Here are the Minnesota Twins top 10 second basemen based of the WAR numbers from Baseball-Reference. To qualify a player must have played at least 51% of his games at second base. The results to I’m sure no ones surprise, is that Rod Carew comes out on top. The Twins current second baseman Brian Dozier comes in third.
| Rk | Player | WAR/pos | From | To | G | AB | R | H | HR | RBI | SB | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rod Carew | 63.7 | 1967 | 1978 | 1635 | 6235 | 950 | 2085 | 74 | 733 | 271 | .334 | .841 |
| 2 | Chuck Knoblauch | 37.9 | 1991 | 1997 | 1013 | 3939 | 713 | 1197 | 43 | 391 | 276 | .304 | .807 |
| 3 | Brian Dozier | 18.4 | 2012 | 2016 | 699 | 2715 | 422 | 668 | 117 | 346 | 74 | .246 | .762 |
| 4 | Tim Teufel | 5.5 | 1983 | 1985 | 316 | 1080 | 145 | 286 | 27 | 117 | 5 | .265 | .751 |
| 5 | Rob Wilfong | 5.3 | 1977 | 1982 | 554 | 1591 | 210 | 417 | 22 | 152 | 41 | .262 | .681 |
| 6 | Steve Lombardozzi | 4.0 | 1985 | 1988 | 423 | 1226 | 148 | 286 | 19 | 104 | 13 | .233 | .652 |
| 7 | Bob Randall | 3.8 | 1976 | 1980 | 460 | 1325 | 154 | 341 | 1 | 91 | 11 | .257 | .621 |
| 8 | Luis Castillo | 3.7 | 2006 | 2007 | 227 | 933 | 138 | 279 | 3 | 67 | 34 | .299 | .720 |
| 9 | Alexi Casilla | 3.5 | 2006 | 2012 | 515 | 1580 | 210 | 395 | 11 | 147 | 71 | .250 | .639 |
| 10 | Bernie Allen | 3.2 | 1962 | 1966 | 492 | 1595 | 195 | 392 | 32 | 163 | 3 | .246 | .682 |
If you looked at the entire American League during this same time period (1961-current) the top three second basemen are Lou Whitaker at 74.9, Bobby Grich at 70.9, and at 62.4 the still active Robinson Cano. Carew did not make this list because he didn’t play second base most of his career. Yet, neither Whitaker nor Grich are in the Hall of Fame. Hmmm!
What a weak list for the Twins! I do think Whitaker and Grich should be in the HOF, but there is not much support for 2B which is really hard to understand.
How do they rank fielding?
These ranking are based strictly on B-R WAR rankings.