All players who played a single at bat at second base in either the Major Leagues or the Negro Leagues are eligible for inclusion in this round, with the exception of already inducted players. Rogers Hornsby and Jackie Robinson were voted into the Inner Circle. Rod Carew was voted in as a First Baseman. The intent of this thread is to elect ten additional Second Basemen to the SDMB Hall. Every elector should strive to include ten eligible players on their ballot.
RickJay probably takes a lot of time and consideration in putting together a sample ballot for voters. I don’t know nearly as much as he does, so I’m just giving you the first 40 JAWS leaders according to baseball-reference.com. Note that active players are included in this list: they are eligible for induction into our Hall.
Eddie Collins
Nap Lajoie
Joe Morgan
Charlie Gehringer
Bobby Grich
Frankie Frisch
Ryne Sandberg
Chase Utley
Robinson Cano
Lou Whitaker
Roberto Alomar
Craig Biggio
Joe Gordon
Willie Randolph
Ian Kinsler
Dustin Pedroia
Jeff Kent
Billy Herman
Bobby Doerr
Nellie Fox
Tony Lazzeri
Tony Phillips
Ben Zobrist
Chuck Knoblauch
Bid McPhee
Johnny Evers
Cupid Childs
Buddy Myer
Del Pratt
Larry Doyle
Eddie Stanky
Julio Franco
Red Schoendienst
Placido Polanco
Gil McDougald
Davey Lopes
Jim Gilliam
Bucky Harris (I’m including him on the ballot because he is in the real HOF, although as a manager, not as a player.)
Previous elections have taken a week or two. I hope and presume that RickJay will make that call. I’m just a guy speeding things along because he’s got nothing better to do this morning.
Eddie Collins
Nap Lajoie
Joe Morgan
Charlie Gehringer
Craig Biggio
Ryne Sandberg
Roberto Alomar
Lou Whitaker
Frankie Frisch
Robinson Cano
I’m an Astros fan, so of course I vote Biggio. I’ll note a couple factors that will knock him down a couple pegs in the raw “career value” WAR numbers:
1 - He spent a couple seasons in his mid-late career as an outfielder, not because he couldn’t field his position, but because the team had signed Jeff Kent. That probably cost him a win or two in theoretical value, even though what he did actually added value to his team in the real world.
2 - His last season was very bad and worth -2.1 WAR - he probably wouldn’t have stuck around if it weren’t for the 3,000 hits.
Joe Morgan (would rank him ahead of Hornsby)
Eddie Collins
Napoleon Lajoie
Roberto Alomar
Charlie Gehringer
Craig Biggio
Ryne Sandberg
Lou Whitaker
Robinson Cano
Joe Gordon
ETA: Based on timeline and trying to space guys out a bit more, I replaced Frisch with Cano. Cano has quietly piled up a HOF-worthy career and he’s still got years to go
This was a tough ballot, even with Hornsby, Carew and Robinson picked. I feel bad leaving off Utley and Grich, especially Utley, who has basically the same skillset Joe Gordon did. Honestly I am not sure that’s the right call, but it would seem weird to me to have half my ballot made up of guys in the last twenty years. Or maybe not?
I mean, honestly, the quality of play today is way higher than it used to me. If you swapped Joe Morgan and Rogers Hornsby, and convinced the people of the 1920s to let Morgan play, Hornsby would not hit .400 in 1975 but Morgan would eat the 1920s NL alive. That’s not entirely fair and you can’t just assume all the best baseball players were post-WWII, but you have to account for it. Also, there’s more ballplayers today. Thanks Squid!
Joe Morgan
Ryne Sandberg
Eddie Collins
Bobby Grich
Chase Utley
Nap Lajoie
Charlie Gehringer
Robinson Canó
Roberto Alomar
Lou Whitaker
Another competitive fight for the borderline there.
Joe Morgan is clearly the best after the core guys got in.
Guy I hated leaving off the most was Craig Biggio. He had one spectacular year in 1997 (no GIDPs…34 HBP…), but Whitaker had a lot more middle tier seasons, aged much more gracefully.
My man Dustin Pedroia would have been 12th, but his peak doesn’t quite compare to most of the others (most crucially his exact contemporary Canó), and he doesn’t yet have the career totals which would make him a lock. Vote again in 3 years and ask me again.
Ian Kinsler was 13th, for pretty much the same reasons.
Frankie Frisch got timelined-he is clearly inferior to exact contemporary Gehringer.
Utley will probably get underrated here, but his D was top notch. Likewise with Bobby Grich.
I give war time credit to players like Joe Gordon, but he wasn’t any better than Frisch.
Rogers Hornsby
Joe Morgan
Ryne Sandberg
Roberto Alomar
Craig Biggio
Nellie Fox
Jeff Kent
Bobby Doerr
Nap Lajoie
Eddie Collins
Significant omission from the OP’s list - Bill Mazeroski. I didn’t vote for him, but I hope he doesn’t get overlooked by those who would simply because he’s not in the list.
Nap Lajoie
Joe Morgan
Eddie Collins
Charlie Gehringer
Roberto Alomar
Craig Biggio
Lou Whitaker
Frankie Frisch
Red Schoendienst
Ryne Sandberg
This list was tough. Half of the guys I included on this list are guys that I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were included in the Inner Circle. The other half feel… less deserving. Sandberg and Schoendienst are two opposite ends of the spectrum; incredibly incomplete players who were so damn good with either bat or glove to make a case for themselves by that alone, but were mediocre at best with the other.
BlankSlate also voted for players who are already in from another ballot in Robinson and Carew. He should add another couple players if he likes. I’m betting we get a few Rod Carew votes here; I know I didn’t vote for him in the first basemen ballot because I think of him more as a second baseman (also, there were a lot more interesting candidates from first.)
Sandberg was probably one of the most complete players on this ballot. Not sure if this is an indirect dig against Ryno’s defense (he of the 9 Gold Gloves, and Total Zone considers him the 18th best defender of all time).
The 5 main baseball skills have of course to be batting for average, batting for power, strike zone judgement, defense, and baserunning. In which area do you think that Ryno was “incredibly incomplete”? His weakest area would probably be taking a walk. Utley gives him some competition-Alomar’s defensive rep is much better than what he stats say…everyone else was lacking in at least one of those 5 areas.
As noted, you have voted for two players, Jackie Robinson and Rod Carew, already elected in previous ballots. Please indicate two players who you’d like to replace them.
It was intended to be a direct dig at Sandberg’s defense. Certainly Schoendienst wasn’t a bat to be remembered.
I’ve always remembered and interpreted Sandberg’s defensive stats in much the same way that I did Derek Jeter or Torii Hunter: he grabbed the balls that came near him and made a lot highlights doing so. But he didn’t have the range that you expect out of a second baseman, and was notorious for not being able to relay into a double play. You don’t get an error for either of those things, but (especially when your pitching was as bad as some of those late 80’s Cubs teams) it doesn’t help my personal perception of your defensive stats. I’d call Jeter and Hunter subpar defensive players, too, despite the 15-odd Gold Gloves they had between them.
Comparing him to Alomar is pretty reasonable: both guys with great offensive chops and defensive reputations that I find suspect. Sandberg’s career average was a pretty workaday (for a HOF candidate) .285, and his OBP was only a .344, so, yeah, he couldn’t really take a walk. Alomar’s numbers were both better. Sandberg hit a lot more dingers, but Wrigley’s was a much friendlier place to hit home runs than CNE. 282 is a monster number for a second baseman, but I think I’d still rather have Alomar at the plate by a hair.
All this to say that I still think that Sandberg was still in the top 15 2B of all time. But a total package? Nah.
So far, I’ve tried to put at least some research and thought behind my votes. But I’m way too swamped now to spend an hour on baseball-reference, so here it is from the top of my head.
Joe Morgan
Ryne Sandberg
Nap Lajoie
Eddie Collins
Roberto Alomar
Robinson Cano
Lou Whitaker
Craig Biggio
Charlie Gehringer
Jeff Kent
That 10th spot took a minute to think about, but Kent edges out Pedroia. Both have one MVP award, but Kent was a better power hitter and probably hit for about the same average. Pedroia’s better defensively, and quite possibly when his career is finished he’ll surpass Kent in my estimation. Other than that, the first 9 were kind of no-brainers for me.
I don’t recall Sandberg being a bad defensive player at all, and certainly the statistics do not suggest he was a bad defensive player. Of course, I am not wholly convinced all defensive stats (especially prior to solid tracking of batted balls, and I don’t think it was very solid in Sandberg’s day) are yet to be trusted. Alomar’s, for instance, apopear to be obviously affected by some sort of contextual illusion specific to Toronto; the metrics says he was a fine second baseman in San Diego, bad in Toronto, and then magically was fine again in Baltimore. sothere are two possibilities; either Alomar, in the prime of his career, suddenly became a shitty fielder in Toronto for no obvious reason and completely unnoticed by all observers, and evidently in a way that did not hurt his team much, OR there is some illusion of context. I find Option 2 much more likely. (He was not, to my eyes, a truly brilliant fielder, though. Just pretty good.)
Sandberg’s defensive stats, though, do not suggest an obvious weakness. And I do not recall there being any talk at the time of him not being very good at it.
I continue to be kind of amazed at how deep the field at second base is, and I’m glad there’s already three guys cleared away.
Whatever the name of that enormous stadium you guys had before the Skydome was built. Canadian Something Expedition Stadium?
I don’t really see this field as particularly deep, particularly coming right after first base, and looking forward towards shortstop. So far, just from scanning the ballots, it looks like there’s going to be a lot less diversity here than the last position. I take that as a sign of a smaller field of really great candidates. There’s a lot of interesting arguments to be made about some of the more defensively minded players from mid-century versus, say, Jeff Kent, but I don’t think there’s more than 20 guys here that will get a vote.
I don’t really remember anything about Sandberg’s defense except this. At one point he had a record-setting errorless game streak going, but I remember the talk at the time was that it was more a matter of how far can the Cubs’ scorers push the envelope on what’s a “hit.”
Exhibition Stadium. Alomar would never have played there; Skydome was up and running in 1989, before he joined the team. It was so named because it literally sat in the middle of Exhibition Place.
It wasn’t especially big. Well, the field wasn’t. The stadium was; it was just an old football stadium. It sucked - it was the worst stadium in baseball in every respect except the downtownish location. It had the distinction of having some seats 800 feet from home plate, something no other stadium in the history of the major leagues could ever say.
Sandberg was probably one of the most complete players on this ballot. Not sure if this is an indirect dig against Ryno’s defense (he of the 9 Gold Gloves, and