Ranking the Seattle Mariners best three second basemen ever

No. 3 – Harold Reynolds

Harold Reynolds was the first really good and consistently good Mariners second baseman. Between 1987 and 1992 Reynolds rarely missed a game for Seattle. He appeared in two All-Star games and won three Gold Gloves.

He also led the majors in stolen bases with 60 in 1987, hit .300 in 1989, scored 100 runs in 1990, and led the majors with 11 triples in 1988. Reynolds was good in lots of different ways for Seattle.

Reynolds never had a negative defensive WAR with Seattle and had a defensive WAR of 2.6 alone in 1990. This means even if Reynolds had never stepped up to bat for Seattle he would still have won Seattle nearly three games just by playing in the field.

If Reynolds were a young player on the 2021 Mariners team, he would be a nearly perfect fit for what Seattle wants to do. Heck, Seattle might have made the playoffs in 2020 if Reynolds had been their second baseman.

Reynolds finished the last two years of his career away from Seattle but they will not be memorable. What will be for Mariners fans is his time as a Mariner and then for major league baseball fans as an analyst on ESPN for the last 3,564 years.

No. 2 – Robinson Cano

To be honest, I grappled with who should be the Mariners best second baseman ever between my second pick and first. There is no doubt that athletically speaking, Robinson Cano is the best. He has had a career of huge production and numbers that are worthy of the baseball Hall of Fame.

But the issues with Cano cannot go without mention either. Seattle signed Cano to a massive 10-year and $240 million contract in 2013. This was a mistake. There was no way that with the players around Cano that Seattle was going to contend while he was getting paid that much. Seattle didn’t make the playoffs during the time Cano was a Mariner.

Cano also was suspended for 80 games in 2018 after testing positive for a diuretic. (He has since been suspended for the entire 2021 season for testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug stanozolol.) So in the grand scheme of things, Cano was not worth the money Seattle paid him.

That said, compared to other historical Mariners second basemen, Cano put up very good numbers with 107 HRs and 411 RBIs in five years with the team. He batted .297 and made three All-Star teams. Cano also had an on-base percentage of .350 or better in three seasons.

No. 1 – Bret Boone

It’s a bit easy to overlook Bret Boone as a Mariners player. He played with the team during a time Seattle had great superstars like Edgar Martinez and Ichiro Suzuki.

Plus, Boone played 14 years in the majors and while half of them were in Seattle, that time was split up between the first two years of his career and then his return from 2001 through part of 2005.

But Boone also had the best years of his career in his second stint with Seattle. In 2001, Boone had 141 RBIs, the fourth highest in Mariners history. He won three Gold Gloves and was an All-Star twice. Boone was an All-Star in only one other year during his career. He also finished third in MVP voting in 2001.

2001 was a special season for Boone and the Mariners. Seattle won 116 games that year. Boone hit .331, had an on-base percentage of .372, and slugged .572 – all career-highs. He hit a career-high 37 home runs and a second-best career number of 37 doubles.

Between 2001 and 2003, Boone had 107 RBIs or more each season. And Boone is still the Mariners all-time leader among second basemen in home runs (142), RBIs (531) and slugging percentage (.479). This is why he is the Mariners best second baseman in franchise history.