Ranking the Best Second Baseman in Mariners Team History

This is probably the oddest list so far and might end up being the oddest out of every position. Second base is filled with a mix of older players, guys who massively underperformed their expectations while on the Mariners, and players who have some… Questionable circumstances surrounding their play.

There are a couple of guys on here that, to be honest, I didn’t recognize. Maybe some older fans will, but Tony Bernazard (1.3 fWAR) and Jack Perconte (4.5 fWAR) were players that I had never heard of. The Bernazard one makes sense, as he only spent half a season in Seattle. Perconte was a slappy little hitter with two home runs and 60 steals in two seasons for the Mariners in the mid-80s.

Then there’s Nick Franklin, who actually tied with Bernazard for 9th overall in Mariners fWAR at second base. He had a great rookie year and then was never good again. The Mariners actually traded him away at the right time, something that they struggled to do most of the time with Jack Z at the helm.

When I was a kid, I loved Joey Cora (fWAR 3.9) for some reason. I don’t really remember why, but I do remember that drastically changing when he got traded to Cleveland and said he was happy to be in a place where they could win… or something along those lines.

Jose Lopez (5.6 fWAR) barely missed the list, but easily would’ve made it going off of Baseball-Reference stats. He had a few pretty good seasons for the Mariners, and was a surprising producer for being so young. He played in 57 and 54 games at the ages of 20 and 21, and then 151 games in his age-22 season, which was the year he made his lone all-star game.

So who beat out Lopez for the 5th spot? Let’s check out the top-5 second baseman in Mariners history.