Ozzie Smith Was Not The Best...

...defensive shortstop of all time. Mark Belanger was.

"Who the hell is that, you damn dirty ape?"

Well, let me tell you. Remember Brooks Robinson? Yeah, well, his teammate helped make by far the greatest defensive left side of an infield in major league history. And Belanger was the better defender.

"Well, I don't agree. Baseball writers all say Ozzie is the best, and look, he won 13 straight gold gloves! Belanger only won eight, that's five more for Ozzie!"

Okay, well, gold gloves suck. They tell nothing about anything. Did you know that Rafael Palmeiro once won the AL gold glove at first base....while playing 128 games at DH? That's right, he only played 248 innings in the field, and won a gold glove. The best part? He wasn't even that good when he did play in the field, so there is absolutely no reason to pay any attention to such an award that...well, awards players for doing something that they didn't even do.

"Whatever, that doesn't even matter, because Ozzie still was the better player according to scouts."

Not so fast. If you look up old scouting reports, their reports are identical. Quickness of the foot, elite instincts, great glove work, good arm, and good recognition of hit balls. So, scouts would have suggested that they weren't too different.

"Ok, well, Ozzie had better fielding stats."

Eh, not so fast. It's true, Ozzie accrued greater overall numbers and ended his career with a higher fielding percentage. And the fact that he played more does help him. However, if you look at how effective each player was per season, per 162 games, it's pretty clear who the greater defensive player was. Here are their defensive statistics:

Mark Belanger: 15337 IN (at SS), 238 Total Zone, 2.1 TZ per 112 games, 3.0 TZ per 162 games, average 112 games at 2.2 dWAR, per 162 games 4.4 dWAR, 39.3 total dWAR

Ozzie Smith: 21785 IN (at SS), 239 Total Zone, 1.77 TZ per 135 games, 2.1 TZ per 162 games, average 135 games at 2.3 dWAR, per 162 games 3.1 dWAR, 43.4 total dWAR

Pretty startling difference actually. Clearly, Belanger is better than Smith statistically. His total zone ratings, and dWAR ratings are clearly in Belanger's favor, and even the raw numbers themselves are very very close, and when you look at how many more innings it took Ozzie Smith to get to the marks that Belanger set...you have to at least question the common notion that Smith was the better fielder.

"I don't know what any of that means. And you didn't compare their errors and fielding percentage!"

Explanations for WAR can be found on both baseball-reference.com and fangraphs.com. The other statistics can be found at fangraphs.com or hardballtimes.com. As to why I didn't compare fielding percentage and errors? They are by far the most overused, overrated defensive metric known to baseball fans. Why? Let me give you an example.

Pretend for a little that there are two shortstops who get the exact same groundballs. They start off in the exact same place for the exact same grounders. Nothing is different at all about where the balls end up and how hard they're hit. Essentially, I'm asking you to pretend that the variables are exactly the same for player A and player B.

Player A: 800 chances, 50 errors.
Player B: 800 chances, 10 errors.

So, player B is better right?

Player A: 929 F%
Player B: 980 F%

So yeah, you'd definitely rather have player B right? He has a 51 point percentage advantage in fielding percentage, and he made 40 fewer errors. Well, not so fast...

Player A: 800 chances, fielded 700 balls, made an error on 50, but recorded 650 outs.
Player B: 800 chances, fielded 500 balls, made an error on 10, but recorded 490 outs.

Suddenly, that huge F% and errors difference isn't so important, because player A ended up recording a staggering 160 more outs than player B. Clearly, you'd rather have those 160 more outs, even if he's more likely to commit an error.

So, the difference between this dream scenario and the Belanger and Smith comparison? Belanger had a 977 f%, while Smith had a 978 f%. The difference, of course, is that Belanger didn't have a higher rate of errors, he simply got to more balls, and that was it. He made more plays, and he made better plays. He made more outs that should not have been outs than Ozzie did. Bottom line, the stats don't lie and the scouting reports were too similar. Mark Belanger, ladies and gentlemen, is the greatest defensive shortstop in baseball history. Remember his name.

Disagree? Leave a comment, I love discussing baseball, and would love to discuss this topic. Thanks for reading! Also, I apologize for the not so convincing arguing voice. He just made my points look better.