Constructing an MLB Hall of Fame Pyramid: The Second Base Candidates
Identifying the best second baseman for every season from 1900 through 2022
Over the next several months, I plan to reconstruct the MLB Hall of Fame from the ground up with some new wrinkles. First, the standards for a Hall of Famer will be raised. The doors will be locked for the “he was decent for a long time” stat compilers. Second, this means that the main criteria will be dominance. Borrowing from Bill James’ Keltner List, we are most interested in players that were regarded as the best player at their position for an extended stretch of time or who spent time in the conversation for best player in the league. Third, now borrowing from a Bill Simmons idea, we don’t simply want a list of players who are “Hall of Famers.” We need a way to differentiate between the borderline entrants and the true legends of the game. We need a pyramid!
In this first round of articles, we will be going position by position and identifying the best player at a position for every season from 1900 through 2022. This will give us an initial list of candidates for the MLB Hall of Fame Pyramid.
Catcher Candidates (Note: see here for further explanation of how we’re defining “best” player)
From 1900 through 1939, only five different players spent time as the best second baseman in major league baseball: Nap Lajoie (11 years), Eddie Collins (9 years), Rogers Hornsby (11 years), Charlie Gehringer (8 years) and Tony Lazzeri (1 year). If you remove the one random year by Lazzeri, that makes only four unique players in a span of 40 years. Joe Gordon was on his way to a decade of dominance immediately after Gehringer; however, WWII interrupted his baseball career for two years and then it took Gordon a year to dust off the cobwebs when he returned.
Following Joe Gordon’s run, Jackie Robinson dominated the position for a few years before second base became a bit of an offensive black hole from the late 1950s through the end of the 1960s. In that span, Nellie Fox has a six-year period as the best second baseman where several of those seasons he won by the simple fact that none of the other second basemen could hit. The 1961 season was the closest I’ve come to leaving a position vacant. This complete absence of offensive second basemen finally came to an end in the 1970s when Joe Morgan, along with Rod Carew and Bobby Grich, took command of the position.
Now, let’s take a look at who I have identified as the best player at the position in every year from 1900 through 2022.
Year-by-Year Ranking of the Best Second Baseman
1900-1910: Nap Lajoie
1911-1919: Eddie Collins
1920-1929: Rogers Hornsby
1930: Tony Lazzeri
1931: Rogers Hornsby
1932-1939: Charlie Gehringer
1940-1943: Joe Gordon
1944: Bobby Doerr
1945: Snuffy Stirnweiss
1946: Bobby Doerr
1947-1948: Joe Gordon
1949-1952: Jackie Robinson
1953-1954: Red Schoendienst
1955: Gil McDougald
1956-1961: Nellie Fox
1962-1963: Jim Gilliam
1964: Bill Mazeroski
1965: Don Buford
1966: Pete Rose
1967-1969: Dick McAuliffe
1970: Rod Carew
1971-1977: Joe Morgan
1978: Bill Madlock
1979: Davey Lopes
1980: Willie Randolph
1981-1983: Bobby Grich
1984-1985: Ryne Sandberg
1986: Bill Doran
1987: Willie Randolph
1988-1989: Lou Whitaker
1990-1992: Ryne Sandberg
1993: Roberto Alomar
1994-1995: Craig Biggio
1996: Chuck Knoblauch
1997-1999: Craig Biggio
2000: Jeff Kent
2001: Roberto Alomar
2002: Jeff Kent
2003: Bret Boone
2004: Mark Loretta
2005: Marcus Giles
2006-2010: Chase Utley
2011: Ben Zobrist
2012-2014: Robinson Canó
2015-2019: Jose Altuve
2020: DJ LeMahieu
2021: Marcus Semien
2022: Jose Altuve
Hall of Fame Second Basemen that Missed the List
*Note: JAWS (Jay Jaffe’s WAR Score system) is a measure of a player's Hall of Fame “worthiness” based on WAR. It equals the average of a player’s career WAR and their 7-year peak WAR. The above table lists a player’s JAWS ranking among all second basemen in baseball history.
This is our shortest list yet of Hall of Famers not captured in the season-by-season rankings.
Johnny Evers won an MVP and had a decade run of good-to-great seasons. His prime overlapped the careers of Nap Lajoie and Eddie Collins, which means he was never going to lead his position. It’s a close call, but let’s give Evers another chance (do you see what I did there?).
Frankie Frisch was elite from 1921-1927 and still quite good for the next several seasons. Frisch actually won his only MVP in 1931, well after his prime. If not for Rogers Hornsby, probably the greatest second baseman of all-time, topping the position for the entire 1920s, then Frisch would have easily made the annual listing. Unlike the borderline case of Evers, Frisch easily moves on.
Billy Herman was never an MVP and outside of a fantastic (short) stretch from 1935-1937, he was simply a solid starter. I’m still going to keep Herman around for two reasons. First, if Evers set the bar, then Herman exceeds that standard. Second, Herman had a late-career resurgence in his mid-30s that was interrupted by two years of military service in WWII. He played tremendously in 1943 and 1946. I’m willing to give Herman the benefit of the doubt that 1944 and 1945 would have been similarly strong.
Bid McPhee played entirely before 1900, which means we sadly must leave McPhee out.
Candidates for Consideration in HoF Pyramid
Johnny Evers, Frankie Frisch and Billy Herman
Second Basemen that Topped Their Position
*Players with an * by their JAWS ranking did not primarily play at 2B. The rankings shown for these players are what their JAWS rankings would be if ranked against second basemen.
As we know, at this stage, all of these guys will automatically qualify for the next round of consideration. Most won’t make it onto the Pyramid.
Some observations:
The top five guys based on JAWS are also the five guys with the longest time spent as the best second baseman. With 1B and C, at least one of the top 5 JAWS players missed the list entirely. This speaks to how little overlap the great second basemen had with each other’s careers, as discussed in the intro above.
There were 22 first basemen and 19 catchers that topped their position at least three times. In contrast, only 15 different second basemen led their position at least three times.
Since he won’t be making the Pyramid (spoiler alert!), Snuffy Stirnweiss deserves some recognition now. A young New York Yankee, his first two full seasons were in 1944 and 1945, which were years where many players missed due to military service. Snuffy absolutely dominated with his bat and glove in both seasons. His play earned him two top five MVP finishes. Snuffy received at least one first place MVP vote in both seasons and had a reasonable case to win in each year. What happened after these two magical seasons? Snuffy remained a valuable fielder for a few more seasons, but his bat completely disappeared. He never even managed a league-average offensive season again in his career. Snuffy shined briefly, but very brightly.
Chase Utley and Robinson Canó fare better than Jose Altuve based on JAWS, but Altuve led the position more times than his two contemporaries. Altuve can also hold his MVP award over them. It will be interesting to see how Hall of Fame voters treat these three as they eventually become eligible.
Rod Carew appeared three times on the 1B list. He was fortunate to show up even once on this list, making it in 1970 when the position was very weak. Less fortunately, Joe Morgan began his stretch of 2B dominance in 1971, which extinguished any chance Carew had.
The early 2000s were a weird time for second basemen. Exhibit A: Bret Boone, 2003. Exhibit B: Mark Loretta, 2004. Exhibit C: Marcus Giles, 2005. Those guys, who you either never heard of or haven’t thought about in a long time, topped the second base position as many times as Rod Carew! When we eventually start making cuts, those three will be eliminated quickly.
One player not listed above that I was surprised didn’t have at least one season as the best second baseman was Dustin Pedroia. His best chances were in 2008 and 2011, but Utley and Zobrist were the better choices. Outside of those two seasons, Pedroia didn’t do much to distinguish himself from the crowd.
Next up, the third base candidates!