Barry needs more mainstream writers like Stark in his corner.

I thought this was interesting:

And that brings us to OPS. Larkin (.815) was 137 points — or 20 percent — better than the average shortstop of his time (.678). The only two shortstops in the past 35 years who had an OPS that much better than the rest of their generation were A-Rod (31 percent) and Nomar Garciaparra (25 percent). But both of them moved to other positions before end-of-career declines shrunk those gaps.

All right, let’s spring a little quiz on you: What names weren’t on that list? How about Ripken’s, for starters? He beat the average by “only” 18 percent. Other names you didn’t find: How about Robin Yount, Alan Trammell, Miguel Tejada and Ozzie himself? Perhaps you’ve heard of them.

The next-closest National League shortstop? That was Concepcion — who outperformed the competition by only 8 percent. So friends, there’s only one word for how Barry Larkin compared to the other shortstops of his time: Domination.

This makes a great point about Larkin and to a lesser extent Concepcion – they gave the Reds a huge comparative advantage at shortstop (historically huge in Larkin’s case).

I take back all the bad things I’ve said about the Worldwide Leader!

good luck Barry

My respect for Jayson Stark just skyrocketed.