The Creedence Clearwater Poll: Who’s the Second-Best Player in Baseball?

I voted Altuve, as it looks like most people will. After Trout, I put him, Harper, and Goldschmidt in the #2 group; if talent’s arranged like a pyramid, you can put Betts and four others in the #3 group. The distance between Trout and the #2s is probably greater than the distance between the next two groups.

Part of me wanted to vote for Goldschmidt, he’s such a complete player and still under-publicized (starting to change, will change more if he and Arizona have a good postseason). But, unless you’re talking about peak-era Pujols, it’s hard to put a first baseman who does everything ahead of a second baseman who does everything. The highest seasonal WAR for a second baseman since Morgan was Biggio’s 9.4 in ’97. Altuve’s on track for 9.2, and an unadjusted batting line that’ll be somewhat similar to Morgan’s in ’76--more hits, more doubles, fewer walks, fewer stolen bases.

I think Correa will join the second group next year.

Write-in vote for Judge.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Gary Sanchez hit his 27th this afternoon in another partial season. May have to add him to the second tier soon--a catcher who might hit 40-45 in a full year with (going by dWAR, anyway) pretty good defense would be pretty irreplaceable.

I shouldn't have left Machado off this list--gave in to the having-an-off-year fallacy.

(That is, the fallacy that someone his age having an off year has something to do with his actual ability.)

Right now, after Trout, I might put Lindor. If you look at his career box on Baseball Reference, he's never had an oWAR or dWAR less than 1.2, or a WAR less than 4.6. He's got power, hits for average, draws a decent number of walks, steals bases at an 80%+ success rate, gold-glove defense...I can't see a weakness anywhere. Betts or Yelich is probably #2 among position players, but Lindor's so good.

I'm biased here but Yelich since the 2018 ASB has basically been Barry Bonds

If first-half Mike Trout and second-half Mike Trout were separate players they'd arguably be 1 and 2

In WAR its got to be Scherzer over the last 3 seasons.