I was watching the Pirates yesterday because I was curious about their new and highly-touted teenage shortstop, Konnor Griffin. Man, shortstops are no longer the wimpy little guys who played there in my boyhood. This dude is a big boy. The announcers reported that Griffin became the youngest Pirate to get a hit in his first game since Hall of Fame second baseman Bill Mazeroski did it about 70 years ago, on July 7, 1956.
And then I realized that I missed Maz’s death in late February.
Many people have maligned his HoF credentials, arguing that he’s there just because he hit one of the most dramatic homers in baseball history. Playing for the Pirates, he became the man who made Mickey Mantle cry when he defeated the mighty Yankees with a single blow. He cleared the left field wall in old Forbes Field in the bottom of the ninth in game seven of the 1960 World Series. It remains to this day the only game 7 walk-off homer in baseball history.
But that’s not why Mazeroski should be in the Hall of Fame. He was better at turning a double play than any other second baseman in baseball history.
People are well aware of dominating performances in pitching and batting. Any good fan knows that Babe Ruth hit 54 homers in his first year with the Yankees, when nobody else in the league could even reach 20. Every good baseball nut knows that Pedro Martinez posted a 1.74 ERA in the height of the steroid era, when the league’s second-place guy was at 3.70. But only a tiny fraction of baseball fans know that Maz put up defensive stats just as impressive as that.
- In 1966, Maz turned 161 double plays. The NL’s second-place guy turned 89.
- That’s the best season in history, but was no fluke – Maz also has two others in the top six.
- Among all second basemen in history, he has the highest lifetime defensive WAR.
- Over the course of a career, he turned a double play every 10.7 innings, making him the best of all time, and one of only two men below 12.
By the way, Maz’s record of 161 double plays is unassailable. The record in this century is 136, and the numbers are on a downward spiral. Nobody even reached 100 in 2024 or 2025, even with all the teams now in the majors. The current baseball strategy is based on “three true outcomes,” which means that the number of ground balls is declining. Because there are so many strike-outs now, and because players try to hit the ball in the air when not whiffing, there are 15%-20% fewer ground balls than in Maz’s era, so even if Maz could come back to life with his 1966 skill level and got paired with the game’s best SS, he could not approach his own record.
Was Maz the greatest second baseman of all time? Of course not. Batting is important, and he stunk as a hitter. There is a baseball stat, called OPS+, which measures the total value of a player at the plate, with 100 representing average production for a major league hitter. In 17 seasons in the majors, Maz never even reached 100. He was always decidedly below average. He wasn’t even the best second baseman of the 50s and 60s. Nellie Fox and Red Schoendienst, near contemporaries, were almost as good defensively, and were consistent .300 hitters.
Was Maz a great player? Sadly, no. His lifetime WAR was 37, with most of it coming from defense, far lower than an average Hall of Famer.
But what is the Hall of Fame designed to honor? Is being the greatest defensive player at one important position not sufficient? I think the Hall is designed to honor special lifetime achievements, and that seems pretty special to me. That got Ozzie Smith (.262 lifetime) and Brooks Robinson (.267) in. Brooks was an average offensive player, and Ozzie was below average, so they are in because they were the best defenders at their positions. Granted, those two men were better overall players than Maz, but there’s no good reason why comparable skills shouldn’t have gotten Maz in as well. I concede that he’s a marginal HOFer, but I would probably have voted for him because “best defense of all time at a key position” swings emotional weight with me.
That homer was a 7th grade highlight. Almost made me forgive the Buccos for nosing out my Dodgers.
Talking about big boys, Cleveland has a kid with 5 HRs in 7 games. Veteran writers are making guarded Thome/”Pronk” Hafner comps. Everyone knows Thome but Hafner (Pronk stands for “half project, half donkey”) was essentially a Midwest Big Papi for a stretch before back problems ruined him back in the 00’s.
Chase DeLauter.
Which reminds me of two Indians (played before the name change) who should be in the Hall: Kenny Lofton and Omar Vizquel.
Vizquel is not renowned as a hitter, but he got almost 3000 hits! (In addition to his defense.)
Pretty similar credentials to Maz.
Lofton – great baserunner, great centerfielder, .300 hitter. Hard to understand why the Hall left him out with 68 WAR and put in Harold Baines, a slow runner with only 39 WAR and no defensive value. I just don’t get that logic at all.
Baseball more than any other sport uses analytics to compare players from different era. Maz played six seasons where the strike zone was from the top of a batter’s shoulders to the knees, which was extremely friendly to pitchers of the time. I do wonder how much of a hit any player in that era took compared to other eras due to the huge strike zone pitchers had the advantage of.
I don’t have an issue with Maz in the Hall since he was likely the best defensive second baseman in history, and that carried ALOT of weight. He has the best defensive war of all the HOF 2nd baseman at 24. Joe Gordon is 22.4. Interestingly Gordon has the highest RField at 150. Maz is 147. Rfield stands for Fielding Runs, a component of Wins Above Replacement (WAR) that measures a position player’s total defensive contribution in runs above or below average. It represents the total value of a player’s fielding, combining range, arm strength, and error avoidance into one number.
That is only among players enshrined in the Hall, but gives you an idea how elitz Maz was defensively. He likeliy isn’t in without the homerun, because that kept is name alive, but the best defensive players should be honored IMO. There are plenty of hitters that get in that couldn’t field at all.
Lofton is a no-brainer, only topped in that category by Dwight Evans.
The Red Sox of the late 70s had one of the best outfields in history. All three men hit at least 300 lifetime homers. Since they were almost the same age, with only 16 months separating the oldest and the youngest, they peaked at the same time, with each of them leading the AL in WAR at least once in just a four year period (Rice 1978, Lynn 1979, Evans 1981). Rice won the MVP that year, Lynn and Evans finished in the top four in their years.
Here are their lifetime OPS+ (basically a three-way tie for their value at the plate):
Lynn 129
Evans 128
Rice 127
In addition to their batting:
Other pertinent facts
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Putting it all together:
Here are their lifetime WARs
Evans 67 (4.2 per 162 games)
Lynn 50 (4.1)
Rice 48 (3.7)
If you didn’t know the answers already, which would you guess is in the HoF? Which would be least likely?
And yet …
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To be completely fair, I hid an important fact. Jim Rice finished in the top five in the MVP balloting six times. That’s an impressive level of consistent performance at the very highest level.
C’mon Scoop, eight Gold Gloves is better than “solid”.
Around 8 tonight, weather permitting, Jose Ramirez will have officially played in 1620 games for the ex-Tribe, making him the all-time team leader in games played. He will be the only active games played record holder and possibly the last if Trout can’t get in app. 370 more for the Angels, or Vladdy however many for the BJs. If back in 2013 someone had told me that he would become a better player than Francisco Lindor or exceed Rocky Colavito in Cleveland fan popularity, I would have been skeptical. And wrong.
Things didn’t look promising for Ramirez after his first three seasons, when they were trying to make him a middle infielder, but once they parked him on third, he obviously got the hang of things. He’s one of those guys that really creep up on all the lists without anyone noticing. Beltre was like that as well. Ramirez now has eight top-ten finishes in the MVP voting, including six top-fives. That’s already HoF material, and he’s only 33.
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I was going to use superlatives to describe Evans and Lynn on defense, but I saw that they both had negative defensive WARs in their careers, so I softened my statements.
Which casts serious eyeball-test doubts on the value of defensive WAR. But then Jeter got a G.G. while Vizquel was at his peak, which was ludicrous.
As for Jose, it’s a joy to watch him play every day. Best out of the box baserunning smarts I’ve ever seen. And he’ll do things like cap off a 12-pitch AB with a bomb. Smart, funny, downright lovable, and unquestioned team leader. Plus, there’s “Down goes Anderson”, which quite possibly put Tom Hamilton in Cooperstown.