Slugging Second Basemen: Rogers Hornsby and a Bunch of Guys Named Joe

A Chase Utley-inspired look at heavy hitting 2Bs.

Through 39 games, Chase Utley has hit 13 home runs, tied for the league lead in home runs with Houston’s Lance Berkman. If he can maintain his spot atop the leaderboard for the remaining ¾ of the season, Utley will become the first second baseman to lead his league in home runs since Ryne Sandberg in 1990. Sandberg hit 40 that year, becoming only the third second baseman ever to reach that plateau. He also stole 25 bases, had an OPS of .913 and won his eighth consecutive gold glove, yet failed to receive a single first place MVP vote; a 25-year-old Barry Bonds upped him with 33 homers, 52 steals and a .971 OPS, and took every first place vote save one. Luckily for Ryno, this article will compare his 1990 season only with those of other second basemen. On the other hand, we’ll open the discussion up to the entire modern era.

As mentioned before, Sandberg in 1990 was the third second baseman to hit 40 home runs in a season. The other two were Rogers Hornsby, with 42 homers in 1922, and Davey Johnson, with 43 in 1973. Johnson’s monster season in 1973 was a bit of an anomaly in the context of his entire career: in 11 full seasons, he only hit 10+ home runs four other times, and never more than 18. Here is a look at all 21 seasons by second basemen with 30+ home runs (from the Play Index at www.baseball-reference.com).

Utley already has one appearance on this list, in 2006, and came close with 28 in 2005. There are six players with more than one season listed: Hornsby, Alfonso Soriano and Jeff Kent, each with 3, and Joe Gordon, Sandberg and Bret Boone, with 2 apiece. Note that 12 of the 21 seasons are have come since 1998, while between 1930 and 1990 it happened just 6 times.

A glance at the slugging percentages reveals some serious disparities among these different seasons. Hornsby and Soriano both have 39 homer seasons, but Hornsby did it, in 1925, with a .756 slugging mark, while Soriano was a full 200 points lower in 2002, at .547. Here is the list of the 20 top slugging seasons by (qualified) second basemen since 1920. The asterisks on the home run totals show who made the last list.

How about that Hornsby guy? He takes up 8 of the top 10 spots, and is the only second baseman to ever record a slugging percentage above .600, not to mention .700. That, of course, makes him the only second baseman to average a slugging percentage of .637 over an entire decade—2 ^nd only to Babe Ruth (.740… they don’t call him Babe Ruth for nothing) from 1920-29. Potentially relevant is the fact that in those same 10 seasons, he batted over .360 nine times, and over .400 three times. In 1922, he had 42 home runs, 46 doubles and 14 triples for a total of 102 extra-base hits, by far the most ever at the position. In 1920, he hit only 9 home runs, yet slugged .559 on the strength of 44 doubles and a career-high 20 triples. You knew Hornsby was great, but did you know he was great like that?

Where does Utley fit into this picture? Projecting his current numbers to 162 games, he is on pace for 54 home runs, 49 doubles and 4 triples, and a slugging percentage of .680. Those totals would be enough to break the records for home runs and extra-base hits, and would place him fourth on the slugging list above. Phillies fans would certainly be glad to get 162 games of that type of production—the question is whether he can keep it up.

An interesting side-note: at the moment, Utley is tied for the league lead in homers with Lance Berkman, a switch hitter. If, by chance, Berkman were to end up leading the league, he would become the first switch hitter to do so since Howard Johnson in 1991. Before that, there was Eddie Murray in 1981, and before that, you have to go all the way back to Mickey Mantle in 1960. So which is more rare to see atop the home run leaderboard, a second baseman or a switch-hitter? Since 1920, just four switch-hitters have done it—the three just named (four times for Mantle), and Ripper Collins in a tie in 1934. Among second basemen, on the other hand, the only leader besides Sandberg is Bobby Grich. Grich hit 22 homers in 1981, placing him in a four-way first-place tie with Tony Armas, Dwight Evans and Eddie Murray.