So here they are. The three second basemen of my generation. Don’t come to me with your Bret Boones and your Carlos Baergas and your Robby Thompsons. These were the three guys. And before Chase Utley, Rickie Weeks and Howie Kendrick take over as the next generation, I thought it beneficial to see if each will be booking flights to Cooperstown five years after their respective retirements (Alomar is already three years into his).

So you’ve got two former Astros (Biggio and Kent), and an Astros killer (Alomar with a .304/.360/.473 line against Houston in 312 career PAs). Surely this has been done elsewhere, but I wanted a comprehensive comparison to each other (since none other in their time was their peer) and to those already in the Hall, whether known for their bat (Hornsby), for their glove (Mazeroski), or for their overall play (Sandberg).

First of all, a simple statistical comparison of the three. And, remember, Alomar retired in 2004:

Now, I have highlighted a few key stats I want to compare here when we look at these three and try to relate them to their second base peers already in the Hall of Fame.

HITS: Biggio will reach 3,000 hits this year and then most likely retire. Kent will end his career somewhere around 2,500 or so. Alomar finished with 2,724. Biggio has an outside chance of passing Rod Carew’s 3,053 hits which would place him third all-time amongst second basemen (assuming you don’t count Molitor as a second baseman). Alomar’s 2,724 put him seventh all-time when considering only second-sackers, and Kent’s 2,500 or so puts him about 10th, right around where Joe Morgan ranks. So all three will be in or on the edge of the top ten second basemen in hits throughout history.

EqA: We have discussed using Equivalent Average here before and using it as a tool to measure a player’s overall offensive worth, and how it is normalized across time, league, and ballpark so it is easier to compare players across decades. Remember, an EqA of .260 is considered exactly average. Here is a sampling of second basemen’s EqA who are in the Hall:
Rogers Hornsby .338
Eddie Collins .311
Joe Morgan .311
Nap Lajoie .310
Rod Carew .302
Ryne Sandberg .283
Bill Mazeroski .249

Not only do these three second basemen compare here most favorably to Ryne Sandberg and Rod Carew, but their stats are similar in many other categories as well (for example look at Biggio’s Similar Batters listing on Baseball Reference). The EqA scores of all three of these are too similar to determine a difference between the three.

FRAA or Fielding Runs Above Average: None of the three test subjects just jump out at you as great defenders when you look at FRAA (we’ll get into Alomar’s Gold Gloves later). In fact, Biggio jumps out as you as someone who, over his career, has accumulated -121 FRAA. Yikes! Let’s look at the numbers for the same sample group of Hall of Famers:
Mazeroski 271
Lajoie 184
Collins 101
Sandberg 92
Carew -10
Morgan -18
Hornsby -54

So they all fall under Sandberg in this category and severely trail Mazeroski, Lajoie and others. Let’s suffice it to say that these three will be getting in on their offensive merits, not their defense.

Grey Ink and Black Ink: These are both measured and popularized by Baseball Reference to compare Hall of Famers to those not yet in based solely on the numbers. Full descriptions of the two can be found here, but essentially, Grey Ink is how many times you were in the top ten in an offensive category, Black Ink (created by Bill James) is how many times a player led the league in certain categories. Here are the comparison for all three:

Grey Ink - Average HOF = 144
Biggio - 105
Kent - 71
Alomar - 95

Black Ink - Average HOF = 27
Biggio - 17
Kent - 0
Alomar - 3

This part raises an interesting question. All three of these guys, while putting up stellar numbers in their careers, are so far removed from where they need to be to compare to your average Hall of Famer, it seems as though they will never get there. Remember, this is by no means a be-all-end-all test, and while it does encompass all HOFers, it doesn’t go a good job comparing second basemen to each other.

But the question it raises brings up something I have been reading about lately. A while back, our good friend Bill James created fifteen questions that help establish whether or not a player should be included in the Hall of Fame. The answers to those questions help decide whether or not they would be worthy. One of the more important of those questions is

What impact did the player have on baseball history? Did he change the game in any way?

Ah, now here we go! Each of these three men have their claim to a certain amount of fame that no one else shares and that separates them from their peers and fellow legendary second basemen.

Biggio - Besides being one of three second basemen that will have 3,000 hits, he has set the record for most leadoff homeruns by a National Leaguer and has set the record for most times being hit by a pitch. Also, he is the only man to be named to an All Star team as a catcher and a second baseman.

Kent - Besides being the only one of these three to win an MVP, he holds the record for most homeruns by a second baseman in history. He also is the only second baseman to have 100 or more RBI in six consecutive seasons (1997-2002).

Alomar - Holds the record for Gold Gloves by a second baseman with 10. With 12 All Star game appearances, he trails only Rod Carew in that category for 2B (18), and, if we’re getting picky, Carew played nine of his when he was primarily a first baseman.

In my humble opinion, once all of their playing days are over, all three of these will gain entrance into the Hall of Fame. They were all too dominant for too long a time in too many categories to be denied. Alomar for his defense, Kent for his bat, and Biggio for his table-setting skills and cumulative numbers.

I don’t know what Weeks, Utley, Kendrick, or any other post-2004 second baseman is going to do for the next fifteen years, but we have all been so fortunate in the past fifteen years to witness the simultaneous careers of three incredible players. With only 18 current second basemen in the Hall, we have had the chance to see a collection of players at the same time that has not existed since Eddie Collins, Nap Lajoie, and Rogers Hornsby at the position almost 100 years ago.

If you haven’t had a chance to, catch them while you still can.