Baseball Reference Blog

During today's Yankee radio broadcast, John Sterling mentioned that Dan Uggla is leading all of MLB in extra base hits currently. It got me wondering how often a second baseman ends up leading his league in that category.

First, using the PI Batting Season Finder, top XBH performances in the last 30 years by a player playing at least 60% of his games at second base:

  Cnt Player             XB Year Age Tm
+----+-----------------+---+----+---+---+
    1 Alfonso Soriano    92 2002  26 NYY
    2 Alfonso Soriano    81 2005  29 TEX
    3 Jeff Kent          81 2002  34 SFG
    4 Jeff Kent          81 2000  32 SFG
    5 Juan Samuel        80 1987  26 PHI
    6 Alfonso Soriano    79 2003  27 NYY
    7 Bret Boone         77 2001  32 SEA
    8 Jeff Kent          77 2001  33 SFG
    9 Jose Vidro         77 2000  25 MON
   10 Chase Utley        76 2006  27 PHI
   11 Jay Bell           76 1999  33 ARI
   12 Bret Boone         75 2003  34 SEA
   13 Ryne Sandberg      74 1984  24 CHC
   14 Chase Utley        73 2005  26 PHI
   15 Craig Biggio       73 1998  32 HOU
   16 Ryne Sandberg      73 1990  30 CHC
   17 Marcus Giles       72 2003  25 ATL
   18 Ray Durham         72 2001  29 CHW
   19 Craig Biggio       72 1999  33 HOU
   20 Jeff Kent          71 1998  30 SFG
   21 Brian Roberts      70 2005  27 BAL
   22 Juan Samuel        70 1984  23 PHI 

Nobody from 1977 to 1983 even made the list. Kudos to Juan Samuel for clearing 70 XBHs twice. He was helped a lot by triples, including 19 in 1984 and 15 in 1987.

But in the last 30 years, how many times did these 2Bs lead their league?

For that we need to check B-R's leaderboards. Not counting Uggla's performance so far this year, it's been done X times:

Jeff Kent and Alfonso Soriano both led their leagues in 2005, and Soriano did it in 2002 as well. (Soriano also led last year, but no longer playing 2B.) Juan Samuel led with his 1987 total. The previous player in the NL to do it was Rogers Hornby, who tied for the lead with Chuck Klein in 1929. In the AL I couldn't find anybody since Nap Lajoie in 1904.

Related posts:

Dan Uggla and good offensive second basemen

Infielders with 25+ HR

Walkless Streaks

Cub Hitting 3 Homers Off Of Brave

Jeff Kent