Tony The Tiger

There is really no way around this.  This BLOG is stats laden and that will bore a lot of people.  But its baseball, you can smell hot dogs and watch a game just by reading a box score.  Its a beautiful thing, especially in December. 



Fernandez, a major cog in banners 1, 2 and 6

As much as I support the baseball Hall of Fame and their incredibly high standards, there are times when they make me snap.  Quick recap:

Sport	Hall of Fame Founded	Recognizing Contributions forward  from:	Total number of Members	Avg inductions per year	members per eligible year
Hockey	1943	1909	362	5.4	3.6
Baseball	1936	1867	293	3.9	2.0
Football	1963	1919	253	5.4	2.8
Basketball	1959	1895	303	5.9	2.6

Just for clarity...baseball is a really, really, really, really, really hard Hall of Fame to get in to.  With all due respect, if Rod Langway and Clark Gillies were baseball players the only way they’d get into the Hall of Fame is if they bought tickets. 

That being said, the baseball hall of fame has done an injustice to the favourite, non-steroid using son of San Pedro De Macoris; Octavio Antonio Castro Fernandez. 

There are currently 21 short stops in the Hall of Fame.  Every era is represented, but comparing across eras is near impossible for a host of reasons.  Comparing pre-integration has its draw backs.  Comparing pre-1900 has statistical anomalies.  Comparing before the mound was lowered in 1968 is problematic too.  To compare eligibility you need to compare people against those in their own era. 

The best of example of that, of course, is Babe Ruth.  In 1927 he hit 60 home runs beating his own record of 59 set in 1921.  Between ’21 and ’27 he had hit, 35, 41, 46, 25 and 47 home runs.  Its really easy to get lulled into a feeling of “that’s what the era was”.  However, when he hit 60 in 1927, the Boston Red Sox (The entire team) hit 28 home runs that year.  He wasn’t better than other players, he was better than other whole teams!

Now, coming current day, everyone elected to the Hall of Fame should have some WOW moments against their competition.  Maybe not as dramatic as Ruth, but something.  Look at Nolan Ryan and his 7 no hitters, Rickey Henderson the all time stolen base leader, Andre Dawson with the great speed and power combined stats (plus being the trigger man on breaking up collusion) Cal Ripken with the streak and Tony Gwynn being an 8 time batting champion are recent examples of significant long term achievements getting people in. 

Which brings me to Tony Fernandez.   I’ll never win any arguments about why Cal Ripken shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame so I won’t bother.  Instead we'll look at Tony quickly on a statistical basis with the 21 HoF shortstops and then a little more in depth against a couple of contemporaries; one of which is in the Hall and the other who will be in 6 or 7 years. 

For the sake of arguement I've stacked Tony Fernandez' stats against the Hall of Fame Shortstops just to see where he'd rank, this will be quick and a last place ranking would be 22nd. 

Average	1st	Honus Wagner	0.327	10th	Tony Fernandez	0.288	22nd	Rabbit Maranville	0.258
On Base %	1st	Arky Vaughn	0.406	12th	Tony Fernandez	0.347	22nd	Joe Tinker	0.308
Slugging	1st	Ernie Banks	0.500	12th	Tony Fernandez	0.399	22nd	Ozzie Smith	0.328
Hits	1st	Honus Wagner	3,415	12th	Tony Fernandez	2,276	22nd	Hughie Jennings	1,527
Home Runs	1st	Ernie Banks	512	9th	Tony Fernandez	94	22nd	Hughie Jennings	18
Triples	1st	Honus Wagner	252	11th	Tony Fernandez	92	22nd	Cal Ripken Jr	44
Doubles	1st	Honus Wagner	643	8th	Tony Fernandez	414	22nd	John Ward	231
Runs Batted In	1st	Honus Wagner	1,732	15th	Tony Fernandez	844	22nd	Phil Rizzuto	563
Runs	1st	Honus Wagner	1,736	16th	Tony Fernandez	1,057	22nd	Joe Tinker	744
Stolen Bases	1st	Honus Wagner	722	10th	Tony Fernandez	246	22nd	Cal Ripken Jr	36
Fielding %	1st	Tony Fernandez	0.980	11th	Travis Jackson	0.952	22nd	Hughie Jennings	0.922

So what does the above show us?  Honus Wagner was a hell of a ball player for one thing!  Fernandez' average ranking was 11.45, so that's sort of middle of the pack.  But its middle of the pack against people already in the hall!  As I've said, comparisions over 145 years of organized baseball are error prone so I'll leave Joe Tinker and Rabbit Maranville for the time being can get a little more current.

Now, lets look at Tony against his two “near” contemporaries; Ozzie Smith and Omar Vizquel.  Ozzie started 1978, Tony in 1983 and Omar in 1989.  They were all in baseball together at the same time for 8 years although all at different stages of their careers.  Ozzie was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2002 and I think it is generally agreed that Vizquel will be inducted 5 years after he retires.  Fernandez will never be going to the hall of fame.  He received .7% of the vote, in his first year of eligibility, from the Baseball Writers of America in 2007 which forever removed him from the ballot. 

Here is a 162 game average of each of the players from an offensive standpoint.  How this works is quite simple.  Lets take the category of hits.  Say someone had 2682 hits in their career and they played in 2820 games over 22 seasons.   Instead of saying they average 122 hits a year (hits/seasons) you would divide the total number of hits by the total number of games played and multiply that by 162 which are the number of games in a season.   Therefore a reasonable full season expectation for hits would be 154. 

Tony doing his Rod Carew impression (Carew is in the Hall)

Player	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SO	BB	BA	SLG	OPS
Smith	679	79	155	25	4	2	50	37	67	.262	.328	.666
Fernandez	660	79	171	31	7	7	63	59	52	.288	.399	.764
Vizquel	663	80	159	25	4	5	53	60	58	.273	.354	.692

Fernandez played fewer seasons than the other two but still, 17 full seasons in the big leagues is more than enough to merit Hall of Fame consideration (7 of the current Hall of Fame shortstops have less than 17 years of service).  Clearly, I don’t think there is much question that among Vizquel and Smith he was the best offensive short stop.

So that being the case, Fernandez must lag defensively.  Does anyone remember him playing?  I think there is a bit of a Mario Lemieux factor with Tony.  I was a Gretzky fan personally and one of the reasons why I didn’t like Mario was that it never looked like he tried that hard.  There was a reason for that, Mario was 6 foot 4, 235 pounds.  He had 4 inches and 50 pounds on Gretzky.  Plus he was just (hurts to say this) a smoother, finer player than Gretzky.  It isn’t that he didn’t work was hard, but he looked better doing it. 

I think its sort of like Fernandez.  Tony's range behind second base was right over the bag.  Into the hole?  He used to throw from foul territory for god sakes.  This isn’t a declining Derek Jeter with limited range.  Tony, in my jaded and baised opinion, was able to get to more balls than any (yes any) other short stop and he could do so without ever having to leave his feet.  He could pluck a ball behind 3^rd base on the dead run off of his shoe tops, not break stride and flip a ball to across the diamond to get the runner by half a step.  Sure, Smith, Dunston, Trammell or Ripken would have dove head long, made the catch, got up and fired a seed to first for the out.  Well, not Ripken, he would have missed it but it would have been scored as a solid base hit passed 3^rd.  The point is, that Tony would make it look easy and I think that penalized him.  With other short stops you'd see the dive and "effort" and be impressed by that.  Like Gretzky, with his head down skating hard, shoulders swinging, arms flailing; its easy to lose sight of the fact that Lemieux was going just as fast but you didn't see any more "effort" than you would on at public skating on a Friday night at the Tottenham arena. 

Let’s look at defensive numbers.    

Player	Errors per year	Fielding %	Fielding % Ranking	Range Factor
Smith	14.8	.978	10th all time	5th all time
Fernandez	8.8	.980	8th all time	26th all time
Vizquel	8.3	.985	2nd all time	71st all time

Now, I kind of get why Vizquel would go in even though he doesn't get to as many balls at short as Gary Disarcina, but I still don’t understand why Tony’s not there (Ripken is #50 in range factor by the way).  Defensive stats other that errors are not time tested and widely open to debate.  I completely understand that.  But Fernandez is still ranked 26th all time in range.  Vizquel isn't in the top 50.  I'll call this one a wash between Smith and Fernandez.  Despite the range factor which heavily favours Smith, Tony had fewer errors AND a better fielding percentage. 

The only thing left that I can think of is that he folds in the clutch and that's what has hurt him.  So lets take a quick look at their post season numbers....

Player	Series	Games	At Bats	Hits	AVG.	Total Bases
Smith	LDS	2	3	1	.333	1
	LCS	19	66	20	.303	28
	WS	21	75	13	.173	13
	Total	42	144	34	.236	42
Fernandez	LDS	9	32	7	.219	10
	LCS	23	80	27	.338	36
	WS	11	38	15	.395	17
	Total	43	150	49	.327	63
Vizquel	LDS	26	102	32	.314	40
	LCS	18	73	14	.192	17
	WS	13	53	11	.208	15
	Total	57	228	57	.250	72

In this view, Fernandez wasn't just clutch, he also got significantly better the deeper he got into post season.  Sort of like the opposite of Dave Winflield (who is in the Hall of Fame). 

People are going to remember their favourite players differently.  I get that.  However, I don’t care how much you liked Lloyd Moseby, you cannot spin stats to make him look at all Hall of Fame eligible. 

I might be wrong, but I can’t think of any short stops from the 70’s that are in the Hall of Fame.  But then you have a bunch....Yount, Ripken, Smith and soon to follow Vizquel, Jeter, A-Rod.  That’s a lot of short stops who’s careers are packed pretty close together to make it in at the same time (or close to it).  So help me understand.  Why is Tony left off the list?  In his era the only one better defensively is Vizquel (but not his range).  Jeter in his prime wasn’t as good.  A-Rod I would listen to an argument about, but its been 8 years since he's played shortstop and at his age isn't going back.  The rest?  Not worth time to debate.  Offensively?  No question Ripken, Yount, Trammell, Rodriquez and Jeter have it over Tony from a power stand point.  But that makes them better power hitters, not better hitters.  I think its pretty well established that neither Smith nor Vizquel are in the offensive conversation.

A couple of other Tony points that people SHOULD know. 

• During Ripken's streak, Cal led or tied baseball in games played 16 times.  It would have been 17 but in 1986 Tony Fernandez played in 163 games in a 162 game season.  Tie games that are suspended have to be replayed in their entirety.  Tony can't be given credit for rain, but he can be given credit for staying healthy enough to create this statistical anomaly.  His 213 hits is still the second best ever by a shortstop.
• 1996 Alex Rodriquez had 215 hits.  Impressive.  It broke the record set by Tony Fernandez for total hits in a season by a shortstop.  From 1867-1995, not a single shortstop, not Honus Wagner, Ripken, Trammell, Luis Aparicio, Ernie Banks or Robin Yount had has many hits in a season as Fernandez' 213 in 1986.  To me this is a remarkable accomplishment that was completely overlooked.
• Fernandez still has the record for hits in a season by a switch-hitting shortstop.
• Played in 5 all-star games
• Tied with Kirby Puckett (Hall of Famer) with 414 career doubles.
• He finished in the top 10 of "most difficult to strike out" in six of his 17 seasons.
• 4 Gold Gloves (tied for 7th all time at shortstop)
• Ranks 145th all time in major league hits.  Ahead of notable Hall of Famers:  Joe DiMaggio, Mike Schmidt, Willie Stargell, Willie McCovey and a host of others.
• Ranks 149th all time in games played, tied with Johnny Bench (Hall of Famer)
• His 3156 total bases have him 41 ahead of Ken Griffey Jr. (any doubt he's in the Hall?)

To give my whinning a little context, players who have gotten a larger percentage of Hall of Fame votes than Fernandez include:  Gary Gaetti, Hal Morris, Jack McDowell, Darryl Kile, Kent Hrbek, George Bell and Rusty Staub.  Now I'm well known to be baseball obsessed, but even I had to look up who the hell Hal Morris was!

So if you are surrounded by Hall of Famers and your defence, offence or play in the clutch are all better or equal to those around you....then what’s the issue?

Is he not in the Hall because he’s black?  That doesn’t really make sense as Ozzie Smith is black and Jeter nearly is (or nearly isn't, not sure how that works).  Is it because he’s Dominican?  Now that’s a good question.  As far as I know Juan Marichal is the only Dominican born player in the Hall.  So there are the same number of Dominicans as there are Canadians in the Hall (Fergie Jenkins - I knew you were curious).  And Speaking of Canada, how much of Tony not being in the Hall is related to his playing 12 of his 17 seasons in Toronto?  That could be sizeable except that there was no shortage of visibility when he was here.  The Jays either finished 1st or 2nd every year and were in pennant races every year except 1984.

There is another factor and that is that Tony was an overt and unapologetic “Christian” player.  Clearly, statistically speaking, his devout Christian values had no bearing on his ability to perform as a ball player, but I still remember articles in the Star and Sun in the mid 80’s talking about how ‘you couldn’t win a World Series with a bunch of Christians’.  There were very pointed articles and columns about the lack of heart of Christians.  I don’t think articles like that would get through the editing room today, but just 25 years ago it was an open discussion on the topic.  Tony didn’t womanize.  He didn’t drink.  He didn't get in trouble.  From a sports writers perspective....he probably wasn’t very fun to cover. 

Let’s face it, this can only go one of two ways.  1. Ozzie Smith and about 10 other shortstops do not deserve to be in the hall of fame or 2. Tony Fernandez has been excluded from the Hall.  Pick one. 

My favourite ball player doesn’t have a lot going for him. 

·         He made the game look WAY too easy.

·         He’s black

·         He’s Dominican

·         He played the bulk of his career in Canada

·         He’s a Christian

·         He’s boring.

Is it the sum of these parts that has kept him out?  OR, is it that he really wasn’t good enough to stay on the ballot for 2^nd year?  Alan Trammell has been on the Hall of Fame ballot for 8 years getting between 15-22% of the vote.  Nothing against Tram, he's white, American, played in The States, didn't throw his religion in your face and it took him 20 years to get the numbers (roughly) that Fernandez had in 17.  

Tony's WOW factors are having more hits in a season at Shortstop than any other Hall of fame eligible Shortstop (A-Rod is still active and ineligible) and having the best fielding percentage of any other Hall of fame eligible Shortstop (Vizquel is still active and ineligible).  Is there another facet of the game besides offense and defense that I've failed to consider?

Further, and lastly, why didn’t anyone with the Blue Jays or in the Toronto media care enough to say anything or champion Fernandez' cause?  Why wouldn't the Jays have put together some kind of media push to demonstrate that he was worthy of consideration? 

I just don’t get it.