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.