Phil was an MVP but how good would he have been for fantasy players?
On the MLB.com Fantasy 411 podcast, Cory Schwartz and Joe Sheehan were discussing Rizzuto and how good he would have been. They thought that he would have been similar to David Eckstein. There is an easy way to at least get an estimate of his fantasy value; all that needs to be done is to apply a head to head league point scoring structure and see how he would compare.

My 12 team mixed head-to-head scoring structure is:

1B-1pt
2B-2pt
3B-3pt
HR-4pt
RBI-1pt
R-1pt
BB-1pt
SB-2pt
HBP-1pt

Lets take Rizzuto’s MVP season of 1950, and say that it represents his peak. Rizzuto had 7HR, 66RBI, 12SB, 92BB, 7 3B, 36 2B, 7 HBP and 157 1B. This results in 474 points. We can’t use this year’s points totals since the season is still ongoing, but going by the 2006 point totals his 474 points is middling.

With 474 points, he would have equalled Chipper Jones and Tadahito Iguchi’s 2006 output. Right above him is Omar Vizquel at 477 and below are Dave Roberts at 472 and Emil Brown at 471. That is Rizzuto’s peak.

Taking a more pedestrian season, like 1951 when he finished 11th in MVP voting and made the All-Star team, we have the following:

2 HR, 43 RBI, 18 SB, 58 BB, 6 3B, 21 2B, 5 HBP and 121 1B.

This gives us 331 points. In 2006 Kevin Mench and Milton Bradley produced 331 points. Aaron Rowand was below at 329 points. Juan Uribe and Todd Walker were above at 332 points.

So, I guess we can say that Rizzuto was a marginal 12 team fantasy player in a typical season, and a slightly above average one at his peak. Given his positional scarcity, at least in the 1950s, he would be an above average fantasy player at his peak; but by today’s standards at shortstop he probably would be waiver bait in a typical season.

For what its worth, I grew up as a Yankee fan in the 1970s, and loved Scooter. I was lucky enough to get his autograph at the stadium. And we all know the history of how he became a lightning rod in the early scouts vs. stats debates. But unless a fantasy league can score defense or old fuddy-duddy hype, he wouldn’t be a very good fantasy player.

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