All-Time All-Mariner Roster: Second Base
Derek:
Bret Boone, 2001. There’s no doubt this is it. Stellar defense, and by far, the best offensive season by a Mariner second baseman. This is one of the ten best seasons at the plate by a Mariner ever, and — well, unfortunately for him, many of the higher spots are occupied by young Griffey and Alex seasons, so the good defense doesn’t help him climb the ladder much on the all-time all-season chart.
So with no interesting discussion here, assuming fans want to discard Boone’s years for whatever reason, should we talk about whether the best non-Boone season was Li’l Joey Cora 1997, Jack Perconte 1984, or Harold Reynolds 1989? The Cora-Reynolds axis of power dominates the second-tier of Mariner 2B-seasons.
Dave:
Yep, there’s no argument to be had here. Bret Boone’s 2001 season is one of the great second base seasons of all time, and there’s not another Mariner second base season within 300 yards of that performance. This is just a slam dunk – ‘01 Boone had the best second baseman season in M’s history.
So, in lieu of talking about his 2001 season anymore, I’m going to diverge and talk about the 2001 performance that got the least amount of notice for the most amount of value, and because Jr is going to dominate the CF discussion, we won’t get to talk about him again in this series. In 2001, Mike Cameron was unbelievably awesome, and simply overshadowed by some historic performances from his teammates, but we can’t miss out on just how great he was that year. His .267/.353/.480 mark in that run environment was worth about 20 runs more than an average hitter. Meanwhile, he was the best defensive player alive, putting up a season where his glove alone was worth about 20 runs more than an average defensive center fielder. When you factor in the position adjustment, Cameron was legitimately a 5 win player in 2001 – that’s a borderline MVP candidate in most years.
Now, obviously, with Boone and Edgar and Olerud putting up the offensive numbers, a guy who was remarkably valuable while hitting .267 simply wasn’t going to attract the attention of the fan base, but in 2001, Mike Cameron had more value to the Mariners than Ichiro has had in any single season since he’s been a Mariner. Cameron was the most valuable outfielder on that 2001 team, and as good as Ichiro was in 2004, ‘01 Cameron was better still.
When the best defensive player alive is also two wins better than a league average hitter, you have a remarkably valuable player, and that’s exactly what Mike Cameron was in 2001.
Bret Boone gets the nod here for having one of the best seasons ever at his position, but let’s not miss out on how good the guy playing the outfield behind him was.
Derek:
No skipping ahead! Not to digress too far, but yes– one of the things that we used to have to harp on all the time was that the 2001 Mariners didn’t have a star — they had so many it was hard to pick them out. In the top thirty or so offensive years you got Boone, here, Edgar, Ichiro, Cameron, and Olerud, and four of those guys were really good defenders at their positions. That’s crazy.
Anyway, back to Boone. His 2003 is a fair distance back, and then the gap between him and Cora 97/Peconte 84 is so huge I didn’t believe it until I looked it up. Boone 01 to Cora 97 is the gap between Cora 97 and Harold Reynolds 86, when he hit .222/.275/.290 — the worst Mariner 2B season ever (offensively)(though Lopez 07 is close). Offensively, this is one of the top ten seasons by any Mariner ever, and this is a team that had Ken Griffey Jr, Alex Rodriguez, and Edgar Martinez in the prime of their hitting careers.
.331/.372/.578 from a quality defensive second baseman. What’s there to argue about? I guess you could say that his 5 SB against 5 CS brings him down a little compared to the 16-3 2003 version, but that still doesn’t close the gap.
So yeah. Boone’s 2001 is the best season by a Mariner second baseman ever.
Comments
92 Responses to “All-Time All-Mariner Roster: Second Base”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
USSM uses and recommends
Easiest one to grade. When I talk to my friends that aren’t Ms fans and try to tell them that Boonie’s 2001 was one of the best from a 2B in the HISTORY of the game, they look at me like I’m on crack.
And that year was by far the most fun to watch…the bat flip is on of my favorite things ever…the blond frosting in the hair…
Aahhhhhh, I miss 2001…
What, no consideration of Julio Cruz? Sure he couldn’t hit for power, or for average, or, well anything. But he was the Cruzer! You all are just a bunch of haterz!
I’m just amused Dave managed to get both a football metaphor and a basketball metaphor into successive sentences describing a season by a baseball player. And then immediately wandering off into a discussion of a guy who never played the position under discussion. If this was intended to be a sly parody of the M’s broadcasting teams (or perhaps the Buck/McCarver/Morgan “anything but the game we’re actually at” shtick), good job!
Boone ‘01 was such a tremendous year. Actually, great year for Robbie Alomar, too. Unbelievable to get such production from 2B, with that kind of defense.
Julio Cruz was a genuinely superb base stealer. I loved watching him. Not a lot more to say about him, though.
Mike Cameron’s still my favorite player. Discarding him really was the beginning of the ruination of the Mariners. Sigh.
ah, Cammie.
you know, the whole Boone saga is pretty amazing.
“Aaron Boone became the fourth member of his family to get 1,000 hits in the majors, joining grandfather Ray (1,260), father Bob (1,838) and brother Bret (1,775) in the achievement. Boone became the 1,171st player in major league history to get at least 1,000 career hits.”
I’m just happy Jack Perconte got a mention. He was damn good (for one year), and constantly overlooked.
Harold Reynolds I never liked, mostly because of his TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE basestealing — he’d steal 60, but get caught 40 — a large net negative. Boom, out at second. Boom, out at second. A huge, huge rally killer.
It’s sad how people didn’t really appreciate Cammie as much as they should because of all the strikeouts. The guy put up good offensive numbers alone, but his defense was awe-inspiring to behold.
Boonie was pretty good, too.
Yeah, kinda sad how defense is neglected. Above average offense + historic defense = good to great ballplayer.
I was expecting this discussion to be one line:
Boone, 2001. No argument.
Yeah, just about.
BTW, a request:
Is it possible to link back to previous discussions on this topic in each post? Or have a list on the sidebar somewhere? Just so there’s one easy reference for the entire discussion.
Can we talk about Boone’s defense? Derek posits early on that Boone played stellar defense. I watched him that season, and am more than willing to believe it. (I had season tickets that year, and the whole ‘01 M’s team played phenomenal defense.)
What objective metrics do or don’t support that conclusion?
Tony Bernazard might have taken second place if he had played a full season for the M’s. Flipping Julio Cruz for him was a great move, but flipping Bernazard for the last few ounces of Gorman Thomas’s career was terrible.
It is amazing how good that 2001 team was defensively. According to BP, they led the majors in the category by a huge margin (.735 to Oakland’s .721). The only other team since 1995 even top .730 was Cincinnati in 1999 (.731).
Of course, you know what the 1999 Reds and 2001 Mariners had in common.
For comparison, the 2008 M’s are 29th in the majors with a .683.
@9 — scratch “good to”. Cammie 2001 was 100% great.
“The category” being defensive efficiency! Oops.
Yeah, that outfield was all-time great defensively. I can’t think of another one in modern baseball that was as good with the glove.
@b_rider, #14:
Both teams didn’t have Ken Griffey, Jr. in the outfield?
What happened to Tony Bernazard, anyway? He had two good seasons with Cleveland, then a mediocre season at the age of 30 with Cleveland and Oakland, and even then he ended the season okay, posting a 102 OPS+ in the 61 games with Oakland. And that was it; out of the major leagues, except for six games with Detroit four years later. Did he go to Japan or something?
Not that I disagree, but would the Oakland outfield c.1981 (Henderson-Dw Murphy-Armas) be a contender?
Bernazard spent 3 years in Japan. Scroll to bottom of this link to see his stats…
http://www.japanbaseballdaily.com/foreignbattingAbad-Bernazard.html
Hm. Think I will.
The Angels 2002 outfield defense was absurd as well. That was Erstad in his prime, putting up a +30 season as a CF, with Anderson and Salmon flanking him when they could both still run.
OT — [deleted, ot]
Wasn’t the 2003 M’s outfield quite good as well?
Re Cammy, his defense in ‘01 was not good enough to close the gap on Jr’s best hitting seasons?
You’ll have to wait for the centerfield post.
And two years later they’d moved Erstad to first base.
That 2002 Angels team, and the 2005 White Sox team, were amazing defensive teams, yet somehow anything at all except their defensive prowess got the media credit for how good those teams were.
Thanks for the Bernazard link, trtlrock!
As much as I would like to find fault with your reasoning around the steller years of Boone, I can’t. The reason for that desire is the quiet competence of Harold Reynolds. Even though he had several fairly good years at the plate (.300,.359,.383 in 1989) it doesn’t measure up to the juiced up power years of Boone. I really hope Canseco was wrong to accuse Boone, but it does raise a question. I admit to a bias towards Reynolds because of who he was off the field as well as on. I lived in Seattle for 5 years and for three of them Harold was steller. The humanitarian awards like the “1,000 Points of Light” were icing on the cake. He wasn’t brash or arrogant or boastful but exuded character. It counts for nothing in satistical analysis, but alot in life. I will hold to Harold and Alvin Davis as hero’s, beyond the measuring stick that must drive your endeavor. I applaud your analysis and insight but will rertain my adulation none the less. They provided, for a few short years in the futility of being a Mariner fan, a reason to be proud.
Sorry to keep talking about CF, but if eyes are anything to go by (and I know they aren’t, but still) the best I ever saw were Dwayne Murphy and Gary Pettis.
I never liked Tony Bernazard that much, but I was young and stupid then. (See, kids? There’s hope for you yet! If you eat right and keep your mind active, you can grow up to be like me: old and stupid).
Um, as much as I appreciate the sentiment there, steroid accusations aren’t welcome here — see the comment guidelines for more.
I feared this would come up, of course, and was really hoping we could avoid turning a Boone-containing conversation into a PED flamefest.
Really shouldn’t accuse Boonie of ‘roids…
longbeachglenn – Reynolds and Dave Valle held a teaching workshop for Little League coaches with back in the late 80’s that my dad was able to go to. He still comments about how genuinely nice they both were. He also is amazed at how much progress Reynolds made in his public speaking ability from that workshop to his days at ESPN.
I apologize for straying into that field I wasn’t aware of the boundries.
You might want to read that “Comment guidelines” link up on the top of the page.
I just did and realize the validity of your concern.
I’m sure you’re separating the outfield into RF, LF, CF, but can’t we just go with the three best outfielders?
Or would that just put Griffey in all three?
And yeah, Boone was good in 2001.
I do assert that we should use more than numbers in valueing a player.
The second base argument was by far the most obvious on who’s the best.
I am looking forward to the rest of the series.
Well (Derek, please tell me to shut up if you think I’m overstepping) it’s not so much that it might not apply to certain players; it’s just that nothing productive comes of those conversations, ever.
We’re all aware of who the players are that there might be a question about, and we can all silently factor that into our assessment of them; but discussing it in comment threads has always led to utter trainwrecks in the past.
We’re not valuing players, though. We’re picking the best season at each position in Mariner history.
Boonie had the numbers, the swagger, the bat-flip, the pretty boy hair with a non-pretty boy attitude…
He had it all for a couple years.
Best 2B in franchise history and one of my all time favorites…
Asst GM to the Mets, rumored to be next in line if Minaya gets dumped, and subject of many a NY rumor about his volatile relationship with Willie Randolph
Trainwrecks is an understatement.
I think we’ve had maybe two reasonable steroid-related comment threads ever, and one of them was entirely specific to one player’s positive test.
I stand corrected and again apoligize for causing the discusion to stray out of the boundries. My comment was intended to assert that that contribution to second base was more than Batting Average, On Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage. If, however that was the sole measuring stick, you are right to condemn my attempt at an alternate perspective.
That one will have to be done next before sanity strikes the organization and they put Ichiro back in center. A Griffey v. Ichiro matchup would be interesting to see argued by you two.
No one’s arguing that stats alone measure a player-season.
No one’s condemning your attempt at an alternate perspective.
Steroids accusations are bad, for reasons we’ve discussed.
We’re talking player-seasons, not players, as we’ve discussed.
That’s all.
Part of my objection to Boone was
the swagger, the bat-flip, the pretty boy hair with a non-pretty boy attitude…
longbeach,
Factoring in defense makes the case for Boone even stronger, he was very very good on D as well.
Sure for off the field community relations, bringing quality play to a team that hadn’t really seen much of it before and so on Reynolds and Davis easily stand out. But that isn’t the question, the question is who had the best season as a Mariner 2bman
I have moved beyond my inappropriate comment. I hope you can. I am talking about positive contribution to the player-season.
Oh now I see, your arguing who was the best sportsman and should be the most popular 2bman.
Again that isn’t the question.
I don’t think that Harold Reynolds three glove seasons at second base are vastly exceeded by Boone.
sorry… gold glove
Our tools to evaluate defense are still rudimentary, but they’re still better than counting Gold Gloves.
You might want to consider reading this link from the sidebar; Evaluating Defense.
It’s long, but well worth the read.
What does Boone’s hair, swagger and bat flip have to do with contribution to his season?
Does a HR count less if he flipped his bat?
Your not talking about his performance, your talking about your opinion of him as a person.
The 1989 Mariners with Vizquel and Reynolds up the middle was pretty special
I liked Reynolds, and disliked Boone, but there’s just no way that whatever defensive advantage Reynolds might have had can even come close to the batting advantage Boone had.
If you want to make a case, choose a specific Reynolds season.
Longbeach,
Even if Reynolds was better on D than Boone (which is arguable) my point was Boone’s D was very good as well so the difference was slight at best, I don’t think the best Defensive season by a 2Bman in history would offset Boone’s bat in ‘01.
You like Reynolds better as a person, nothing wrong with that, I do as well, if I had a kid I’d want him to model himself after Reynolds and be way happier seeing his poster up on the wall.
eric
I was quoting an earlier writer on those specific characteristics they admired. I, unfortunately haven’t ever used the quote system and was unable to use that part of the system. I am a fan of the home run. I am not a fan of arrogance. I think that character is an issue both on the field and off, but clearly I am off base in the assesment of most.
Scraps
Boone had clearly supirior offense season(s). I was trying to inject a little Reynolds into the discussion.
If character on the field affects perfromance that will show up in the stats. If being a jerk somehow costs a guy 20 points of OPS we have already factored that into things when we look at his OPS since his OPS reflects what he actually did on the field.
If you want to argue that a guys attitude affects the rest of the team and causes their poerformance to go down, then again we have the stats of their actual performace to measure. Given that most of the guys on the ‘01 team had their best seasons it is hard to see how Boone’s attitude was pulling the team down.
point taken
I will stick with Harold as an an appropriate fella for a poster
I had such a love/hate relationship with Boone. It drove me nuts watching him try to pull the ball all the time when he such beautiful power to the opposite field. We would be sitting here talking about Boone’s amazing 2002 campaign if he hadn’t spend the first half of the season grounding out to the left side of the infield trying to jack everything over the left field fence.
There is no other Mariner I have cussed at more than Bret Boone. I never cuss at crummy guys because what’s the point and never cuss at the great pleyers because generally they’re utilizing their strengths efficiently, but Bret Boone…oh Boonie…he never heard the end of it from me. He had such talent, but kept forgetting what a great opposite field hitter he was and that drove me insane. “The other way you %$#%$ moron! You’re not @#$%@ Barry Bonds! Stop trying to pull everything! Arrrggg!”
I never had more fun watching a second baseman play though. When he’d do that whole chase-the-ground-ball-into-right-field-turn-flip thing I’d almost cry from joy. (Now that’s range we can believe in!)
Blink 180-Boone RIP
I really liked watching Boone play in his prime; he just tried to hang onto his career for far, far too long.
But that 2001 season was a monster, and I agree with Dave and Derek that there just isn’t any other Mariner second baseman season that comes close. I wonder where it’d rank among all-time seasons at the position.
you combine Old Player Skills with alcohol abuse and things just shoot off the proverbial cliff
Bad msb! Bad!
And now I see why I was appropriately chastised earlier. I have learned my lesson believe me.
oh, I think he’d be the first to admit it, now. I’m just glad he realized it was a problem, and did something about it.
Clearly, Boone had the best season ever as a Mariner 2nd baseman.
But, in the arguement of Boone vs. Reynolds for defense, all numbers being equal (as somewhat arguable as they are) you have to remeber that Harold did it on a very fast surface, and Boone did it on a grass field. Boone had a much easier job half the season playing 2nd than Reynolds did.
Both of these guys where a ton of fun to watch though, and I would gladly replace Mike Blower’s current job with either of them.
The other factor on defence besides the Kingdome was that Reynolds played with larely imobile, defensivly liabile first baseman. Davis was incredibly slow.
ugh spelling … sorry
The other thing to remember about Boone in 2001 is that he was exactly the type of pickup that everyone here always pushes the M’s to make, and they rarely do (Guillen last year is another example): the cheap, short-term signing of a guy with a lot to prove. Sometimes they don’t work (Wilkerson), but when they do, they really can affect a team positively. Boone in 2001 made up for losing A-Rod’s power, essentially getting it from second base instead of shortstop, at, what, 1/8th the cost? Both Boone and Guillen had been criticized by teammates and management in the past, but were model citizens in Seattle.
The funny thing to compare is Boone 01 to Lopez’s 08. Not even close, yet J-lo has been a bright spot for the m’s this year. Oh how the standards have crumbled.
I don’t recall that Boone had any problems with his previous teams.
Didn’t he have issues with his coaches in San Diego?
Before he came here he had a mild reputation as a head case, a bit of a hothead and a lot of a flake, who had never really done much. I don’t think anyone saw his 2001 coming.
For some positions these debates won’t be interesting unless we talk about runners up and/or worst regular season player as well.
Are pitchers going to be starters 1-5 or just best starter, best reliever?
Might I speculate that SS, 2b, CF, DH are the easy choices. (I wanted to defend Harold Reynolds, but it would be in vein.)
1b, 3b, c, lf, rf, should all be interesting. I didn’t follow the M’s in the 80s, so I don’t know how good or bad those guys’ fielding was. Anywho, too much fun, I’ve been doing this kind of thing since 1990 (back when Ken Phelps was the easy choice for best DH)
Might I speculate that SS, 2b, CF, DH are the easy choices.
You can speculate but I think you’d be wrong. The player may be clear, but you have to pick a best season. And I think there’s more competition on player than you think, but we’re getting off topic.
Boone’s 2001 was awesome, even if it was a fluke. It’s a shame he didn’t get the MVP that year.
well, he was known as a second baseman who’d always hit better than expected (setting the NL record for 2B in ‘00) and, but for Biggio, would have been the multiple Gold Glove 2nd baseman of the NL. What year was it that the HOF requested his glove because he broke the defensive record at 2nd … and then Biggio (sitting somewhere below several other 2B) was again voted the GG?
all I remember about SD was the ongoing saga of his playing through his injured knee
Somehow I don’t think rf is going to be all that hard/interesting.
Boone’s problems started in a more subtle matter, but it got to a point where he would drink 12 to 15 beers after a game.
Yes, alcohol has killed more baseball players than steroids ever will. Still, Boone had nothing on Wade Boggs.
Hey, I thought we agreed to lay off the drug accusations!
Boone apparently had a tense relationship with Bobby Cox in Atlanta which blew up when he was benched in game two of the 1999 World Series.
[ot]
82- joe, I have to say that link to the Boggs article is one of the best things I have ever read. Funny stuff. Maybe the front office should start distirbuting Miller Lite in the club house cause Wade Boggs was damn good.
I remember a few years ago, it was almost a regular thing for a Boone sighting in Belltown or at the Muckleshoot Casino. He was always out partying. But, he still hit.
Something I haven’t seen mentioned yet, was Boone’s ‘new look’ stance in ‘01. Just where did he get that approach? By opening up after strike 2 he managed to reduce his liability as a free swinger by taking more pitches, and opening up the entire field. That entire lineup was great for working counts, I’ve always felt that contributed greatly to everybody’s success that year. Opposing pitchers so consistently go so deep in the game this year, I don’t think enough is made of that. Is there a metrics stat that takes into account the number of pitches a hitter sees per plate appearance? Walks sort addresses that, like a wobble in a star shows the gravitational effects of planets…
I’m hoping thats on topic, it started w/Boone then switched to Cammie, then started to slip and slide a bit.
But did he switch to an open stance?
I hear that fixes hitting problems right up.
on espn miscellaneous batting they have a stat for #P/PA.
Oddly at 3.69, 2001 was one of the lowest totals he’d ever put up.
wow, ot, but…
check out this player’s name
#90, thanks. Trying to pick up up the metric knowledge, thats a big help, so is the site ref. Those numbers are a surprise, expected that to be different. Now we’re trying to look up hitting stats in different counts to attempt a rescue of the validity of our assessment of Boone. The open stance not only cures batting problems, it’s makes a good hair tonic and removes gum.
Ah, the 2001 season…so long ago…
2000 was good. Then the offseason. It wasn’t until a single at-bat – I remember where I was, listening to the radio (Rizzs babbling on, and all) – that got me engaged as a fan in the 2001 season. It was Carlos Guillen in NY against the Yanks for the first meeting of the year. He worked the count. There was *hardball* all about that at-bat. And he won that battle, and the M’s one that series, and many, many more afterwards.
But Boonie was about the pure joy of the game. The audacity of that bat flip, the back flips that he seemed he could do on the field, the glory of the game. The final touch to a great season that got me totally back into baseball.
The Mariners. Back when my east coast friends spoke that same language about “your Seattle team” to me as they did about the fears they had about their own precious Yanks: are they great enough?