clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Dodgers of the Decade: Second Base

Chase Utley, Mark Ellis and Kiké Hernández are among the seven players vying for this honor

MLB: San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

Today, we look at second base as we continue our series on the Dodgers of the Decade team. Each article will contain a poll where True Blue LA readers will get to vote for their choice.

Adrián González is the first baseman for 2010-2019 Dodgers. González won the poll with 61% (582 votes) and Cody Bellinger was second with 34% (326 votes).

As a reminder, the qualifications to make this ballot for a position player is a minimum 100 games played at that position. And this week, that minimum created the largest number of players so far in this series.

Many Dodgers played second in the past decade. Jamey Carroll played second in 2010 and 2011. Mark Ellis followed, playing second base in 2012 and 2013.

Dee Gordon moved over to second and had a fine year there in 2014.

After that, the position is covered primarily by four players: Howie Kendrick, Chase Utley Kiké Hernández and Logan Forsythe. The first three all played second base in both 2015 and 2016.

After Kendrick was traded to the Phillies, Forsythe played second with Utley and Hernández in 2017 and 2018. Brian Dozier joined the team at the 2018 trade deadline and played second from that point on.

In 2019, Hernández, Max Muncy and in September, Gavin Lux were the primary second baseman.

However, of those above-named players, seven Dodger appeared in at least 100 games from 2010-2019 at second base and here they are in order of games played there:

  • Chase Utley played 290 games at second base between 2015 through 2018.
  • Mark Ellis was the primary second baseman for two seasons, he played 229 games from 2012 to 2013.
  • Kiké Hernández has played over 100 games at three different positions since 2015 for the Dodgers. He has played 166 games at second with the 85 games played there in 2019 being his career high.
  • Dee Gordon was named to his first All-Star team as the primary second baseman in 2014, he played a total of 147 games at second in his Dodger career.
  • Howie Kendrick was at second base for 145 games total in 2015-2016.
  • Logan Forsythe played 131 games at second base between 2017 and 2018.
  • Jamey Carroll put in quality work as a middle infielder for the Dodgers, he played 129 games at second base and 135 at shortstop in 2010 through 2011.

The statistics that are in the table below are their totals for the Dodgers from 2010-2019. and contain games where they played other positions.

Of all of these players, Mark Ellis might be the one whose true value is reflected in his statistics because he played second base in all 229 games he played on the field. There was just one game where he also played third base for ⅓ inning. There were seven games where he pinch-hit and did not come into the game.

There were seven Dodger players who appeared in at least 100 games at second base from 2010-2019 and here they are in order of bWAR as a Dodger overall:

Dodgers of the Decade: Second Base

Player bWAR/pos oWAR dWAR OPS+ G PA R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
Player bWAR/pos oWAR dWAR OPS+ G PA R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
Kiké Hernández 7.5 6.0 1.9 98 600 1726 219 368 80 8 63 193 166 365 .240 .316 .427 .742
Mark Ellis 5.6 3.2 3.0 92 236 944 108 224 34 3 13 79 66 144 .264 .328 .357 .685
Jamey Carroll 3.6 5.0 -0.4 100 279 924 100 233 29 7 0 40 98 122 .290 .368 .344 .711
Chase Utley 3.6 3.4 0.7 88 386 1246 154 262 65 9 26 109 99 235 .236 .315 .381 .697
Dee Gordon 1.9 4.7 -1.6 86 329 1319 173 335 43 17 4 68 68 217 .272 .314 .345 .658
Howie Kendrick 1.5 3.4 -1.9 97 263 1038 129 261 48 4 17 94 77 178 .274 .331 .387 .718
Logan Forsythe 1.2 0.5 1.2 73 189 650 74 121 29 0 8 49 86 152 .218 .325 .314 .639
Statistics provided by Baseball-Reference.com

Poll

Who plays Second Base for the Dodgers of the Decade team?

This poll is closed

  • 1%
    Jamey Carroll
    (14 votes)
  • 6%
    Mark Ellis
    (62 votes)
  • 0%
    Logan Forsythe
    (3 votes)
  • 6%
    Dee Gordon
    (61 votes)
  • 34%
    Kiké Hernández
    (335 votes)
  • 10%
    Howie Kendrick
    (98 votes)
  • 40%
    Chase Utley
    (398 votes)
971 votes total Vote Now