Rob Neyer and Jim Caple argue about Omar Vizquel’s Hall of Fame qualifications. Vizquel’s lack of MVP support, according to Rob, indicates the writers at the time didn’t think he was a great player.

Let me repeat something from yesterday … Omar Vizquel’s best (and only) finish in the MVP balloting was 16th.

One of my favorite non-Hall of Famers is Bobby Grich, who was terribly underappreciated during his career and still is. He finished eighth, ninth, and 14th twice in MVP balloting. Another terribly underappreciated player is Ted Simmons, who finished sixth, ninth, 10th, 13th, and 14th. Jimmy Wynn finished fifth, 11th, and 15th. Lou Whitaker finished eighth one year. Ron Santo finished fourth, fifth, eighth twice, and 12th.

All of those players were terribly ignored by Hall of Fame voters when their turns came, in part because they were undervalued during their careers … and yet somehow all of them fared significantly better than Vizquel in the MVP voting. For the simple reason that if you’re really a great player, at least a few times you’ll probably do some things that the MVP voters simply can’t ignore.

Vizquel was thoroughly underappreciated int he 1999 vote, in which he finished with a higher WAR than the winner, Ivan Rodriguez. (1999 Was a strange vote, in which Pedro Martinez was left off a ballot and came in second despite the most first place votes.) But 1999 was Vizquel’s only great season.

As time goes on, I care less and less about the Hall of Fame. If writers want to put Omar in simply based on his defense, I have no problem with that. There’s lots of ways to be famous. That 1999 season was the only one for Omar with a WAR over 3.5 according to Baseball Reference. Ozzie Smith posted nine of those. They’re not in the same class overall. So if you’re putting in just the greatest players ever, as opposed to those who did one thing extremely well, then Omar doesn’t belong.