Gee, I thought shortstops had a place in the batting order and didn't just field. Ozzie Smith was a phenomenal fielder. But, without running any metrics, I would be astonished if the runs he saved in the field were equal to or more than the runs produced by the better hitters at shortstop such as Wagner, Vaughn, Ripkin. Yount, Banks, etc. And most of them were decent fielders too. At the least, the disparity between their fielding and that of Ozzie was not nearly so great (albeit I grant that fielding is much more difficult to measure) than the disparity between Ozzie at the plate and any of the other shortstops I've mentioned. Ozzie isn't number one, period, unless you are only looking at half an inning. Not now, not ever. Neither is Omar number two. They were both great, but they weren't the greatest and second best. That is still Wagner and, IMO, Vaughn and then probably Banks.
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