Second basemen leading in XBH
Posted by Andy on July 4, 2007
During today's Yankee radio broadcast, John Sterling mentioned that Dan Uggla is leading all of MLB in extra base hits currently. It got me wondering how often a second baseman ends up leading his league in that category.
First, using the PI Batting Season Finder, top XBH performances in the last 30 years by a player playing at least 60% of his games at second base:
Cnt Player XB Year Age Tm
+----+-----------------+---+----+---+---+
1 Alfonso Soriano 92 2002 26 NYY
2 Alfonso Soriano 81 2005 29 TEX
3 Jeff Kent 81 2002 34 SFG
4 Jeff Kent 81 2000 32 SFG
5 Juan Samuel 80 1987 26 PHI
6 Alfonso Soriano 79 2003 27 NYY
7 Bret Boone 77 2001 32 SEA
8 Jeff Kent 77 2001 33 SFG
9 Jose Vidro 77 2000 25 MON
10 Chase Utley 76 2006 27 PHI
11 Jay Bell 76 1999 33 ARI
12 Bret Boone 75 2003 34 SEA
13 Ryne Sandberg 74 1984 24 CHC
14 Chase Utley 73 2005 26 PHI
15 Craig Biggio 73 1998 32 HOU
16 Ryne Sandberg 73 1990 30 CHC
17 Marcus Giles 72 2003 25 ATL
18 Ray Durham 72 2001 29 CHW
19 Craig Biggio 72 1999 33 HOU
20 Jeff Kent 71 1998 30 SFG
21 Brian Roberts 70 2005 27 BAL
22 Juan Samuel 70 1984 23 PHI
Nobody from 1977 to 1983 even made the list. Kudos to Juan Samuel for clearing 70 XBHs twice. He was helped a lot by triples, including 19 in 1984 and 15 in 1987.
But in the last 30 years, how many times did these 2Bs lead their league?
For that we need to check B-R's leaderboards. Not counting Uggla's performance so far this year, it's been done X times:
Jeff Kent and Alfonso Soriano both led their leagues in 2005, and Soriano did it in 2002 as well. (Soriano also led last year, but no longer playing 2B.) Juan Samuel led with his 1987 total. The previous player in the NL to do it was Rogers Hornby, who tied for the lead with Chuck Klein in 1929. In the AL I couldn't find anybody since Nap Lajoie in 1904.