Defensive War
The defensive component at shortstop is a significant portion of a player’s overall value.
Today, the best category for rating shortstop play is probably Outs Above Average. But data for that calculation is not available for the pre-Statcast era, leaving Defensive War as the next best choice.
It reflects the number of runs a player is projected to have saved his team due to his defensive play over the course of his career.
Here are the top 10 in dWAR for shortstops since 1969.
Rank Shortstop DWar
1 Ozzie Smith 44.2
2 Mark Belanger 39.5
3 Cal Ripken 25.6
4 Omar Vizquel 29.5
5 Andrelton Simmons 26.6
6 Ozzie Guillen 23.0
7 Alan Trammell 22.7
8 Dave Concepcion 21.4
9 Bert Campaneris 21.1
10 Bill Russell 19.4
Suddenly the big-name offensive leaders don’t look so good. Neither Rodriguez nor Jeter crack the category top 10; in fact Rodriguez rates only 19th and Jeter – with a minus-9.4 career score – stands dead last among the 30 shortstops of the MLB expansion era.
Contrary to the judgments of Costas and Kenny, that fact alone just about kills Jeter’s chances of ranking at or near the top in the overall evaluation.
Smith and Ripken are the category’s big winners. Elsewhere, the category top 10 is populated by guys never viewed as an all-time great, fellows like Belanger, Simmons, Guillen and Russell.
It is a testimony to Simmons’ defensive brilliance that, at age 31 – he ranks among the era’s five best in a career category. Simmons has already had three seasons during which he was a +plus four dWAR player or better.