.516	5.7
Roy McMillan	86.6	81.1	0.517	5.5
Rey Sanchez	37.6	32.1	0.539	5.5
Phil Rizzuto	69.1	63.7	0.521	5.5
Dave Bancroft	76.4	70.9	0.519	5.5
Bud Harrelson	55.1	49.7	0.526	5.4
Omar Vizquel	102.8	97.4	0.513	5.3
Garry Templeton	84.9	79.7	0.516	5.2
Marty Marion	72.7	67.6	0.518	5.1
Everett Scott	43.0	38.0	0.531	5.0
Ron Hansen	52.0	47.3	0.524	4.7
J.J. Hardy	58.6	54.0	0.521	4.6
Ozzie Guillen	72.3	67.8	0.516	4.5
Dal Maxvill	46.3	41.8	0.526	4.5

One could argue that the above table under-rates Luis Aparicio, who played shortstop regularly through age 39. As measured by Player won-lost records, Aparicio's fielding was somewhat below-average (but still major-league caliber) his last four major-league seasons. Being able to play even a slightly below-average shortstop at age 38 or 39 is both fairly impressive and also at least somewhat valuable.

The next table looks at all fielding positions and compares Player winning percentages against positional replacement levels. In this way, players are given credit for being merely slightly below-average defenders at more valuable defensive positions (e.g., Luis Aparicio in the 1970s). The top 10 players in fielding wins over replacement level are shown in the next table.

	Career Fielding Wins over Replacement Level (Context-Neutral, Teammate-Adjusted, all positions)
Player	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWORL
Ozzie Smith	118.5	103.6	0.534	18.9
Cal Ripken	111.4	101.9	0.522	16.3
Pee Wee Reese	92.4	80.2	0.535	14.4
Luis Aparicio	111.7	107.1	0.510	14.3
Mark Belanger	77.0	66.8	0.536	14.0
Omar Vizquel	107.8	101.9	0.514	13.8
Dave Concepcion	96.9	91.3	0.515	13.2
Alan Trammell	84.1	77.8	0.519	12.6
Lou Boudreau	74.1	62.5	0.542	12.3
Brooks Robinson	91.2	77.9	0.539	12.2

In other words, Luis Aparicio is arguably the third-most valuable fielder in the major leagues of the last 70+ years.

Luis Aparicio's Baserunning

As I noted above, Luis Aparicio led the American League in stolen bases six seasons in a row. He is also 36th in career stolen bases with 506 (17th among players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records). Although, as I also noted above, Aparicio did lead the American League in caught stealing four times, he was actually an excellent percentage base-stealer at 78.8%, well above break-even. Because of this, he ranks in the top 10 for net Component 1 (basestealing) baserunning wins for his career. The top 10 players in net Component 1 baserunning wins among players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records are shown in the table below.

		Career Net Component 1 Baserunning Wins
	Player	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	Net Wins
1	Rickey Henderson	31.9	20.1	0.613	11.8
2	Tim Raines Sr.	18.6	9.3	0.666	9.3
3	Willie Wilson	14.7	7.1	0.675	7.6
4	Joe L. Morgan	17.1	10.2	0.627	7.0
5	Lou Brock	22.9	16.3	0.584	6.6
6	Vince Coleman	17.8	11.2	0.613	6.6
7	Bert Campaneris	20.1	13.5	0.597	6.5
8	Davey Lopes	12.9	7.0	0.650	6.0
9	Paul Molitor	12.0	6.2	0.660	5.8
10	Luis Aparicio	12.7	7.6	0.626	5.1

There is more to baserunning than simply basestealing, and Aparicio was excellent at the other aspects of baserunning as well. The table below presents the top 10 players in net non-Component 1 baserunning wins for their career among players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records.

		Career Net non-Component 1 Baserunning Wins
	Player	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	Net Wins
1	Bert Campaneris	16.2	10.5	0.608	5.7
2	Willie Mays	19.7	14.9	0.570	4.8
3	Willie Davis	15.4	10.8	0.587	4.5
4	Tim Raines Sr.	16.0	11.5	0.581	4.4
5	Rickey Henderson	20.7	16.4	0.559	4.4
6	Willie Wilson	12.9	8.8	0.595	4.1
7	Robin Yount	16.8	12.7	0.569	4.1
8	Luis Aparicio	18.2	14.3	0.561	4.0
9	Frankie Frisch	11.6	7.8	0.597	3.8
10	Red Schoendienst	13.9	10.1	0.579	3.8

Finally, putting the results of these two tables together, the final table below presents the top 10 players in career baserunning wins over non-pitcher average among players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records.

		Career Baserunning Wins over Non-Pitcher Average
	Player	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWOPA
1	Rickey Henderson	52.7	36.5	0.591	8.0
2	Tim Raines Sr.	34.6	20.9	0.624	6.5
3	Willie Wilson	27.6	15.9	0.635	5.9
4	Bert Campaneris	36.2	24.0	0.602	5.8
5	Davey Lopes	23.9	14.6	0.621	4.4
6	Paul Molitor	29.3	20.7	0.586	4.3
7	Joe L. Morgan	36.7	27.1	0.575	4.2
8	Luis Aparicio	30.9	21.8	0.586	4.0
9	Vince Coleman	26.2	17.7	0.596	3.9
10	Kenny Lofton	26.1	19.0	0.579	3.5

So there you have the Hall-of-Fame case for Luis Aparicio according to Player won-lost records: elite fielding, excellent baserunning, average hitting for his position, and his performance translated into a few (5.7) more actual wins than expected.



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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