Was Rey Ordo�ez the Greatest Mets' Shortstop Ever?

[Guest d'Kong76]

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

The Great Rey Debate never gets old.

[Frayed Knot]

No, but for that one season that was the best defensive infield I ever saw.
It got to the point where if anything, other than a line drive, got through that infield you found yourself surprised.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Certainly the leather was flashed for many more than
only one season.

[Zvon]

I love the glove so I loved ReyRey, but his hole in the lineup taught me you could only love the glove so much.

[Ceetar]

Unequivocally. Also, Lagares is without a doubt the best OF on the team next year.

[Guest d'Kong76]

No glove, no love. And he helped pitchers more than
any Mets' catcher ever did.

[Gwreck]

Jose Reyes.

I will admit, I laughed pretty hard at the thread title.

[Edgy MD]

I liked the way Marty Noble expressed it. "If you drew a circle around second base seven feet in diameter, there was never a guy who played that area of the field like Ordonez. Nobody. Not Ozzie, not anyone I ever saw."

The thing about him, to me, is that it wasn't just the high quality and the consistency of the defense, but the creativity. It was an art as much as a craft.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Gwreck wrote: I laughed pretty hard at the thread title.

You should. It's a ridiculous notion. But believe me, evoking a discussion about Ordonez is about the last reason this thread was started.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

He was a source of so much disagreement in the early days.

In the final analysis I think he was one of those guys whose ability won him more opportunity than his effort and results ever justified. I don't think the team was wrong to give him a chance.

[Frayed Knot]

Kong76 wrote: Certainly the leather was flashed for many more than only one season.

Sure, but there are good defensive seasons and then there are ones we won't likely see the likes of again.

[metirish]

As a new Mets fan and indeed baseball fan I couldn't believe the things he did with the glove....as time went on I couldn't believe the things he didn't do with the bat.

I will always have a soft spot for Rey.

[MFS62]

In a close call, I still think Bud Harrelson was consistently a better fielder than Ordonez. Bud prevented bloops down the left field line from turning into doubles better than any shortstop I ever saw.

Later

[RealityChuck]

Ordonez was probably a better fielder than Harrelson, but not by a while lot. Harrelson was the better hitter, which says a lot of how bad Ordonez was at the plate: Buddy was far below league average.

But Harrelson beat up Pete Rose. That gives him the win.

[Ceetar]

Total Zone (one of the few defensive stats going back in time) has it Ordonez, Hernandez, Harrelson, Beltran/Ventura/Gilkey at 58,52,41,38/38/38.

[Vic Sage]

Ha ha ha... Kase, you kill me. Oh wait, you were serious. Sorry.

If by "shortstop" you are talking purely about defense at the position, and NOT ranking the best baseball players to play ss for the Mets, then i suppose there's an argument. Not one i'd want to make, but certainly a valid and supportable one. But as a complete player at the position, i'd rank him 3rd (4th, if you include Hojo), but closer to, oh i don't know, Kevin Elster than to Reyes or Harrelson.

Top 10 Mets SSs (with at least 162 games):

1. Jos� Reyes (999)
2. Bud Harrelson (1280)
3. Howard Johnson (263)
---
4. Rey Ord��ez (907)
5. Kevin Elster (524)
6. Jos� Vizcaino (236)
7. Rafael Santana (478)
---
8. Frank Taveras (371)
9. Roy McMillan (335)
10. Jos� Oquendo (183)

* Special mention: Al Weis (127), for his role in 1969

[Edgy MD]

In a close call, I still think Bud Harrelson was consistently a better fielder than Ordonez. Bud prevented bloops down the left field line from turning into doubles better than any shortstop I ever saw.

Maybe, but Rey didn't mess around:


Wanted to find some gifs of him hitting too. Still looking.

[Edgy MD]

The common theme in all three gifs is that the other fielders seem to have this deference, as if it's his world and they're just in it. That's a good thing and a bad thing, but it sure was a fascinating thing.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I watched a lotta games back then, and hafta say, Reyrey changed the expectations you had on bouncers up the middle. When he was out with injury in 2000 -- and sorta, after he came back and stopped trying so hard -- the adjustment was stark. I mean, Luis Sojo is out by 9 feet if he hits that thing in 1997.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Ceetar wrote: Total Zone (one of the few defensive stats going back in time) has it Ordonez, Hernandez, Harrelson, Beltran/Ventura/Gilkey at 58,52,41,38/38/38.

There are plenty of defensive stats beyond the traditional chances, putouts, assists and errors that go back in time. Just surf baseballreference.com for starters. Ordonez had one outstanding defensive season, 1999, where he might've even been deserving of the Gold Glove he won, and one more excellent season defensively - 1997. Beyond those two, he was nothing special, despite his knack for consistently making visually breathtaking and highlight-worthy plays. In fact, there's plenty of evidence that his backups, Vizcaino, Lopez et. al. were at least just as efficient defensively as Ordonez, though not nearly as pretty to look at. Other than 1999, he was never in the conversation of best fielding shortstop, either in the Majors, or in the NL. He just wasn't that good. But you'd never know it from the constant, constant hype, which had him as the Mozart, Einstein, Picasso and Baryshnikov of fielding shortstops, all rolled into one.

And that's before you get to his offense. If you can even find it. Overall, the Mets would have been better off had Ordonez never played a single game for the franchise.

Ha ha ha... Kase, you kill me. Oh wait, you were serious. Sorry.... Top 10 Mets SSs (with at least 162 games): 1. Jos� Reyes (999) 2. Bud Harrelson (1280) 3. Howard Johnson (263) ---

What do those numbers in parentheses signify?

[Edgy MD]

Gamez, I would imagine.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Gamez, I would imagine.

Obviously.


D'oh.

[Vic Sage]

They're from Ultimate Mets Database, and are number of games each played for the Mets (presumably at SS).

[Ceetar]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Ordonez had one outstanding defensive season, 1999, where he might've even been deserving of the Gold Glove he won, and one more excellent season defensively - 1997. Beyond those two, he was nothing special, despite his knack for consistently making visually breathtaking and highlight-worthy plays. In fact, there's plenty of evidence that his backups, Vizcaino, Lopez et. al. were at least just as efficient defensively as Ordonez, though not nearly as pretty to look at. Other than 1999, he was never in the conversation of best fielding shortstop, either in the Majors, or in the NL.

well, cite said evidence maybe? Because they didn't talk him up on Sportscenter? Please, Gold Gloves are an offense award, and if the 1999 infield offense wasn't so outrageously ridiculous he wouldn't have won it then either. You're talking about an award Derek Jeter won in 2010 despite hanging out near the bottom of most fielding statistic categories except errors which is laughable because only one shortstop made fewer plays on balls in the zone that season than him.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Baby Rey might not have been SUPER deserving of his awardware in 1998 and 2000, as per Fangraphs UZR and Plus/Minus (both of which rate his performance at below-average and average, respectively, in those years).

But yeah, Vizcaino (-8 base runs over two seasons, according to fUZR and bUZR) and Lopez? There doesn't appear to be the evidence you're citing there, bml.

[G-Fafif]

Harrelson was a top-notch defender and, like Grote, informed my conception of how his position was supposed to be played. Reyes was clearly the best two-way shortstop the Mets have ever had.

But Ordonez...I think I'd pay 1999 Mezzanine prices just to sit and watch him field grounders into submission for three hours.

[Gwreck]

G-Fafif wrote: I'd pay 1999 Mezzanine prices

$12, if I'm remembering right.

[G-Fafif]

Gwreck wrote: G-Fafif wrote: I'd pay 1999 Mezzanine prices $12, if I'm remembering right.

Sold!

[Zvon]

I hate to say it cuz I love flashy fielders but I'd take Buddy over Rey any day. And I never thought of Buddy as flashy, but he was as solid as they get at short. At the plate Harrelson carried his weight.