Best Second Baseman of All Time

[Chris M.]

Poll coming.

[aloneatlastnj]

this is probably the hardest one to decide. you've gotta respect jackie robinson for what he did for humanity/civil rights and the sport of baseball, but there's no question in my mind it should be between hornsby and carew. you could make the case for either of those guys and they're above and beyond all the other guys listed as far as hitting prowess is concerned. i personally went hornsby because he's probably the best power hitting second baseman ever.

[xbrokendownx]

Hornsby

[achassi]

Rod Carew.

[IcedOpethBlind]

Hornsby

[TakeItToManHat]

I'll pick Biggio being I haven't seen anyone play as hard as he did

[Jeremy Aaron]

Hornsby did hit .400 three times, an undeniably impressive feat, even in a hitters' era. By all accounts, he was an absolute butcher in the field, though. On all-around tools, I chose Morgan.

[Chris M.]

Though I agree that this is the toughest to choose so far, I don't think carew is even in the top three. For me, it's a three player race between Hornsby, Robinson and morgan. Very good cases can be made for all three, but I went with Morgan. I mean, it's easy to look at who has the highest wOBA or OPS+ and just pick them, but that kinda takes the fun out of the discussion. I'm sure Morgan could have put up very similar numbers to Hornsby if they played in the same time period.

[rcrook]

I'll pick Biggio being I haven't seen anyone play as hard as he did

Dumb. Eric Byrnes plays hard but I'm not picking him for best LF ever.

[startBBtoday]

I'll pick Biggio being I haven't seen anyone play as hard as he did

cue scott's head exploding

[startBBtoday]

while i voted for hornsby, i can't see the love for carew over joe morgan. i think because joe morgan is so annoying in the booth, a lot of people forget how good he was on the field.

[Jeremy Aaron]

while i voted for hornsby, i can't see the love for carew over joe morgan. i think because joe morgan is so annoying in the booth, a lot of people forget how good he was on the field.

Agreed. I guess it's easy to be wowed by ridiculously high batting averages (particularly Carew's .388 year). Carew also stole some bases, but his career SB/CS ratio is less than 2.0, so despite 40+ steals some years, he was hurting his team. Not to mention, he was a pretty poor fielder and played first base almost exclusively by the time he was 30, actually accumulating more games played at first than second. Morgan walked more, stole more bases with a higher success rate, won several Gold Gloves and hit for power (at least more than Carew). For me, it's Morgan all the way.

[wookiex]

Biggio, childhood hero.

[startBBtoday]

there are four people in the world that think craig biggio is the best second baseman ever. wow.

[rcrook]

Everybody who has chosen Biggio should be shot.

[williek311]

I don't know enough about the older MLB players to make a good judgement and vote on someone but Alomar was probably the best second baseman I've seen play.

[screamoutmyname]

pete rose

[bigmike]

Hornsby. He gets the nod for being in such a dead ball era for most of his career and being so much better than his peers.

[xbrokendownx]

Pete rose played like 600 games at 2nd, sorry he wasnt a 2nd baseman

[bduke13]

It's Hornsby but I voted for Alomar out of spite for those people who picked Biggio and Sandberg. I think Alomar is without a doubt the best 2B in his era.

[rcrook]

What the fuck is so good about Craig Biggio? The dude hit above .300 in 4 of his 20 seasons and never had a season with over 88 rbis.

[Chris M.]

What the fuck is so good about Craig Biggio? The dude hit above .300 in 4 of his 20 seasons and never had a season with over 88 rbis.

but, but, but the longevity!

[Chris M.]

What I find more perplexing than Biggio having four votes is Rod Carew being ahead of Eddie Collins, Robinson and Morgan in voting. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say all those people who voted for him are from the LA or Minneapolis-St. Paul areas.

[rcrook]

What I find more perplexing than Biggio having four votes is Rod Carew being ahead of Eddie Collins, Robinson and Morgan in voting. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say all those people who voted for him are from the LA or Minneapolis-St. Paul areas.

Not LA, most Angels fans probably don't even know that Rod Carew played for us.

[J.C.]

Utley's better than most of the options ever were.

[bigmike]

Utley's better than most of the options ever were.
I wouldn't go with "better than most of the options." I'd give Utley the nod over Kent, Doerr, Biggio, and Alomar, but Chase is right in the mix with Gehringer, Lajoie, Morgan and Carew. I think it's feasible that he'd only be 8th best on this list.

He is criminally underrated, though.

[Jeremy Aaron]

What the fuck is so good about Craig Biggio? The dude hit above .300 in 4 of his 20 seasons and never had a season with over 88 rbis.

I'm not surprised to see comments to this effect. It's easy to overestimate "glamorous" stats, though. Biggio led off most of his career, resulting in low RBI totals. Rickey Henderson never even had a 75 RBI year.

If you look at more meaningful stats like Runs Created and factor in all the "little things" that Biggio did so well, he would rate with Griffey as the best players of the '90s. In '97, Biggio got hit by 34 pitches and didn't ground into a single double play. For his career, he was hit by a pitch twice as often as he grounded into a double play. Those stats are astounding. He was also a great doubles hitter and high percentage base-stealer (even had a rare 50 2B, 50 SB season) and won a number of gold gloves. He was a better player than at least half the others on this list.

[xbrokendownx]

all those stats you just described say Craig Biggio is a nice player, which is what he is

hes nowhere near the best 2nd baseman all time

[Jeremy Aaron]

Hornsby. He gets the nod for being in such a dead ball era for most of his career and being so much better than his peers.

This is hardly true. There were as many, and in some years, more runs being scored in his era than in our current era. His peak years in the '20s were during a time when scoring was very high. In addition, batting averages in particular were inflated. In 1924 (Hornsby's .424 season), Cy Williams was tenth in the NL with a .328 mark. Last year, David Wright was tenth in the NL at .302. Wait, there are twice as many teams, now. His numbers are less impressive because of when he played, not more. Still, six consecutive batting titles is quite remarkable.

[startBBtoday]

HOW DOES JOE MORGAN ONLY HAVE 2 VOTES!?! i kind of want to change my vote from hornsby just to give morgan another vote. morgan played twice as many games at second than carew (not that that completely matters as far as credentials, but still), almost three times as many home runs, almost twice as many stolen bases, more rbis, one obp point lower despite having a ba almost 60 points lower, two mvps, five gold gloves (i know), two world series wins.

what does carew have over morgan that no one will argue for? the batting average and consistent all star appearances? 3000 hits?

[startBBtoday]

This is hardly true. There were as many, and in some years, more runs being scored in his era than in our current era. His peak years in the '20s were during a time when scoring was very high. In addition, batting averages in particular were inflated. In 1924 (Hornsby's .424 season), Cy Williams was tenth in the NL with a .328 mark. Last year, David Wright was tenth in the NL at .302. Wait, there are twice as many teams, now. His numbers are less impressive because of when he played, not more. Still, six consecutive batting titles is quite remarkable.

yes, but he was doing that as a second baseman. there's never been a second baseman to put up those power numbers and avg/ops regardless of era. less teams=more talent/team which cancels out the other questions in that era in my opinion.

[Mibabalou]

chuck knoblock

/thread

[xbrokendownx]

if youre going to throw in players like that as a joke, at least spell the guys name right

[bigmike]

This is hardly true. There were as many, and in some years, more runs being scored in his era than in our current era. His peak years in the '20s were during a time when scoring was very high. In addition, batting averages in particular were inflated. In 1924 (Hornsby's .424 season), Cy Williams was tenth in the NL with a .328 mark. Last year, David Wright was tenth in the NL at .302. Wait, there are twice as many teams, now. His numbers are less impressive because of when he played, not more. Still, six consecutive batting titles is quite remarkable.
I'm not a Runs Created fan (bringing in one of your other posts into this one). It's too multiplicative.

For me, it comes down to total value, and the best metric around is Wins Above Replacement and those are found, for free, over at Baseball Projection (http://baseballprojection.com/). Here's the full list (http://baseballprojection.com/war/playerindex.htm). It goes back to 1871 and uses defensive data (gathered from play-by-play logs) and that's about as good as we can gauge the defense throughout the entirety of recorded baseball.

I totaled the runs per games totals for the 1920's and in the NL it was 57786 runs scored in 12256 games for a per game average of 4.7. In the AL it was 59973 in 12258 games for 4.9 R/G total. So, the offensive era wasn't that absurdly good (it was higher than I had thought it'd be, so I was wrong there).

I'm not looking at batting averages when I'm looking at Hornsby. He was top 5 in Slugging in 14 straight seasons, including 9 times leading the league in that time frame. It also wasn't just batting average driven slugging percentages, as he was 3rd from 1915-1940 in isolated power behind Gehrig and Ruth.

Now, looking at the Wins Above Replacement numbers I linked to above, Hornsby comes out great in career totals, but was also up there in WAR/Season. I'll have to re-calculate it, but I put everyone on this list's WAR totals into excel and Hornsby was top 2 I think -- Jackie Robinson had the highest WAR/season, but he retired early/missed a lot of time due to the color barrier and rightfully or wrongly, I don't feel comfortable giving him the best 2B of all time due to his shortened career. I think it's a combination of longevity and peak seasons, which Hornsby had both of. I don't really see an argument against him.

Edit: a couple graphs. Data is taken from baseballprojection.com:

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6017/2ndbasewar.png

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/5894/2ndbasecareerwar.png

No matter what way it gets sliced, Biggio is clearly on the 2nd tier and that makes him middle-of-the-pack at best on this. The real underrated 2B is Eddie Collins.

[shit stroll]

bret boone.

[Chris M.]

yes, but he was doing that as a second baseman. there's never been a second baseman to put up those power numbers and avg/ops regardless of era. less teams=more talent/team which cancels out the other questions in that era in my opinion.

Second base was actually seen as more of a power hitters position back in Hornsby day. The good fielders often moved to third which would explain why Hornsby and his poor defense remained at second.

[Jeremy Aaron]

Second base was actually seen as more of a power hitters position back in Hornsby day. The good fielders often moved to third which would explain why Hornsby and his poor defense remained at second.

This is true. It's funny how ass-backwards that seems now. A player with Hornsby's skills would probably play first base today.

[startBBtoday]

Second base was actually seen as more of a power hitters position back in Hornsby day. The good fielders often moved to third which would explain why Hornsby and his poor defense remained at second.

even if it was more of a power position, he's still the only one who's ever put up numbers like that. lajoie and collins are probably the closest and it makes sense that they're from that era.

[TakeItToManHat]

Dumb. Eric Byrnes plays hard but I'm not picking him for best LF ever.
Yet he's done jack shit to be rememberd. Should have stayed in Oakland.

[bigmike]

Second base was actually seen as more of a power hitters position back in Hornsby day. The good fielders often moved to third which would explain why Hornsby and his poor defense remained at second.

This is true. It's funny how ass-backwards that seems now. A player with Hornsby's skills would probably play first base today.
The only measure's I've seen to estimate defensive quality have Hornsby as a positive defender (http://www.baseballprojection.com/war/h/hornr101.htm) at 2nd base. It's the TZ column which stands for TotalZone and uses play-by-play data to estimate defense. Over a couple year sample it's not that great, but his entire career comes out to being 51 plays above the average player (I'm not sure what that'd work out to in terms of runs back then), with it being bolstered by his early days but still being average the rest of his career.

Obviously, it's not the emphatic end-all, be-all, but it's the best we've got thus far besides shaky eye-witness reports and handed down tall tales on players from back then.

I'd kill to be able to go watch games from the early 1900's on a regular basis. That fascinates me to no end.

[Chris M.]

IIRC, Bill James said in one of his early Baseball Abstracts that Hornsby was a butcher in the field or something of that nature. I read it on sosh not too long back. That's where I gained the assumption he was a poor defender.

[bigmike]

IIRC, Bill James said in one of his early Baseball Abstracts that Hornsby was a butcher in the field or something of that nature. I read it on sosh not too long back. That's where I gained the assumption he was a poor defender.
Like I said, that TotalZone rating is speculation at best. Anything pre 1954 is hard to gauge, because that pre-dates what Retrosheet has had available.

[Jeremy Aaron]

Like I said, that TotalZone rating is speculation at best. Anything pre 1954 is hard to gauge, because that pre-dates what Retrosheet has had available.

I don't know what math goes into calculating that TZ, but it's suspect. His best season, according to that stat was 1917 (+15), a year in which he committed 52(!) errors. Using good old-fashioned fielding percentage, he was .965 for his career as a second baseman, a figure that trails all players listed in the poll except Lajoie (.963). None of the others were really close, and Sandberg was high at .989.

[Dirty Ernie]

I wouldn't go with "better than most of the options." I'd give Utley the nod over Kent, Doerr, Biggio, and Alomar, but Chase is right in the mix with Gehringer, Lajoie, Morgan and Carew. I think it's feasible that he'd only be 8th best on this list.

He is criminally underrated, though.


Glad I didn't say Chase first for fear of being called a homer, but I can agree with this statement. That being said a few more seasons with these numbers (and possibly rings) and he should rise that list pretty quickly.

[bigmike]

I don't know what math goes into calculating that TZ, but it's suspect. His best season, according to that stat was 1917 (+15), a year in which he committed 52(!) errors. Using good old-fashioned fielding percentage, he was .965 for his career as a second baseman, a figure that trails all players listed in the poll except Lajoie (.963). None of the others were really close, and Sandberg was high at .989.
Errors aren't a great measure for defensive value. How many of those errors are results of getting to baseballs that no other 2B of his time were getting to defensively? If a guy gets to more balls up the middle or something of that ilk, he's going to have more chances to make errors. Add in that in 1917, the defensive technology was bad (at best), the fields weren't taken care of, and baseballs were used until they were soft and black, it was a completely different game he was trying to defend. Also, keep in mind, pitchers pitched to contact and also threw substantially more innings, which meant late in the season they were more fatigued. This would, and this is probably an assumption on my part, lead to harder hit baseballs than other times through the season.

You should also keep in mind that in 1917, he was playing shortstop, not 2nd base.

Also, in 1917, the average fielding percentage (http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1917.shtml) for all teams was .964 in the NL.

Everything's got to be about context. The 52 errors look unreasonable now, because we're in a completely different era.

[ihavechappedlip]

What I like about Eddie Collins is that he did whatever he had to do to get on base. He is the all-time leader in Hits By Pitch. To me, he is the prototype for a lead-off hitter. Good average, good speed, and some willingness.

Biggio deserves props for bringing some of this into a newer era.