Mark Belanger played shortstop for 18 years in the major leagues and hit 20 career home runs. Six shortstops hit 20 homers last year. Belanger never had more than 50 RBI in a season. Alex Rodriguez drove in 51 runs in the last two months of 2000. Belanger was brilliant defensively, one of the best ever, a key component on the great Orioles teams of 1969 to 1971.
|  | | Deivi Cruz used to be good-field, no-hit, but he bulked up and added power at the plate. |
If he played today, he wouldn't get 18 years service, and he wouldn't be as critical a piece to his team. Neither would Dal Maxvill, Bud Harrelson, Ray Oyler or dozens of players, most of them middle infielders, who carved out big-league careers with their gloves, not their bats, a generation ago.
"If myself, and (Larry) Bowa and a few other guys were playing today, we might be struggling, too," says Rangers coach Bucky Dent, one of the premier defensive shortstops of the '70s and early '80s. "If we got stuck behind Jeter or A-Rod, we would be in trouble."
"The game has changed," says Rangers general manager Doug Melvin. "You used to be able to carry a player strictly for his defense, but you can't anymore, or at least in most cases. It used to be that your shortstop, catcher and center fielder were there for defense, and the most important part of your second baseman's game was the ability to make the double play. That has changed. Ray Oyler wouldn't play much today. He'd be David Howard."
David Howard is a good little middle infielder who can really catch and throw, but he just got sent out by the Mets because he has never hit enough to play everyday in the major leagues. Hitting is king today; if you don't hit, you don't play. Consider this: in 1968, the Dodgers didn't score 10 runs in any game. In 2000, every team but one scored 10 runs in a game 10 or more times. In 1999, teams scored 20 runs in a game nine times. In the 1960's, it happened five times the entire decade. Belanger's 1971 Orioles, the champions of the American League, scored 742 runs, by far the AL's highest total. Last year, every AL team but Tampa Bay (733) scored more.
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World Series shortstops, 1970-79
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|
Player
|
HR
|
RBI
|
Avg.
|
|
Mark Belanger, Orioles
|
1
|
36
|
.218
|
|
Gene Alley, Pirates
|
6
|
28
|
.227
|
|
B. Campaneris, A's
|
8
|
32
|
.240
|
|
B. Campaneris, A's
|
4
|
46
|
.250
|
|
B. Campaneris, A's
|
2
|
41
|
.290
|
|
D. Concepcion, Reds
|
5
|
49
|
.274
|
|
D. Concepcion, Reds
|
9
|
69
|
.281
|
|
Bucky Dent, Yankees
|
8
|
49
|
.247
|
|
Bucky Dent, Yankees
|
5
|
40
|
.243
|
|
Tim Foli, Pirates
|
1
|
65
|
.291
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"I think part of this (the loss of the defensive specialist) began when the rosters went from 25 to 24 (in the late 1980s)," says Padres coach Tim Flannery, a good-field, soft-hitting second baseman for San Diego in the '80s. "Teams couldn't afford to keep a defensive replacement as an extra guy. But now that we're back to 25, there still isn't room for them."
This movement toward offense at defensive positions has many origins, none more important than the early '80s when shortstops Robin Yount and Cal Ripken won back-to-back MVP awards, hitting 20-plus homers and knocking in 100-plus runs. Ripken hit 27 homers and drove in 102 runs for the '83 World Series champion Orioles. In the 20 previous years, not one primary shortstop on a World Series winner hit as many as 10 homers in a season, and only two -- Tim Foli (65) of the '79 Pirates and Dick Groat (70) of the '64 Cardinals -- drove in as many as 50 runs in a season. Last season, the eight shortstops who played in the playoffs averaged 21 homers and 86 RBI.
"When I played, a six-homer, 50-RBI season was really, really good for a shortstop," Dent said.
It's not just shortstop. Second base has become an offensive position also, partly because of what Carlos Baerga did for the Indians in the '90s, averaging 20 home runs and 100 RBI over a three-year period. Now the Indians tell their scouts to look for offense first when rating amateur second basemen.
Bill Mazeroski, who was, at least statistically, the greatest second baseman of all time, was recently inducted in the Hall of Fame, as he should have been 10 years ago. He was a productive offensive second baseman in his era (mostly the '60s), but his best home run season was 19, and his best RBI season was 81. Four second baseman -- Jeff Kent, Jose Vidro, Edgardo Alfonzo and Roberto Alomar -- had at least 19 homers and at least 81 RBIs last year. Kent and Vidro had offensive seasons -- hitting .330 with 30 homers and 100 RBI -- that no second baseman has had since the great Rogers Hornsby.
"The numbers just boggle my mind," says Flannery. "My best year (1985), when I was platooning with Jerry (Royster), I drove in 40 runs and scored 50. He did about the same (Royster scored 31 and drove in 31). We were productive for back then, but it took both of us."
"The game is different now," says Melvin. "Teams don't steal bases any more. Teams don't play little ball. Back in the Koufax-Drysdale days, they played for one run; now teams play for the big inning, the three-run homer. And defense isn't as important as it used to be. The White Sox and the A's went to the playoffs last year with 133 and 134 errors (only the Rangers made more in the AL). The goal used to be to make only 80 errors."
Flannery says "no question, defense has taken a back seat in today's game. If you're driving in runs, to the (coaching) staff and management, you don't have to be great on defense."
There are only a few defense-only players left, one being Mets shortstop Rey Ordonez, a fabulous fielder, but a lifetime .243 hitter with a career on-base percentage of .287 and only four home runs and 174 RBI in 2,016 at-bats. He's so bad offensively (he also can't bunt), the Mets have tried to trade him, but with a $7 million salary, it's almost impossible to do. So, the Mets will be one of the only teams to carry an offensive liability, which is doubly bad since they're a National League team. Buck Showalter, former Diamondbacks manager, says the No. 8 hitter is so important in the NL because the pitcher has to bat. If the No. 8 hitter is an out, that's two outs in a row in the order. And you can't afford that in today's game.
Tigers shortstop Deivi Cruz was never as bad as Ordonez at the plate, but he wasn't good -- in 1998, for instance, he hit five homers and drove in 45 runs in 454 at-bats. John Stearns, a coach with the Mets, hadn't seen Cruz in a couple of years. "He shows up in spring training this year hitting fifth for them," Stearns said. "I said,' Is this is the same guy who used to play in Detroit? He's hitting fifth? What's that?' " Last year, Cruz hit fourth one game. Why? Because he had bulked up, gotten stronger, hit .302 with 61 extra-base hits, just four fewer than Ken Griffey Jr., and 16 more than anyone on Belanger's 1971 championship team.
Cruz is solid defensively. Who do you think Earl Weaver, who loved offense at defensive positions, would have played at shortstop? Belanger, the Gold Glover, or a guy with more extra-base hits than Frank Robinson?
ESPN The Magazine's Tim Kurkjian writes a weekly column for ESPN.com.
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