Best All-Time Shortstops in MLB History

Best All-Time Shortstops Vern Stephens

“He’s tough, real tough . . . if you throw one to the outside corner, he’s liable to hit it down the right field line for two or three bases.”—Pitcher Ed Lopat, about Vern Stephens

When Vern Stephens was a teenager, he played on the same American Legion baseball team as future major league pitcher Bob Lemon. Imagine being a teenager and facing two future major league players who would eventually make a combined 14 MLB all-star teams.

Stephens earned eight of those all-star appearances, first with the St. Louis Browns early in his career and then with the Boston Red Sox later. He led the league in home runs once and RBI once as a member of the Browns.

He was also a key part of their 1944 World Series team, which was the only year the St. Louis Browns ever made the World Series. Stephens finished third in MVP voting that year.

Three years later, with the Browns sliding down the standings after their pennant-winning year, Stephens was the centerpiece of a deal that landed him with the Boston Red Sox.

He was slotted into the lineup at the cleanup spot behind Ted Williams and had back-to-back seasons in 1949 and 1950 during which he led the league with 159 and 144 RBI. No shortstop ever had more RBI in a season than the 159 by Stephens.

One criticism of Stephens during his career was the idea that he was lucky to play in Fenway Park. It’s true that he took advantage of his home field when he was on the Red Sox. He hit .314/.395/.540 in 411 games at Fenway Park compared to career marks of .286/.355/.460. That being said, many players hit better at home than on the road.

After a 30-HR, 144-RBI season in 1950, Stephens was limited to 109 games the following year because of injuries. His playing time continued to dwindle over the next few years, and he played his final major league season in 1955 with the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox.

After being released by the White Sox, Stephens had one last hurrah with the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League. The team’s manager, Fred Hutchinson, brought in a bunch of former major leaguers, including Stephens.

They won the PCL title, and Stephens hit .338/.395/.525. He returned in 1956 but didn’t play as well, and his baseball career was over.

Best All-Time Shortstops Bert Campaneris

“You can talk about Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, and Sal Bando, all those great players, but it was Campy who made everything go.”—Charlie Finley, Athletics owner.

Bert Campaneris was one of those 1970s shortstops who didn’t hit much but was great in the field, stole bases, and laid down plenty of sacrifice bunts. His career wRC+ was 90, meaning he was 10 percent below average on offense after league and ballpark effects were taken into account.

On the bases, Campy led the league in steals six times and had a stretch from 1965 to 1972 during which he averaged 51 steals per season. He also led the league in caught stealing three times.

He didn’t bunt as much early in his career, but when he was in his 30s he bunted more often. In 1977 and 1978, he led the league in sacrifice bunts with 40 and 25, respectively. The Rangers had six different managers over those two seasons. Apparently, they all loved “small ball.”

Long before he reached the major leagues, Campaneris was a boy playing baseball in Cuba. He was seen by a Kansas City Athletics’ scout at the Pan-Am Games in Costa Rica in 1961 and offered a $1,000 signing bonus. He jumped at the chance and left Cuba not long before the Castro revolution occurred that made it much more difficult for baseball players to leave the country.

After two-and-a-half minor league seasons, Campaneris made the big leagues in 1964. The next season, he would lead the league in steals and caught stealing. He also played all nine positions in a game on September 8, 1965.

After pitching both right-handed and left-handed in the eighth inning, the 5-foot-10, 160 pounder played catcher, where he suffered an injury on a collision at the plate that caused him to miss five games. When Will Ferrell played all nine positions in five spring training games three years ago, he did so to honor Campaneris.

The Athletics moved from Kansas City to Oakland in 1968 and Campaneris had his first all-star season. He led the league in plate appearances, hits, steals and caught stealing. The A’s continued to improve and became a dynasty in the early 1970s.

Campaneris was a key part of the teams that made the playoffs five straight years from 1971 to 1975. He was an all-star the last four of those years and helped the A’s win the World Series three straight years from 1972 to 1974.

When free agency hit baseball in the mid-1970s, A’s owner Charlie Finley couldn’t keep the team together. Campaneris was among the many players who left the A’s. He signed with the Texas Rangers and was an all-star his first year in the Longhorn State, but his playing time dwindled when he hit .186/.245/.238 in 98 games in 1978.

He would continue to struggle with the bat for most of the rest of his career. The Rangers traded him to the Angels in 1979. He played with the Angels through the 1981 season then spent a year in the Mexican League. In 1983, he signed with the Yankees and had one last stretch of success, hitting .322/.355/.357 in a part-time role.

After his playing career ended, Campaneris coached with a few teams, including the Seibu Lions in the Japanese League. He played in the Senior Professional Baseball Association in 1989 at the age of 47. He’s also appeared at numerous Old Timers games around the country. He just loved baseball.

Best All-Time Shortstops Dave Bancroft

“The best thing about Bancroft is, he can think. He uses his brain. He is more than a great mechanical player. A player like Banny at short means everything to a ball club.”—Hughie Jennings, about Dave Bancroft

Dave Bancroft came up to the big leagues with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1915, just as the legendary Honus Wagner’s career was winding down.

Wagner was already in his 40s and would play through the 2017 season. In that 1915 season, the Pittsburgh Press wrote that Bancroft was “developing into a second Honus Wagner.” Bancroft was never the hitter that Wagner was, but he was the premier shortstop after Wagner retired.

In his first year with the Phillies, Bancroft helped the team reach the World Series. They lost to the Boston Red Sox, but Bancroft hit .294 with a .368 on-base percentage. He played five full seasons and part of a fifth with the Phillies before being traded to the New York Giants in 1920.

The Giants were managed by John McGraw, a lover of small ball tactics. Bancroft had the reputation of being a smart, gritty player who could execute the sacrifice bunts and hit-and-runs that McGraw favored.

The move paid off when the Giants went to the World Series three straight years from 1921 to 1923. All three series were against the crosstown New York Yankees and the Giants won two of them.

In some ways, John McGraw was the Bill Belichick of his time. Winning took precedent over sentimentality. Despite helping the Giants to three straight World Series appearances, the 32-year-old Bancroft was on the way out of New York. McGraw didn’t hesitate to move on from Bancroft because he had a younger shortstop, Travis Jackson, waiting in the wings.

Bancroft was traded to the Boston Braves, where he became the team’s player-manager. His first season in Boston was subpar, but he bounced back with strong seasons in 1925 and 1926.

He hit over .300 both years with on-base percentages of .400 and .399. He couldn’t get the Braves to win much, though. After back-to-back seventh place finishes in 1926 and 1927, he was dismissed.

Bancroft played two seasons with the Brooklyn Robins before returning to the Giants in 1930. He was pretty much done as a player by then, going just 1 for 17. He retired after the season and moved into a coaching role as McGraw’s second-in command. When McGraw retired during the 1932 season and Bancroft was passed over for the role of manager, he finished out the year and retired from major league baseball.

Despite moving on from the big leagues, Bancroft wasn’t done with baseball. He managed teams in the Midwest in the 1930s and 40s, then managed three different all women’s teams in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, the league featured in the movie “A League of Their Own.”

Best All-Time Shortstops Jim Fregosi

“I was leading the good life and I loved it. But I was paying for it on the field.”—Jim Fregosi.

Jim Fregosi was a great athlete who earned All-League honors in football, basketball and baseball while growing up in San Francisco. He signed with the Red Sox out of high school rather than go to college on a football scholarship. He played one season in the minor leagues for the Red Sox before the Angles picked him in the expansion draft prior to the 1961 season.

Just 19 years old, Fregosi got into 11 games with the Angels at the end of the 1961 season. He split time in the majors and minors in 1962, then became a full-time player with the Angels in 1963, hitting .287/.325/.422.

For the next seven years, Fregosi was a regular all-star. The only year he didn’t make the team was 1965. He made the team five years in a row from 1966 to 1970.

His career numbers don’t look impressive, but it must be remembered that he played many years during a pitcher’s era. During a nine-year stretch from 1962 to 1970, Fregosi was above average on offense and very good with the glove.

After the 1971 season, Fregosi was part of what’s considered to be one of the worst trades in MLB history. The Angels traded him to the New York Mets for four players: Francisco Estrada, Leroy Stanton, Don Rose and . . . Nolan Ryan.

This was before Nolan Ryan became NOLAN RYAN. At the time, he was a 25-year-old with a great arm but no control. He’d already pitched 510 career innings and had an impressive 493 strikeouts, but they came with 344 walks and a roughly league average ERA.

Ryan would go on to become one of the better pitchers in baseball history, while Fregosi saw his career prospects take a downturn. He played for the Mets, the Rangers and Pirates over the next seven years, but never again had the success he’d had with the Angels.

In his first 10 years in the big leagues, Fregosi was worth 41.6 WAR (Fangraphs). He ranks seventh all-time among shortstops through the age of 28, just behind Robin Yount. In his final eight seasons, he was worth just 2.6 WAR.

After his playing career ended, Fregosi turned to managing and won over 1000 games with four teams. He had his biggest success with the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies squad that looked like a bunch of beer league softball players.

There were more mullets on that Phillies team than at a Garth Brooks concert. It was the team of John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, Darren Daulton, Mitch Williams and Curt Schilling. They won 97 regular season games and made it all the way to the World Series, where they lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in six games.

Best All-Time Shortstops Luis Aparicio

“When my father asked me to be always a number one, I always kept that on my mind. I think I didn’t disappoint him. I wanted him to be proud of me, and I know he definitely was. That’s the achievement of my life.”—Luis Aparicio

Luis Aparicio was the son of one of the best baseball players in Venezuela, but the elder Aparicio never got a chance to play major league baseball. Luis got his chance after starring in the Baseball Amateur World Series in 1953, which was played in Caracas. He then played in Venezuela’s first national tournament and major league teams were hot on his tail. He signed with the White Sox.

It took a few years for Aparicio to reach the major leagues. He got there in 1956 and immediately led the league in stolen bases and won the AL Rookie of the Year Award.

He then led the league in steals for the next eight years and was an all-star for seven straight years. Not only could he steal bases, he was also recognized for his defense, winning nine Gold Gloves in his career.

In 1959, Aparicio was part of the “Go-Go” White Sox team that went to the World Series for the first time since the 1919 “Black Sox.”

They lost to the Dodgers in six games, but Aparicio hit .308 with a .357 OBP. He finished second in AL MVP voting as his teammate and middle infield partner, Nellie Fox, won the award.

Aparicio played three more seasons with the White Sox before being traded to the Baltimore Orioles after the 1962 season. In Baltimore, he took up residence at shortstop next to the incredible Brooks Robinson at third base.

With Aparicio and Robinson holding down the left side of the infield, the 1966 Orioles made it to the World Series, where they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in a four-game sweep.

After one more season with Baltimore, Aparicio was traded back to the Chicago White Sox. He played there for three seasons, then finished out his career with three seasons with the Boston Red Sox.

He made the all-star team three years in a row at the ages of 36, 37, and 38. When his career was over, he’d played more games at shortstop than anyone in the history of the game.

In 1984, Aparicio was the first Venezuelan to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2006, The Chicago White Sox honored him with a statue at U.S. Cellular Field that sits in tandem with a statue of his longtime double-play partner, Nellie Fox.

He was named the Athlete of the 20^th Century in Venezuela and is considered the “godfather” of Venezuelan shortstops who followed him to the big leagues.

Best All-Time Shortstops Joe Sewell

“When I was a boy I’d walk around with a pocket full of rocks or a Coca-Cola top and I can’t remember not being able to hit them with a broom stick handle.”—Joe Sewell

If you’ve heard of Joe Sewell, you’ve likely heard just how difficult he was to strike out. He struck out just 114 times in his career. That’s in 8329 plate appearances. He struck out once every 73 times he walked to the plate.

A closer look makes what Sewell accomplished even more impressive. More than half of his career strikeouts came in his first four full seasons. Starting with his fifth full season, Sewell struck out 48 times in 5539 plate appearances over nine seasons.

That’s one strikeout every 115 plate appearances. In 1932, he struck out just three times in 576 plate appearances. He also walked 56 times that year. We’ll never see that kind of ratio of walks to strikeouts again.

Baseball was different in those days, but Sewell still stood out. As a comparison to 2018, the MLB leader in strikeouts this season is Joey Gallo, with 91 whiffs in 258 plate appearances.

If Gallo continues to strikeout at his current rate, he’ll reach Sewell’s career total before the All-Star break. Gallo’s longest streak of games without at least one strikeout is just three. Sewell once went 115 games without striking out.

Avoiding the strikeout was Sewell’s defining characteristic, but his career was unusual in other ways as well. He was one of three Sewell brothers to play in the major leagues, along with Luke and Tommy. His cousin, Rip, was also a big leaguer.

Sewell’s promotion to the major leagues was unusual. After playing college ball at Alabama, Sewell signed with a minor league team in New Orleans, considered an A-ball team.

When Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman died after being hit by a Carl Mays pitch in the summer of 1920, the team plugged in Harry Lunte at shortstop. Lunte pulled a muscle in September and Sewell’s contract was purchased from New Orleans.

With just 92 games in A-ball under his belt, the 21-year-old Sewell was as raw as they come. He didn’t own his own bat, so teammate George Burns gave him one. Sewell called the bat “Black Betsy” and used it for the rest of his career.

It was an impressive career. Sewell didn’t hit many home runs but regularly pounded out 40 or more doubles. He was an above-average hitter (.312/.391/.413) and a good fielder. He played 11 years with Cleveland and three with the Yankees, earning MVP votes in eight seasons, including two top-four finishes.

Best All-Time Shortstops Joe Tinker

“These are the saddest of possible words: Tinker to Evers to Chance. Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds, Tinker to Evers to Chance. Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble, Making a Giant hit into a double— Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble: Tinker to Evers to Chance.”—Franklin Pierce Adams

“I know better than anyone else that my time is near. I’ve had a good life, and you don’t stop and complain at this stage of the game. I’ve made some mistakes, and I’d like to stay around a little longer and overcome them, but there isn’t time. I’ll miss baseball. That I know.”—Joe Tinker

Context is important when looking at baseball statistics. On the surface, Joe Tinker’s career batting line of .262/.308/.353 is unimpressive by today’s standards, but it must be remembered that he played in the Deadball Era.

In his time, Tinker was a slightly below average hitter. His career 96 wRC+ is slightly better than Jimmy Rollins 95 wRC+, even though Rollins hit .264/.324/.418.

Tinker is famous for being part of the poem quoted above. He’s the shortstop who turned double plays with Johnny Evers (the second baseman) and Frank Chance (the first baseman). They were all important members of the Chicago Cubs during the most successful run in franchise history.

The Cubs made the World Series four times in five years from 1906 to 1910. They won the World Series in 1907 and 1908, both against Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers, but the 1906 team was the best of the bunch in the regular season.

They won an MLB record 116 games against just 36 losses. The 2001 Seattle Mariners tied the Cubs’ 116 wins but lost 46 games.

On the field, Tinker excelled at small ball. He regularly stole 30 or more bases and had double-digit sacrifice bunts in every full season he played. He was particularly successful against one of the Cubs’ biggest rivals at the time, the New York Giants.

Tinker hit .309/.339/.451 against them. Their star pitcher, Christy Mathewson once said Tinker was “the worst man I have to face in the National League” and “Tinker is a hard man to beat at the game of wits.

Best All-Time Shortstops Jack Glasscock

“Jack (Glasscock) was among the greatest shortstops of the 19th century. Playing without a glove until late in his career, he led the National League shortstops in fielding percentage six times and was described by Al Spink as “one of the greatest players from a fielding standpoint the game has ever known”—Robert L Tiemann

Jack Glasscock made his debut when the National League was just into its fourth year of existence. He started with the 1879 Cleveland Blues. He played second base and third base in his first year, but would soon move to the position for which he’s most known, shortstop.

According to sabermetrician Charles Faber, Glasscock and his teammates at second base and first base, “Silver Bill” Phillips and Fred Dunlap, were the best double-play combination of the 1880s. Fielding was Glasscock’s calling card.

He ranks 11^th all-time among shortstops in the Fangraphs fielding metric, just ahead of Pee Wee Reese. On offense, his 110 wRC+ is 44^th among shortstops, tied with John Valentin.

Baseball was different in those days. The only major league was the National League when Glasscock first started, but another league would sprout up to challenge the NL. Glasscock played with the Blues in the NL for five-plus seasons before jumping to the newly-formed Union Association in 1884.

He readily admitted he did it for the money, “I have played long enough for glory, now it is a matter of dollars and cents.” When the Union Association collapsed after one season, Glasscock returned to the National League and was assigned to the St. Louis Maroons.

The Maroons went belly-up following the 1886 season, and everyone wondered where Glasscock would end up next. There was no free agency at the time. If there were, Glasscock could have looked for the best deal he could find. Instead, the league transferred players from St. Louis to Indianapolis.

Glasscock played three seasons with the Hoosiers, with his final season with the team being his best. He hit .352/.390/.467 and was worth 6.5 WAR (Fangraphs). Indianapolis lost its franchise at that point, and Glasscock was transferred to the New York Giants, where he hit .336/.395/.439.

By this time, Glasscock was heading into his age-33 season. He suffered a hand injury in 1891 that affected his hitting and fielding. Over the last five years of his career, he played with five different teams before being released midway through the 1895 season.

After his major league career ended, Glasscock returned to where he’d grown up in Wheeling, West Virginia and played for his hometown team in the Iron and Oil League. He continued to find teams to play for in different leagues through the 1901 season when he was 43 years old.

Best All-Time Shortstops Pee Wee Reese

“Brooklyn was the most wonderful city a man could play in, and the fans there were the most loyal there were.”—Pee Wee Reese

In the quote above, Pee Wee Reese reveals his love for the city of Brooklyn, but it wasn’t always that way. He was originally signed by the Boston Red Sox.

When the Red Sox traded him to Brooklyn, he was very disappointed. Brooklyn wasn’t a very good team at the time and he would say years later, “I was crushed.” He would add, “But it turned out to be the greatest break of my life.”

Reese joined the Dodgers in 1940, playing a little more than half a season. By his third season in the major leagues, he was an all-star. Then he missed three years for military service and returned from the war to continue a string of all-star seasons, making the all-star team 10 times in his career.

The Dodgers were improving from some ugly seasons in the 1930s to pennant contenders in the mid-1940s. They went to the World Series in Reese’s second season, losing to the Yankees in five games. They won the NL pennant again when Jackie Robinson joined the team in 1947

Much has been made of the longtime friendship between Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese. A statue of the pair was unveiled outside the Brooklyn Cyclones home field in 2005. It shows Reese with his arm around Robinson and is meant to commemorate a moment from early in Jackie’s first season when fans in Cincinnati were giving Robinson a tough time.

It’s more likely than not that this event, as it’s depicted, didn’t actually happen in Cincinnati in 1947. There’s evidence to suggest that it happened in Boston in 1948.

For one thing, a book by Jonathan Eig reported that the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote that Robinson “was applauded every time he stepped to the plate” in his first game against the Reds. Add that to what was known about Boston’s history of racism and it wouldn’t be surprising that it happened there.

Either way, once Reese and Robinson became double play partners, a lifelong friendship formed. Reese played 16 years with the Dodgers and finished a with a .366 career on-base percentage. He played on seven pennant-winning teams, all against the New York Yankees. In 1984, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.

Best All-Time Shortstops Bobby Wallace

“We were in Philadelphia when Manager Pat shifted me from third to short, and right off the bat, I knew I had found my dish. Footwork was more a part of the new position than it had been at third. I suddenly felt I had sprouted wings. A world of new possibilities opened for me.”—Bobby Wallace

The worst team in the history of baseball was the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. They famously won just 20 of 154 games, for a winning percentage of .130.

They finished 84 games out of first. Their run-differential was -723. Their attendance for the season was just over 6,000 fans. Of course, only 42 of their 154 games were at home, so that was an average of 145 fans per game.

The Spiders were so bad because their owners, the Robinson Brothers, purchased another team in the National League, the St. Louis Browns, which they renamed the Perfectos.

They believed St. Louis would draw more fans than Cleveland, so they transferred all of the Spiders’ best players to their new team. Bobby Wallace was one of those players.

Wallace started his career as a pitcher. He was such a good-fielding pitcher that his manager, Patsy Tebeau, tried him in the outfield, then third base. In the middle of the 1899 season, he moved to shortstop and had found his home on the baseball diamond. Wallace ranks 10^th all-time among shortstops in the Fangraphs defensive metric, just behind Omar Vizquel.

After five seasons in the National League with Cleveland and three more in St. Louis with the team now known as the Cardinals, Wallace moved across town to the St. Louis Brown in the upstart American League in 1902. He signed a contract that made him the highest paid player in baseball.

Playing in the Deadball era, Wallace hit .268/.332/.358 in his career. His 104 wRC+ as a hitter places him between Michael Young and Xander Bogaerts among shortstops. In his prime, he was regularly among the leaders in RBI, ranking in the top ten eight times from 1897 to 1908. Despite this, his bat was secondary to his glove.

Late in his career, Wallace tried managing but didn’t take to it. He also tried umpiring, but liked that even less than he liked managing. He ended up playing 25 seasons in the big leagues, but was very much a part-time player for the last five.

After his playing career ended, he managed in the minors and was later a coach for the Cincinnati Reds. At the end of the 1937 season he took over as manager of the Reds and guided them to a 5-20 finish.

Add that to his subpar performance as manager of the Browns in 1911 and 1912 and Wallace had a career mark as a manager of 57-134, a .298 winning percentage. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953 by the Veterans Committee.

Best All-Time Shortstops Lou Boudreau

“Yeah, I miss it. You don’t just break off a friendship you’ve had with a sport, and with all those you’ve met all over the country. We’ve got some friends, some very close friends, and you just sit back and think how fortunate you were having a career like that. And, actually, there’s nothing in the game of baseball that hasn’t happened to me.”—Lou Boudreau

Using wRC+ as a guide, Lou Boudreau is a top 10 shortstop with the bat. He’s also in the top 20 in the field based on the defense component of Fangraphs WAR.

Had his career lasted longer than 15 years, he would likely be much higher on this list. As it is, he’s ranked 15^th here even though he had the fewest plate appearances of any of the shortstops on this top-25 list.

Bad ankles hindered Boudreau in his career and contributed to his retirement at just 34 years old. When he was a teenager, his main sport was basketball (his high school didn’t even have a baseball team). He was very good at basketball, but the sport led to ankle problems that he would have to deal with throughout his career.

Coming out of college at the University of Illinois, where he had played basketball and baseball, Boudreau eschewed an offer from a team in the National Basketball League to sign a contract with Cleveland.

He played most of his first two professional seasons in the minor leagues before becoming a full-time player in the show in 1940. The 22-year-old shortstop made the AL all-star team for the first of eight times that year.

Boudreau led the AL in doubles in 1941 and again in 1944 and 1947. Along the way he had become the team’s player-manager at the tender age of 24. He continued to have all-star seasons from 1940 to 1944 but the team struggled to compete in the standings. They finished between 3^rd and 6^th place in each of Boudreau’s first six years as player-manager.

In 1947, with Boudreau at the helm, Cleveland signed Larry Doby. While the spotlight was on Jackie Robinson being the first African-American in modern baseball, Larry Doby went through many of the same trials and tribulations, just a few months later.

Everything came together for Cleveland in 1948. Boudreau hit .355/.453/.534 with career highs in runs (116), home runs (18) and RBI (106). He won the AL MVP Award, beating out Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. On the managerial front, another African-American player joined Cleveland that year.

It was the legendary Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige, who was 41 years old. Boudreau used Paige as a starter and reliever, and the veteran went 6-1 with a 2.48 ERA in 72.7 innings.

The regular season ended with Cleveland and Boston in a tie. They played a one-game playoff at Fenway Park, which Cleveland won behind knuckleball pitcher Gene Beardon. Boudreau was 4-for-4 with two home runs. The team went on to win the World Series in six games over the Boston Braves. This remains their last World Series title.

Boudreau’s 1948 season is one of the best in history by a shortstop. Based on Fangraphs WAR, only Honus Wagner in 1908 had a better season as a shortstop than Boudreau in 1948. Coming off such a great year, it was surprising to see how quickly Boudreau declined.

After his 10.9 WAR season in 1948, Boudreau had a still-good 3.7 WAR in 1949, then dropped to 1.0 WAR in 1950. This was his last year in Cleveland. He moved to the Boston Red Sox and played in just 82 games his first year.

He hardly played at all in his final year, 1952, but did take on the role of a manager in Boston, which he held for three years. He would also manage the Kansas City Athletics for three years and the Chicago Cubs for part of the 1960 season.

After his career as player and manager ended, Boudreau became a permanent member of the Chicago Cubs broadcast team. He held that position through the 1987 season. His onetime teammate, Bob Feller, said of him, “Boudreau was one of the most talented players in baseball in his time, in addition to being one of the classiest human beings you’d ever want to meet.”

Best All-Time Shortstops Joe Cronin

“Joe Cronin was a great player, a great manager, a wonderful father. No one respects you more than I do, Joe. I love you. In my book, you are a great man.”—Ted Williams, speaking to a crowd at Fenway Park on May 29, 1984, when his and Joe Cronin’s uniform numbers were retired by the Red Sox.

Joe Cronin reached the major leagues at the young age of 19, but it would be a few more years until he was a full-time player. He started out with the Pittsburgh Pirates but hardly played in his first two seasons.

A minor league team in the American Association purchased his contract from Pittsburgh in April of 1928. In July, the Washington Senators acquired him, and he was back in the big leagues.

After hitting a combined .268/.358/.381 in his first four seasons, averaging just 64 games per year, Cronin busted out in 1930 when offense around baseball skyrocketed. He hit .346/.422/.513, with 127 runs scored and 126 RBI.

This was before there was an “official” MVP award, but baseball writers tabbed Cronin as the best player in the American League. He was also recognized as Player of the Year by The Sporting News.

He followed that up with three straight seasons with on-base percentages in the .390s and good slugging percentages. Cronin had his first of seven all-star seasons in 1933, the year the first all-star game was played.

Before the season, he had been named the player-manager of the Senators. At just 26 years old, he guided them to a 99-53 record and the World Series, which they lost in five games to the New York Giants.

The Senators slipped to a 66-86 record in 1934 and Cronin hit under .300 for the first time since 1929. In the offseason, he was traded to the Boston Red Sox for Lyn Lary and $250,000. He would continue to be a player-manager and would make $30,000 per year. This was a considerable amount of money at the time.

In modern terms, it made Cronin the Alex-Rodriguez of his time. When A-Rod signed his first free agent contract with the Texas Rangers for 10 years and $252 million, it put a target on his back. Fans, especially those in Seattle, hated A-Rod from that point on.

When the Red Sox struggled under Cronin, fans and the press blamed him and other high-priced players on the team. Even worse, the veteran players on the Red Sox weren’t thrilled about having such a young manager. Pitchers Lefty Grove and Wes Ferrell were particularly antagonistic.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Red Sox finished in second place four times in five years under Cronin, never quite able to get that elusive AL pennant.

He had his final all-star season in 1941 when he hit .311/.406/.508. Even though he was still playing well, he turned the shortstop position over to Johnny Pesky in 1942.

Cronin was a part-time player over the final four years of his playing career. He retired as a player after the 1945 season. In 1946, he had his greatest success as a manager, finally guiding the Red Sox to the World Series with a 104-50 season. Unfortunately, they lost the series in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals.

In his post-playing career, Cronin managed the Red Sox for two years, then became the team’s general manager. After more than a decade in that position, he ascended to the role of president of the American League. Known for his community work off the field, Cronin connected the Red Sox with the Jimmy Fund, which has become the team’s signature charity.

Best All-Time Shortstops Ernie Banks

“You must try to generate happiness within yourself. If you aren’t happy in one place, chances are you won’t be happy anyplace.”—Ernie Banks

Ernie Banks was ranked 18^th among first basemen. He has bumped down a couple of spots because his years as a first baseman were during the downside of his career.

Banks had a .500 slugging percentage and 512 home runs, but much of the damage he did was in his first 10 seasons. He gets slotted here at 13^th among shortstops, the position at which he had his best seasons.

In 1958 and 1959, Banks had two of the greatest seasons a shortstop has ever had. His 1958 season was worth 8.7 WAR (per Fangraphs) and ranks 21^st among shortstops.

He hit .313/.366/.614, with 119 runs, 47 homers, and 129 RBI. He was also good with the glove. He won his first of back-to-back NL MVP Awards that season, beating out Willie Mays and Hank Aaron.

In 1959, Banks was even better. He hit .304/.374/.596, with 97 runs, 45 homers, and 143 RBI. He also graded out very good on defense, which made him worth 9.7 WAR.

That’s the eighth-best season of all-time for a shortstop. He again won the NL MVP Award. This time, Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron finished second and third in the voting.

He followed up those two seasons with another strong season when he led the NL in home runs with 41 in 1960. He also had 117 RBI, making it the fourth straight year he topped 100. He finished fourth in NL MVP voting and won the only Gold Glove of his career.

In 1961, Cubs owner Philip Wrigley created the “College of Coaches.” Rather than have one man lead the team, there would be an eight-man committee. Four different men rotated as manager of the Cubs that year.

One of them, Vedie Himsl, asked Banks if he would move to the outfield so Jerry Kindall could play shortstop. The always affable Banks agreed to the move and ended up playing 23 games in left field and seven more at first base.

Banks never played shortstop again after that season. He became the team’s regular first baseman for the next eight years, then had two final seasons in a part-time role. He retired after the 1971 season and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977.

Best All-Time Shortstops Alan Trammell

“I wanted to be with one club my whole career, and it’s happened. I’m not going to go anywhere else. It means something to me to be with one club.”—Alan Trammell

Coming out of high school, Alan Trammell could have taken a basketball scholarship or played baseball at UCLA or Arizona State. After the Detroit Tigers drafted him in the second round of the 1976 draft, he chose professional baseball over college and signed with the Tigers.

One of the scouts who recommended him was Dick Wiencek, who was also responsible for signing Jack Morris and Dan Petry, among others. Trammell, Morris, and Petry would all be key players on the 1984 World Series team.

Trammell first met his longtime double-play partner, Lou Whitaker, in the fall instructional league. They played together in the minor leagues and made their major league debuts on the same day. Trammell and Whitaker went together like peanut butter and jelly. Both were very good players for many years.

After being a below average hitter in his first two full seasons, Trammell broke out in 1980 with a .300/.376/.404 season that earned him his first of six all-star nominations and the first of four Gold Glove Awards. He followed that up with less impressive seasons in 1981 and 1982 but had another strong year in 1983.

The 1984 season was magical in Detroit. The Tigers started the year 35-5 and cruised to the AL East title. They crushed the Royals in three straight games in the ALCS then dispatched the Padres in five games in the World Series.

Trammell was one of many Tigers who had good seasons in 1984. He hit .314/.382/.468 and was worth 6.9 WAR (per Fangraphs). It would prove to be the second-best year of his career, statistically.

The best year for Trammell was 1987 when he hit .343/.402/.551 and launched a career-best 28 home runs. He also had career highs in runs scored and RBI.

That 1987 season was the last one in which Trammell played at least 150 games, where he averaged 148 games per year from 1982 to 1987, but only 95 games per year over the last nine years of his career.

This playing pattern was a contributing factor to his low totals in Hall of Fame voting. He topped out at 40.9 percent on the BBWAA ballot in his final year of eligibility.

Trammell finally made the Hall of Fame through the Veterans earlier this year. His longtime teammate, Jack Morris, was also elected by the Veterans Committee.

Unfortunately, Lou Whitaker was not. It would have been fitting to have Trammell and Whitaker go into the Hall together. As it is, Trammell and Morris will join Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones, and Jim Thome on the stage in Cooperstown on Sunday, July 29.

Best All-Time Shortstops Bill Dahlen

“In the first place, Dahlen, while a great player, never was an observer of discipline. He looked upon rules from the standpoint that they were made only to be broken, and while this has in no way affected his playing ability, still the injury to the team in a disciplinary has been great.”—The Brooklyn Eagle, about Bill Dahlen

Bill Dahlen started his career with the Chicago Colts, which was the name of the franchise we know as the Cubs went by from 1890 to 1897. He played for Chicago for eight years and had his most success with them, hitting .299/.384/.449.

His best year was in 1894 when he hit 15 home runs and had 108 RBI. It was the only double-digit home run year or triple-digit RBI year he had in his career.

Along with being one of the team’s best players during this time, Dahlen earned a reputation for his fiery attitude on the diamond. The local newspaper wrote of him in 1898, “Dahlen leads the league in one respect. He holds the record for being put out [ejected] of games.

Yesterday was his tenth enforced desertion of his team.” This would continue over the rest of his career. Dahlen was ejected 65 times as either a player or manager over the years.

Dahlen also very much enjoyed the nightlife in Chicago. He and a few of his teammates were called the Dawn Patrol because of their late night partying. His attitude on the field and carousing off the field resulted in a trade from Chicago to Brooklyn, where Dahlen played for the next five years.

Brooklyn was a good team. They won the NL in each of Dahlen’s first two years even though his numbers weren’t as good as they’d been in Chicago. As he moved into his 30s, he dropped from a consistent .380 or above on-base guy to more in the .330 to .360 range. He was still good with the glove, though, and remained a consistent 3 to 5 WAR player until his mid-30s.

By the end of the 1903 season, Brooklyn was tired of his shenanigans. He was traded to the New York Giants, a team he played with for four years.

His manager with the Giants, the legendary John McGraw, claimed Dahlen was the best shortstop in the country and in Dahlen’s second year on the team, they won the World Series.

Dahlen played two more seasons with the Giants, then finished out his career with two seasons with the Boston Doves and two more back in Brooklyn. After his playing career ended, he managed Brooklyn for four years, without much success.

Hall of Fame voters never gave much support to Dahlen. He was on the ballot twice and had less than 2 percent of the vote both times. The Veterans Committee considered him in 1994, but ultimately chose Bid McPhee and George Davis over Dahlen. In 2012, SABR’s 19^th Century Committee designated Dahlen its “Overlooked 19^th Century Baseball Legend for 2012.”

Best All-Time Shortstops Barry Larkin

“I remember playing on pretty much an all-minority youth team and going to some of the tournaments north of Cincinnati and not being able to stay with host families where all the other teams were staying with host families.”—Barry Larkin

Most Hall of Fame players are the best player taken in the MLB Amateur Draft the year they’re drafted. Not so with Barry Larkin. He was drafted in the first round of the 1985 draft as the fourth pick overall.

Two picks later, the Pittsburgh Pirates took Barry Bonds. Later, with the 22^nd pick, the Chicago Cubs took Rafael Palmeiro. Larkin is in the Hall of Fame. Bonds and Palmeiro are not, although it’s not for lack of production.

It didn’t take long for Larkin to reach the big leagues. He played 72 games in the minor leagues in 1985 and 103 more in 1986 before being called up to the Reds for 41 games. He hit .283/.320/.403 and finished tied for seventh in NL Rookie of the Year voting, one spot behind Barry Bonds. Todd Worrell won the award.

History of a sort was made during Larkin’s first full game at shortstop for the Reds in 1986. Not only did he hit his first career home run, but it was also the last appearance of Pete Rose’s career. Rose pinch-hit and struck out late in the game.

The next few years were a bit of a roller coaster for Larkin. He struggled in 1987 but bounced back with his first of 12 all-star seasons in 1988. He was even better in 1989, except for injuries that limited him to 97 games.

The 1990 season was a big one for the Reds. They bounced back from a 5^th place finish the previous year to win the NL West by five games over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

They went on to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in six games in the NLCS then swept the Oakland A’s in the World Series. It was the Reds first World Series title since The Big Red Machine had won back-to-back titles in the mid-1970s.

Larkin was terrific in the World Series, hitting .353/.421/.529. The Reds had come into the series as the underdogs to an A’s team that was in their third straight Fall Classic.

These were the “Bash Brothers” A’s, with the addition of Rickey Henderson. Despite all the big names, Larkin was named the MVP for the series.

One of the unfortunate aspects of Larkin’s career was the time he missed due to injuries. He averaged just 115 games per season over his 19-year career and only played 150 or more games four times.

This didn’t stop him from playing well when he was on the field, but it did limit his career totals. He finished with 2340 hits and 198 home runs, ranking 19^th and 16^th among shortstops in those categories, respectively.

Larkin was recognized as the NL MVP in 1995, but his best year was 1996 when he finished 12^th in MVP voting. More than anything, the difference was probably that the Reds won their division in 1995 but finished third in 1996.

That’s how MVP voting works sometimes. In that 1996 season, he became the first shortstop to join the 30-30 club when he stole 36 bags and hit 33 dingers.

He made one last all-star team in his final season before retiring at the age of 40. In retirement, it took him three years on the ballot to make the Hall of Fame, but he got the nod in 2012 with 86.4 percent of the vote. He was inducted along with Ron Santo, who made the Hall by way of the Veterans Committee.

Best All-Time Shortstops Robin Yount

“You know, when I was a young boy I used to play baseball in my back yard or in the street with my brothers or the neighborhood kids. We used broken bats and plastic golf balls and played for hours and hours.”—Robin Yount

Robin Yount seems like the cool dad in the neighborhood who lets his kids ride their dirt bikes over jumps in the backyard on hot summer days while he’s manning the barbecue.

In the winter, they ski or snowboard, and in the summer they go to the lake with their boat and jet skis. He’s the best athlete of all the dads. Just playing catch with him hurts your hand. Every kid in the neighborhood thinks he’s the coolest.

I don’t know that Robin Yount is that guy, but he seems like that guy. He seems like he would instantly be good at any sport he ever tried. If the neighborhood kids are playing football, he’ll come out and be the quarterback for both teams.

If they’re playing basketball, he’s draining three-pointers with ease. When one of his kid’s friends comes over with a new bike, he hops on it and does a wheelie all the way down the street.

Yount was drafted out of Taft High School by the Milwaukee Brewers in the first round of the 1973 MLB draft. He was the third overall pick because the Texas Rangers took high school phenom David Clyde with the first overall pick and the Philadelphia Phillies took John Stearns with the second pick.

Right after Yount, the San Diego Padres drafted Dave Winfield, who was also drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in football and the Atlanta Hawks (NBA) and Utah Stars (ABA) in basketball.

Clyde was immediately rushed to the big leagues and won his first major league start but washed out of baseball with arm injuries. Dave Winfield also went straight to the big leagues. It was unusual for a position player to go straight from college to the major leagues, but Winfield handled it just fine.

Yount didn’t jump straight from high school to the big leagues, but his journey to Milwaukee was quick. He played just 64 games in Low-A ball in 1973. In 1974, at the tender age of 18, he was playing shortstop for the Milwaukee Brewers. He’s one of only five players since 1901 to have 300 or more plate appearances by the age of 18.

It took a few years before Yount became an above average player. His first good season was in 1977 when he was worth 2.4 WAR. Then came the controversial 1978 season. Yount wasn’t happy with his salary and was disillusioned with the sport. At the time, he said, “I can’t say I’ve enjoyed baseball that much. It’s not as much fun as it should be.”

There were rumors that Yount wanted to quit baseball and become a professional golfer. He walked out of spring training. The Brewers put him on the disabled list because of a sore foot, and Paul Molitor was moved to shortstop.

Yount missed all of April before deciding to return to the team. He played his first game that year on May 6 and went on to have his best season yet, hitting .293/.323/.428. Two years later, Young had his first all-star season. He led the AL in doubles, with 49, and launched 23 home runs and had 20 steals.

That was just a precursor to his 1982 season when he led the AL in hits, doubles, slugging percentage and total bases. He was an all-star, a Gold Glove winner, a Silver Slugger, and won the AL MVP Award. He followed that up with another all-star season in 1983.

In 1985, Yount suffered a shoulder injury that would necessitate a move away from shortstop to the outfield. He played left field and center field that season, then moved to center field for the rest of his career.

In 1989, he won another MVP Award and joined Hank Greenberg and Stan Musial as the only players to win MVPs at two positions. Later, Alex Rodriguez would do the same.

After 20 years in the major leagues, all with the Milwaukee Brewers, Yount retired following the 1993 season. He finished with 3142 career hits, and 1632 runs scored and was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. Fittingly, he entered the Hall with one of his closest friends, George Brett, along with Nolan Ryan.

Best All-Time Shortstops Derek Jeter

“I’m very, very competitive. If my grandmother asks me to race down the street, I’m going to try to beat her. And I’ll probably enjoy it!”—Derek Jeter

In the last part of the 1990s and into the early 2000s, there were three shortstops in baseball who towered over the others. They were Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, and Derek Jeter.

A-Rod had the first great season of these shortstops when he was worth 9.2 WAR in 1996. That was Jeter’s first year as a regular and he had a 2.2 WAR season. Garciaparra showed up in 1997 with a 6.4 WAR season.

From 1997 to 2000, Garciaparra and A-Rod had about a five-win advantage over Jeter. Garciaparra was hurt and missed most of the 2001 season, then had two more good years before injuries limited him over his final six seasons. He fell out of the conversation. When A-Rod joined the Yankees in 2004 and moved over to third base, the terrific trio of shortstops was no more. Only Jeter remained.

That was one of the keys to Jeter’s greatness. He showed up year after year after year. From 1996 to 2012, he averaged 151 games played and nearly 700 plate appearances for 17 seasons.

His average season during this stretch looked like this: .313/.382/.448, 110 R, 194 H, 15 HR, 73 RBI, 20 SB. Based on the offensive value he accumulated in his career, Jeter would be a top-five shortstop.

He has the accolades also. He was the AL Rookie of the Year in 1996. He was an all-star 14 times. He never won an MVP award but finished in the top 10 eight times.

He also played a full season of postseason games (158 games, 734 plate appearances) and hit slightly better in the big games than he hit during the regular season. He went to the World Series seven times and won five rings.

The thing that pulls him down is defense, which is a touchy subject for many. His fans will point out that Jeter won five Gold Glove Awards. Others will argue that they were undeserved.

He could make spectacular plays, and smart baseball plays. He also had trouble going to his left, which limited his range, according to the defensive metrics.

Of all the 25 players on this list of the greatest shortstops of all-time, only Derek Jeter had a negative value on defense (per Fangraphs). Because defense is traditionally harder to measure than offense, I’m sure plenty of people will argue he should be higher on this list than some of the guys above him.

He ranks sixth in Fangraphs WAR and tenth in Baseball-Reference WAR. Jay Jaffe’s JAW system has him 12^th. By Wins Above Average, he’s 17^th. I had him in the mix with Barry Larkin and Robin Yount before finally deciding to put him above them on the list here at eighth.

Best All-Time Shortstops Luke Appling

“I started fouling off his pitches. I took a pitch every now and then. Pretty soon, after twenty-four fouls, old Red could hardly lift his arm and I walked. That’s when they took him out of the game and he cussed me all the way to the dugout.”—Luke Appling

I remember watching the Old Timers Game in 1982. I was 11 years old and loved baseball more than anything. Even then, I knew who Luke Appling was. I didn’t know as much about Appling as I knew about Warren Spahn, of course, because Spahn was mentioned more often in the books I’d read.

When Appling stepped to the plate against Spahn, I was rooting for Spahn. Then the 75-year-old Appling knocked one over the fence in left field, and it was one of the coolest things 11-year-old me had ever seen.

Before watching him hit that home run in the Old Timers Game, the main thing I knew about Luke Appling was that he hit .388 one year. A shortstop hitting .388 was incredible to me. He also scored 111 runs and drove in 128. I thought it had to be one of the greatest hitting seasons ever for a shortstop.

I would learn later that it wasn’t in the top 10 or even the top 20. It’s the 60^th-greatest season ever by a shortstop, according to Fangraphs. That was a hitter’s year in the National League.

Teams scored an average of 4.7 runs per game. This year, NL teams are averaging just 4.3 runs per game. Appling benefitted from the high level of offense that season.

That’s not to say Appling wasn’t a great player. He was. He ranks seventh all-time among shortstops in Fangraphs WAR, eighth in Baseball-Reference WAR, and ninth in the JAWS system. Playing his entire career with the Chicago White Sox, he had two hitting titles, led the league in on-base percentage once and was a seven-time all-star.

When he played, he had the unusual nickname “Old Aches and Pains” because he often complained about a sore back, headaches, hurt knees, etc. Despite his complaints, he had 14 seasons in which he played at least 138 games and six seasons with 150 or more games.

This was when the schedule was 154 games long. He may have complained often, but he was on the field when the umpire yelled, “Play Ball!”

After his playing days were over, he managed in the minor leagues for some time, then was a coach with four major league teams. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1964. In 1970, he was named the greatest player in White Sox history by the Chicago chapter of the BBWAA. The White Sox retired his jersey number (4) in 1975

Oh, the foul balls Appling mentions in the quote above? He was well known for hitting foul balls. He especially enjoyed fouling off balls on hot days, to tire out the pitcher.

He once said, “A lot of times I did it to aggravate the pitcher. You gotta have some fun in this game.” Joe Posnanski wrote much more about Appling’s ability to hit foul balls at his blog.

Best All-Time Shortstops  Ozzie Smith

“As I was in the air, the ball took a bad hop and caromed behind me, but I was able to catch it with my bare hand. I hit the ground, bounced back up, and threw Burroughs out at first.”—Ozzie Smith

There are four shortstops on this top-25 list who were below average on offense (100 wRC+ is average). They are Bert Campaneris (90 wRC+), Luis Aparicio (83 wRC+), Joe Tinker (96 wRC+) and Ozzie Smith (90 wRC+).

Campy, Aparicio and Smith all make up some ground with their base running ability, but it’s Ozzie Smith’s defense that puts him in the top five while the others are ranked 19^th, 21^st, and 24^th.

Fans growing up in the 1970s and 1980s know Smith for his wizardry with the glove. Heck, he was called “The Wizard of Oz” or, simply, “The Wizard.”

He made plays we’d never seen before, both on balls hit in the hole between short and third and balls up the middle that he’d somehow make an incredible play on. Here’s the play against Jeff Burroughs that he described in the quote above.

Smith won his first Gold Glove Award in 1980, his third season in the major leagues. He would go on to win it every year through 1992, for a total of 13 in his career.

Along with the Gold Gloves, Smith was recognized as an all-star 15 times. He even won a Silver Slugger Award when he hit .303/.392/.383 and scored 104 runs in 1987.

Statistically, he’s considered the best defender in the history of the game, ahead of Brooks Robinson, Mark Belanger, Cal Ripken, Jr. and Luis Aparicio, who round out the top five. His glove was so good that it is sometimes overlooked that he did have seven above average seasons on offense (by wRC+).

Smith’s offense and defense were well-suited to the team for which he played and the artificial turf ballparks of that era of baseball. He played four years with the San Diego Padres early in his career then was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in a multi-player deal that brought Garry Templeton back to San Diego.

With the Cardinals in the 1980s, Smith joined a team of jackrabbits who stole bases, bunted, and used the hit-and-run. He fit right in with those guys. He also mastered the artificial turf of Busch Stadium.

He helped four Cardinals teams reach the playoffs between 1982 and 1996. There of those teams advanced to the World Series, with the 1982 team winning the Fall Classic against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Smith retired after the 1996 season and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame with 91.7 percent of the vote in his first year of eligibility.

There are some fans today who believe Omar Vizquel, who will appear on the Hall of Fame ballot this year, has a case for Cooperstown because of his similarities with Smith. They are wrong.

Best All-Time Shortstops Arky Vaughan

“He was one fellow who went out of his way to be nice to me when I was a rookie. I needed it.”—Jackie Robinson, about Arky Vaughan during Robinson’s first year

On the surface, it appears that Arky Vaughan was the anti-Ozzie Smith. Vaughan could really hit. His 138 wRC+ is third-best among the shortstops listed in this top 25. Only Honus Wagner (147 wRC+) and Alex Rodriguez (141 wRC+) were better. Vaughan is one of the best-hitting shortstops on this list. Ozzie Smith is one of the worst.

In the field, Vaughan had seasons in which he made 41, 46, 46, 47, and 52 errors. He made 397 errors at shortstop in his career. Ozzie Smith only made 281 errors and the most he had in a season was 25, in his rookie year.

Because of the errors he made, Vaughan was considered a below average shortstop in his day. We now know that errors aren’t the best measure of a fielder.

Based on advanced metrics, Vaughan was not a below average shortstop. He was likely at least average and may have been a bit above average.

Even if he was just an average defender, Vaughan’s bat was so good that he’s deserving of this spot on the top 25 list. He led the league in hitting in 1935 with a .385 batting average.

He also led the league that year in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and walks. He finished third in NL MVP voting. According to Fangraphs WAR, that is the 11^th-best season ever by a shortstop.

The MLB All-Star Game was first played in 1933 when Vaughan was just 21 years old. He didn’t make the team that year but made it in each of the next nine years. ‘By the end of his age 29 season, he had more than 1700 hits, which is more hits than Pete Rose, Stan Musial or Derek Jeter had at the same age.

Then Vaughan’s career took an odd turn. He was traded by the Pirates to the Brooklyn Dodgers before the 1942 season. He struggled a bit in his first year, but had a 5 WAR season in his second year with the Dodgers. Unfortunately, as the story goes, he could not stand Dodgers manager Leo Durocher.

After Durocher ripped pitcher Bobo Newsome in the press, Vaughan had had enough. He raged into Durocher’s office, ripped off his uniform and said, “Take this uniform and shove it up your ass. If you would lie about Bobo, you would lie about me and everybody else. I’m not playing for you.”

The next spring, Vaughan stayed home. He sat out 1944, 1945 and 1946 before returning to the Dodgers as a 35-year-old in 1947. This was after Durocher had been suspended from baseball for his ties to gamblers. He played two part-time seasons with the Dodgers, getting into roughly 65 games each year, then retired for good.

Vaughan died just four years later when a fishing boat he was on capsized. He was 40 years old. In 1985, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.

Best All-Time Shortstops George Davis

“An exceptionally quick thinker.”—John McGraw, describing George Davis

George Davis got his start with the Cleveland Spiders in 1890 when he was just 19 years old. In three seasons with Cleveland, he hit .265/.334/.378. That doesn’t look impressive, but it was above average in those days, and Davis was still very young.

He was traded to the New York Giants before the 1893 season and flourished when the mound was moved back to 60-feet, 6-inches. Over the next eight seasons, he hit .336/.398/.473 and stole 330 bases.

The 1897 season was big for Davis. He had mostly played third base previously but was moved to shortstop. He hit .353/.410/.509 and led the NL in RBI, with 135.

Davis was very good in his 10 years with the Giants. He was regularly among the best hitters and fielders of that time and good on the bases. In 1902, he jumped to the upstart American League and played for the Chicago White Sox.

This led to a contract dispute between the Giants and White Sox that made its way to the U.S. Court of Appeals. As a result, Davis played just four games in 1903, all with the Giants.

The court sided with the White Sox, however, so Davis was back in Chicago in 1904. He played six more seasons on the south side before retiring after the 1909 season. He went on to manage one year in the minor leagues and six years at Amherst College from 1913 to 1918.

Davis was neglected by Hall of Fame voters for decades. In 1995, baseball analyst and author Bill James wrote that Davis was the best player in baseball who had not made it to the Hall of Fame

. A couple of years later, Total Baseball rated Davis as the 21^st best baseball player of all-time. With advocates pushing his case, the Veterans Committee selected Davis for induction to the Hall of Fame in 1998.

Best All-Time Shortstops Cal Ripken, Jr.

“I never set out to do this; I never set out to say, ‘Can I break this record?’ Then all of a sudden, the preparations made for the celebration put pressure on me. I said, ‘Okay, I have to get there.’ After 2,130, there was sort of a realization it was a foregone conclusion you’re going to play tomorrow.”—Cal Ripken, Jr.

Cal Ripken, Jr. came up to the Orioles in August of the strike-shortened 1981 season. He was 20 years old and had played third base and shortstop in the minor leagues. Orioles manager Earl Weaver started Ripken at shortstop in eight of his nine starts that year.

In 1982, Ripken started the year as the Orioles’ regular third baseman. It seemed like the best spot for him because of his size. He was 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds. Guys that big didn’t play shortstop.

On July 1, Earl Weaver decided he could no longer watch Lenn Sakata and Bobby Bonner, both below-average hitters, continue to play shortstop. He wanted Ripken’s bat there, so he moved Cal to shortstop, and that’s where he would stay for the next 15 years.

In the decades before Ripken took over at short for the Orioles, the position was the home of weak-hitting, good-fielding players who would bunt often and could steal a few bases.

Collectively, shortstops in the 1960s were 15-20 percent below average on offense. They didn’t hit for a high average, didn’t get on base at an adequate clip, and didn’t slug the ball. In 1968, shortstops hit .223/.281/.288, for a 72 wRC+.

The 1970s weren’t any better. Shortstops, as a group, were regularly 25-30 percent below average. They bottomed out in 1973 when they hit .236/.292/.300, a 65 wRC+. As a group, shortstops that year were 35 percent below average when league and ballpark effects were accounted for.

When Ripken played his first full season at shortstop in 1983, he gave the Orioles a big advantage on offense. He was an above-average hitter for the next nine years.

Many years, he was well above average. Most teams still had weak-hitting shortstops like Alfredo Griffin, Garry Templeton, and Rafael Ramirez, but the Orioles had an actual productive bat at the spot.

The worry with Ripken at the time was that he was too big to handle the position, mainly because no one his size had done so. It turned out he was just fine at shortstop.

In fact, he was very good. According to the Fangraphs defensive metric, Ripken is third all-time behind Ozzie Smith and Mark Belanger among shortstops.

He also has the hitting stats, from his 3184 career hits and 431 career home runs to his 1647 runs scored and 1695 RBI. He was an all-star 19 times and a Silver Slugger eight times.

He won the AL Rookie of the Year Award and two AL MVP Awards. He helped the Orioles make the playoffs three times. They won the World Series once, in 1983 against the Phillies.

Of course, Ripken also has The Streak. In the year following the 1994 work stoppage, Ripken played a big role in bringing some fans back to baseball as he set out to break Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game record of 2130 games. He tied the mark on September 5 then broke it on September 6. It was a great moment for Ripken and for baseball.

The Streak gets plenty of attention when Ripken’s name comes up, but he didn’t need to break Gehrig’s record to be acknowledged as one of the greatest shortstops of all time.

His 21 seasons, most of them good seasons, earned him his place on this list. In 2007, he and Tony Gwynn were voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Best All-Time Shortstops Alex Rodriguez

“I will say this: when you take any substance, especially in baseball, it’s half mental and half physical. If you take this glass of water and you say, ‘I’m going to be a better baseball player,’ than you probably will be.”—Alex Rodriguez

In both 1987 and 1993, the Seattle Mariners had the first overall pick in the MLD draft. They took Ken Griffey, Jr. out of Archbishop Moeller High School in 1987.

Then, inconceivably, they took an even better player in 1993 when they drafted Alex Rodriguez out of Westminster Christian. Both were in the big leagues as teenagers; both are all-time great players, both hit more than 600 home runs.

The difference, of course, is that Junior is one of the most beloved players of his generation. A-Rod’s legacy is much more complicated. He seems to be rehabilitating his image in retirement, but there are still plenty of fans who will never be on Team A-Rod.

Rodriguez didn’t play professionally after being drafted in June of 1993, but his number one overall draft status landed him sixth on the Baseball America Top 100 Prospects list.

In 1994, he cruised through three levels of the minor leagues and made his major league debut with the Mariners on July 8. The 18-year-old was a bit over his head, so he returned to the minors. Still, he played well enough overall to move up to number one on the Baseball America Top 100 heading into the 1995 season.

The 1995 season was huge for Seattle. It was the “Refuse to Lose” season for the Mariners. They came back from 12.5 games behind the Angels in August to tie for the division lead, then won a one-game playoff to make the postseason for the first time in franchise history. A-Rod crushed it in Triple-A but only hit .232/.264/.408 in 48 games with the Mariners.

In 1996, Rodriguez exploded with a .358/.414/.631 season. He scored 141 runs, banged out 54 doubles and 36 home runs, had 123 RBI and stole 15 bases.

Those were video game numbers. In the history of baseball, there have been 18 seasons in which a shortstop was worth 9 WAR (Fangraphs). A-Rod has four of them, including this 1996 season.

He should have won the AL MVP Award that year, but writers gave it to an inferior Juan Gonzalez. In his career, A-Rod would win three AL MVPs, 10 Silver Sluggers, two Gold Gloves and make 14 all-star teams. By Fangraphs WAR, he’s the 13^th best position player in the history of the game.

Of course, there’s a catch. As Joe Posnasnki put it, Rodriguez “used performance-enhancing drugs, lied about using performance-enhancing drugs, admitted using performance-enhancing drugs, tearfully apologized about using performance-enhancing drugs and then got caught using them all over again.”

There’s also the huge 10-year, $252 million contract he signed when he was first eligible for free agency. Seattle Mariner fans still hate him for that. Then he left Texas to join the New York Yankees. Rangers fans aren’t real thrilled with him for that.

He had some struggles in the postseason with the Yankees, so their fans were down on him for a while. A guy who wanted to be liked throughout his career failed miserably at that goal.

It should be mentioned that his image is improving in retirement. He received good reviews as a commentator during the postseason. He was particularly good at sparring with Pete Rose.

He was also a guest shark on ABC’s Shark Tank, which made him the first Hispanic shark. And he’s enjoying his gig with ESPN Sunday Night Baseball and his relationship with Jennifer Lopez and his kids. Whatever fans think about him now, life is good for A-Rod.

Best All-Time Shortstops Honus Wagner

“I never have been sick. I don’t even know what it means to be sick. I hear other players say they have a cold. I just don’t know what it would feel like to have a cold—I never had one.”—Honus Wagner

“Things were changing fast by that time, women were beginning to come to the ballparks. We had to stop cussing.”—Honus Wagner

Because he played so long ago and we only have old photos and stories about him, it feels like Honus Wagner was one of those early 19^th century men who were tough as nails and strong as an ox. Fittingly, he was born in coal country in western Pennsylvania and had a large family with four brothers and four sisters.

His older brother Albert was considered the best ballplayer in the family, but it was Honus who became one of the five best players ever to play the game.

He didn’t have the build you’d expect from a shortstop. He was 5-foot-11 and 200 pounds, with massive shoulders, muscular arms, and huge hands. He was often described as bow-legged.

I’ve read stories about ground balls hit to short, and Wagner would rush in, grab the ball along with sand and stones and fire it over to first. In one version of the story, which Honus used to tell fans when he was retired, he scooped up “grass, pebbles, and a rabbit that had run onto the field and heaved the whole mess to first, nailing the runner—by a hare.

He used a heavy bat that weighed over 40 ounces. The most popular size bat for current MLB players is 34 inches and 32 ounces. Last year, the 6-foot-7, 282 pound Aaron Judge used a 33-ounce bat.

Wagner sometimes gripped the bat with his hands separated, much like Ty Cobb. It worked, they each collected batting titles like some people collect postage stamps.

Wagner led the NL in batting average eight times, on-base percentage four times, and slugging percentage six times. He had four different seasons in which he led the league in all three, a rate-stat Triple Crown.

Despite his bowed legs, Wagner was not only quick with his footwork at shortstop but also fast on the basepaths. He stole 723 bases in his career, leading the league five times. He also led the league in doubles seven times and triples three times. There wasn’t any part of his game that wasn’t excellent.

According to Fangraphs WAR, two of the top three seasons ever by a shortstop belong to Honus Wagner. He was at his very best in 1908, when he hit .354/.415/.542 with 201 hits, 39 doubles, 19 triples, 10 home runs, 109 RBI, and 53 steals.

That was a season worth 11.8 WAR. Only four position players have had better seasons than Wagner’s 1908: Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Lou Gehrig and Rogers Hornsby.

Wagner retired after three years with Louisville and 18 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was one of the five inaugural inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, along with Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson. That was one of his proudest moments.

Next: Tony Gwynn: Mr. Padre’s legend and legacy

In 1955, the Pirates unveiled a statue of Wagner outside Forbes Field. It was moved to Three Rivers Stadium when that park opened and now sits outside PNC Park, the team’s current home.

His number 33 was retired by the franchise in 1956. In 1999, he was named the number 13 player in baseball history and best all-time Shortstops ever by The Sporting News.