Lowest OPS by a 2B in a Season Since 1920

As for all the positions: the explanation of why I chose to look at seasons since 1920 can be found here. The short story is I wanted to avoid the low-power years of the deadball era while compiling lists of poor-hitting position players.

Second baseman have traditionally hit very poorly. That means we should see some pretty bad numbers on the following list. Qualifiers remain the same: the player must have qualified for the batting title during the season while playing 75% or more of his games at second base.

Name	Year	Team	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Del Young	1937	PHI	386	.194	.235	.231	.466
Horace Clarke	1968	NYY	607	.230	.258	.254	.512
Billy Ripkin	1988	BAL	559	.207	.260	.258	.518
Sparky Anderson	1959	PHI	527	.218	.282	.249	.531
Freddie Maguire	1931	BSN	544	.228	.259	.272	.531
Roy Schalk	1944	CHW	654	.220	.276	.262	.538
Doug Flynn	1981	NYM	343	.222	.247	.292	.539
Rabbit Maranville	1933	BSN	532	.218	.274	.266	.540
Tommy Helms	1970	CIN	605	.237	.262	.282	.544
Jose Lind	1992	PIT	506	.235	.275	.269	.544
Hal Lanier	1965	SFG	556	.226	.256	.289	.545
Sandy Alomar	1973	CAL	519	.238	.288	.257	.545
Connie Ryan	1943	BSN	531	.212	.301	.249	.550
Burgess Whitehead	1941	NYG	429	.228	.258	.293	.551
Jimmy Jordan	1936	BRO	419	.234	.262	.291	.553
Cookie Rojas	1968	PHI	650	.232	.248	.306	.554
Mike Champion	1977	SDP	546	.229	.271	.286	.557
Rodney Scott	1981	MON	402	.205	.308	.250	.558
Len Randle	1976	TEX	597	.224	.286	.273	.559
Rocky Bridges	1953	CIN	477	.227	.288	.273	.561

Those are some pretty bad seasons. Once again, there are a number of Boston Braves on the list. Boston's erstwhile National League team has seen three second basemen, five first basemen and two catchers on the three lists. So, out of the sixty players listed so far, ten of them played for Boston -- it's not hard to see why that team hardly ever had a good season.

Getting back to solely second basemen, players have put sixty seasons with an OPS under .600 since 1920. Only one player since 2000 has done it -- barely. Brent Abernathy put up a .599 OPS for Tampa Bay in 2002. Finally, the worst OPS by a qualifying second baseman in 2007 was Ray Durham's .638 for the Giants.