![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/e2cacd8bb9756b9ceefc88b820d9c061.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nBetween 1986 and 2006 15 different Red Sox players made at least 50 appearances at second base in one season: Marty Barrett, Jody Reed, Scott Fletcher, Luis Alicea, Jeff Frye, John Valentin, Donnie Sadler, Mike Benjamin,Jos\u00e9 Offerman, Lou Merloni, Rey S\u00e1nchez, Todd Walker, Mark Bellhorn, Tony Graffanino, and Mark Loretta. Barrett would also cross the threshold in 1984 and 1985 as the primary second baseman, giving us 22 years for the sample. Like \u201cgenerations\u201d of birth (Boomer, X, Millennial etc.) there is a little fuzziness here on the 20 years but, suffice it to say, Barrett pulled of this feat 5 times, Reed 4, Frye and Offerman 3, Fletcher and Bellhorn 2 times apiece, and all the rest only crossed 50 games played once.<\/p>\n
The last man to do it in this sample was Mark Loretta. Loretta, acquired from the San Diego Padres for backup catcher and knuckleball specialist Doug Mirabelli, played 138 games at second and made the All-Star Game. A pending free agent, Loretta was a veteran placeholder to buy one more year of development for the future. The year was 2006. The future was a guy drafted in 2004 named Dustin Pedroia.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Boston was off on the actual day of the draft, June 7th, 2004, but on the 6th, the starting lineup included the very memorable starting second baseman C\u00e9sar Crespo while Pokey Reese played shortstop.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Dustin Pedroia would make his major league debut on August 23, 2006 and play in 31 games \u2013 27 as a second baseman and 6 more as the shortstop. He would then play for eleven seasons as the primary second baseman. In 2018 and 2019, Pedroia was definitely supposed to man the second base position, but due to injuries sustained through an unfortunate collision, he played in only a handful of games either year. Which means we need to take another look at the position after 2017.<\/p>\n
Here are the players who recorded 50 or more games at second base over the last eight years: Brock Holt, Eduardo N\u00fa\u00f1ez, Christian Arroyo, Trevor Story, Enmanuel Vald\u00e9z, Kristian Campbell, and David Hamilton. Holt and Arroyo pulled it off two times each, the others just once. All the other seasons since 2007 only Pedroia qualifies for the list.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s sort of telling that Holt and N\u00fa\u00f1ez split 2018 and Campbell and Hamilton split 2025, whereas 2019-2024 was just a revolving door.<\/p>\n
But 20 years after Dustin Pedroia emerged, and almost a decade since his keystone reign came to an end, there\u2019s a new contender: Marcelo Mayer.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
You may have seen his slick defense this week:<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s still possible, maybe likely, Mayer starts the season in Triple-A he\u2019s an exciting player who can possibly bring some of what Pedroia did to second base this year: stability. That\u2019s not to say that Mayer will be the player that Laser Show was. That\u2019s for the future to reveal. But his time at third base covering for Alex Bregman last year was stabilizing.<\/p>\n
Of course we don\u2019t know for sure where he\u2019ll play this year. He is a natural shortstop. He\u2019ll probably the second baseman but, again, Alex Cora might like him at third. Or maybe he man both spots in some kind of defensive platoon. That are a lot of moving parts so who knows. But he\u2019s mostly been starting at second base since beginning his Spring Training games.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Pedroia was the type of player who comes once in a generation. We already have a taste of that type of player in Roman Anthony. But Marcelo Mayer could still be the second base solution for four or five years (or more! But we\u2019re starting small). The Red Sox haven\u2019t had that guy in the post-Pedroia era. Penciling in a surefire starter, whether as the manger or a fan imagining the lineups, is a nice feeling. Let\u2019s root for the kid to start that clock in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Between 1986 and 2006 15 different Red Sox players made at least 50 appearances at second base in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2375],"tags":[72,5,141,48,2542,31108,59018,17761,79078,4768,44870,1148,66098,79075,79076,715,14057,79077,19,1248,79074,54224,64232,4,89,2543,793,18,16828,18496,1035],"class_list":{"0":"post-608703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-alex-bregman","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-boston","11":"tag-boston-red-sox","12":"tag-bostonredsox","13":"tag-brock-holt","14":"tag-christian-arroyo","15":"tag-david-hamilton","16":"tag-donnie-sadler","17":"tag-dustin-pedroia","18":"tag-eduardo-nunez","19":"tag-enmanuel-valdez","20":"tag-jeff-frye","21":"tag-jody-reed","22":"tag-john-valentin","23":"tag-kristian-campbell","24":"tag-lou-merloni","25":"tag-luis-alicea","26":"tag-major-league-baseball","27":"tag-marcelo-mayer","28":"tag-mark-bellhorn","29":"tag-mark-loretta","30":"tag-marty-barrett","31":"tag-mlb","32":"tag-red-sox","33":"tag-redsox","34":"tag-roman-anthony","35":"tag-san-diego-padres","36":"tag-scott-fletcher","37":"tag-tony-graffanino","38":"tag-trevor-story"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}