Better shortstop Dave Concepcion or Ozzie Smith?

[redlegs2370]

As I sit here and read all of the nonsense from the delusional Cardinal fans I go back to my childhood when I would debate with Cardinal fans who had the better shortstop: Dave Concepcion or Ozzie Smith. Well in my book it was Davey unless you wanted a gymnast to do flips on the field. Davey will never get the credit he deserves in baseball, except for Cincinnati fans.

Comparing both players stats I can't see where Smith is better and seeing that Smith is in the Hall of Fame Concepcion most certainly should. Both players played 19 seasons and Concepcion played in 9 post season series (4 WS) & Smith played in 8 post season series (3 WS)

Concepcion's stats (.267 BA) (101 HR) (950 RBI) (2,326 H) (.971 Field%)
Smiths stats (.262 BA) ( 28 HR) (793 RBI) (2,460 H) (.965 Field%)

Davey beats him in 4 of the 5 categories, plus post season Concepcion had (.297 BA) & Smith (.236) in roughly same amount of games.

I think without reservation Concepcion is better and most definitely deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

[10xWSChamps]

This is a great site for intelligent baseball talk

Liar!

Offensively they were similar players but on the bases and defensively Ozzie was head and shoulders above Dave

Fielding % isn't a very good statistic.

[redlegs2370]

Liar!

Offensively they were similar players but on the bases and defensively Ozzie was head and shoulders above Dave

Fielding % isn't a very good statistic.

Davey invented the bounce on Astroturf. He pioneered how the game was played defensively from the shortstop position. How can you say fielding % isn't a very good statistic? Offensively similar? I will agree with you but Davey gets the nod because he was clutch in post season and he drove in more runs.

[Razzle]

Davey invented the bounce on Astroturf. He pioneered how the game was played defensively from the shortstop position. How can you say fielding % isn't a very good statistic? Offensively similar? I will agree with you but Davey gets the nod because he was clutch in post season and he drove in more runs.

Fielding percentage is a pretty awful way to measure a defensive player. Who would you rather have a guy who makes every play with horrible range or a guy who gets to 20% more balls, but makes a few errors. The latter guy is going to help his team more often than not, but fielding percentage can't determine that. This is a pretty drastic example, but just used to exemplify the point.

[redlegs2370]

Fielding percentage is a pretty awful way to measure a defensive player. Who would you rather have a guy who makes every play with horrible range or a guy who gets to 20% more balls, but makes a few errors. The latter guy is going to help his team more often than not, but fielding percentage can't determine that. This is a pretty drastic example, but just used to exemplify the point.

Are you saying Concepcion didn't have great range? I would say they were similar on range. Point blank Dave Concepcion was as good of defensive shortstop as Ozzie Smith and just an all around better baseball player. If you polled Bench, Rose, Morgan, Griffey, Perez, Oester, Driessen, etc they would 100% say they would rather have Concepcion at shortstop on their team than Ozzie Smith.

[Razzle]

Are you saying Concepcion didn't have great range? I would say they were similar on range. Point blank Dave Concepcion was as good of defensive shortstop as Ozzie Smith and just an all around better baseball player. If you polled Bench, Rose, Morgan, Griffey, Perez, Oester, Driessen, etc they would 100% say they would rather have Concepcion at shortstop on their team than Ozzie Smith.

That's not what I'm saying at all, just showing how fielding percentage can be seen as flawed. I don't really have a say in the matter as I am too young to have watched Concepcion play at all and I didn't really even get to see Smith in his prime. All I can go on is what I've been told and that wouldn't really say much since I've lived in St. Louis most of my life.

[Griffey012]

Are you saying Concepcion didn't have great range? I would say they were similar on range. Point blank Dave Concepcion was as good of defensive shortstop as Ozzie Smith and just an all around better baseball player. If you polled Bench, Rose, Morgan, Griffey, Perez, Oester, Driessen, etc they would 100% say they would rather have Concepcion at shortstop on their team than Ozzie Smith.

He was just making a hypothetical example of why fielding percentage is flawed. He wasn't specifying players. It's a well known fallacy of fielding %

[nornob]

Are you saying Concepcion didn't have great range? I would say they were similar on range. Point blank Dave Concepcion was as good of defensive shortstop as Ozzie Smith and just an all around better baseball player. If you polled Bench, Rose, Morgan, Griffey, Perez, Oester, Driessen, etc they would 100% say they would rather have Concepcion at shortstop on their team than Ozzie Smith.

I heard Joe Morgan say on a telecast, "Davey Concepcion was the best shortstop I'd ever seen until I saw Ozzie Smith." The Wizard of Oz was a better shortstop than Conception. And, yes, Davey belongs in the Hall.
All brilliant shortstops belong there.
Oz was even better than Omar Vizquel, and that's hard for me to say as a native Clevelander and lifelong Indians fan. Oz had a better arm than Omar.

[10xWSChamps]

Davey invented the bounce on Astroturf. He pioneered how the game was played defensively from the shortstop position. How can you say fielding % isn't a very good statistic? Offensively similar? I will agree with you but Davey gets the nod because he was clutch in post season and he drove in more runs.

As for fielding %, pretty much what Razzle said. Ozzie had tremendous range and got called for errors on balls no one would have got close to. You can't put their defense inside of a vacuum, the further a ball is hit away from where the shortstop is positioned at the more I want ozzie.

Besides, Ozzie actually has a higher fielding % (.978) So even if you want to argue that F% is worthwhile, it still doesn't help your argument.

What exactly do you mean when you say he invented the "bounce" on astroturf?

Dave had more pop in his bat and was an outstanding defensive SS, Ozzie was a SB machine and generational defensive SS.

I think Ozzie's popularity and celebrity was probably helped by playing on the Cardinals and the opposite would be true for Dave. But, it is what it is. Pujols missed a couple MVPs because Bonds roided so much.

[couch_manager]

I think Ozzie's popularity and celebrity was probably helped by playing on the Cardinals and the opposite would be true for Dave.

Dave's lack of popularity was because he didn't play for the Cardinals?

Ozzie's popularity was mostly due to his backflips.

[10xWSChamps]

Dave's lack of popularity was because he didn't play for the Cardinals?

Ozzie's popularity was mostly due to his backflips.

I'm not trying to brag or anything, I'm just saying the Cardinals were a more popular team and got more national media exposure.. that was even more important back then then it is these days with the internet, ESPN and the MLB network where you can see more then just the select national coverage.

[scott91575]

I think Ozzie's popularity and celebrity was probably helped by playing on the Cardinals

The Big Red Machine was more popular than your Cardinals ever were or ever will be.

[Krawhitham]

The Big Red Machine was more popular than your Cardinals ever were or ever will be.

Ozzie did not start till after the big red machine was dead, so their was no direct competition between Ozzie and The Big Red Machine. The reds in the 80's were by far the worse team in baseball. It is not like today where sports center is on 24/7 you got like 5 minutes on the local nightly news and if you got any coverage that was not a local sport team it was Ozzie doing that damn back flip. Local news had about 5 seconds to devote to non local sports and a flip took about 5 seconds


You also had This week in Baseball which did not cover the Reds in the 80's because they had 30 minutes a week and well the Reds SUCKED in the 80's. And every week I remember seeing Ozzie doing back flips on TWIB

With the The Big Red Machine Davey was never a talking point, as good as he was: Rose, Bench, Morgan, Foster, & Perez were better in the eyes of people because they could hit. Only time Davey hit was in the clutch. So Davey was 6th or 7th on the pecking list while Ozzie was 1st on the pecking list for the Cards. Only thing the Cards had besides Ozzie was Vince Coleman

[Kingspoint]

Liar!

Offensively they were similar players but on the bases and defensively Ozzie was head and shoulders above Dave

Fielding % isn't a very good statistic.

Ozzie Smith sucked big-time Offensively the first half of his career. Concepcion was always good.

[foxfire123]

Concepcion, hands down.