Apparently, Barry Larkin, the soon-to-be forty-one-year-old, jilted Reds shortstop, is ready to pull a Jackie Robinson and hang 'em up rather than play for another team. Apparently, he's been offered backup mentor roles (Crash Davis to someone's Nuke LaLoosh), but he's leaning towards —"pretty close" to— retirement:

"I thought eventually I'd be able to say, yeah, I can do this. But I'm big on loyalty. I couldn't come to grips with making a 100-percent commitment (to another team)."


"I simply haven't made an announcement that I'm not going to play or retire because it's not that pressing of an issue. If it comes to the point that spring training starts and I'm not playing, then it will be obvious. I want no big fanfare, no major announcement."

Larkin may face more of a struggle since he played an extremely important defensive position and although he won three Gold Gloves in the mid-Nineties, he is hardly ever mentioned among the great defensive shortstops, either among the current crop or throughout history. The same could be said of Cal Ripken, but Ripken is remembered as one of the greatest offensive shortstops of all time. Larkin was a very good offensive player, especially for a shortstop, but his numbers may not excite the voters.

Larkin was a very, very good all around player, which was even more impressive because he played an extremely important and challenging defensive position very well. But I', afraid that he was a player, like Tim Raines, who did so many things so well but not one thing in particular, that he will be overlooked by the voters.

Larkin never led the league in any offensive categories (a zero in Bill James's Black Ink Test). He did make a number of appearances in the top ten (scoring a 66 in James's Gray Ink test, compared to 144 for an average Hall of Famer). The other James tests are more encouraging (a 46.9 on the Hall Standards test compared to 50 for an average HoFer and a 118.5 on the Hall monitor, meaning that his enshrinement is more than likely). Also, every similar batter to him except one (Sweet Lou Whitaker), who is already eligible to the Hall, is either in (Sandberg, Cronin, and Reese) or is on the ballot (Trammell). And a couple of the not-yet-eligible ones should have strong support (Alomar and Biggio).

I foresee the future voters comparing Larkin to two men, Cal Ripken for offense and Ozzie Smith for defense, and seeing him coming up short on both accounts. I hope they realize that a Hall of Famer doesn't have to have one facet of the game that defines him, but given the way that they have voted on expansion-era players, I'm not sanguine (look at Bert Blyleven).

So what is Larkin's place in the pantheon of shortstop greats? Let's look at it a couple of ways. First, here are the top shortstops by career Win Shares (min. 500 games at short):

I included every Hall of Fame shortstop, down to the much reviled Travis Jackson. You'll note that besides Bill Dahlen, who along with Tony Mullane, is one of the most overlooked nineteenth-century players in Hall voting, everyone ahead of Larkin is either in the Hall or is a lock to go in when they become eligible.
Now, here are the top shortstops by Fielding and Batting Win Shares. You'll not that Larkin does better in the latter, though no better than in the overall standings:

Defense first:

Then offense:

My prediction is that Larkin will suffer through a campaign similar to Gary Carter's. He'll get in, I think, but it will take him more than a year or two to do it. That is, unless the voters start to develop a more well informed approach within the next five years or so. Yeah, like that'll ever happen.