Moving Over

There's been some discussion lately among Mets fans about the possibility of the Mets signing Alex Rodriguez and trying David Wright at second base, a postion that may otherwise be a hole for the team going into 2008. Wright already has over 500 career games played at third so far in his career; it is quite unusual for a player with 500 games at third to also have long-term regular experience at second base. Indeed, only 8 players in all of major league history have had 500 career games played at both second base and third base. In order of most total career games played at the two positions, here are those 8 guys:

Jimmy Dykes: 1257 G at third, 722G at second
Phil Garner: 839 G at third, 975 G at second
Jim Gilliam: 761 G at third, 1046 G at second
Marty McManus: 725 G at third, 927 G at second
Edgardo Alfonzo 889 G at third, 549 G at second
Pete Rose: 634 G at third, 628 G at second
Gil McDougald 508 G at third, 599 G at second
Sparky Adams 532 G at third, 551 G at second

Notes on this list:
-- Alfonzo will certainly be familiar to Mets fans.
-- Despite appearing on this list, Pete Rose played more games in the outfield and more games at first base than he played at second or at third.
-- The oddest thing to me about this list is that the top guy on this list, Jimmy Dykes, is also the top guy on the list I posted here yesterday, which has absolutely nothing to do with today’s list (yesterday’s list was of the 10 longest-term managers who never finished in first place). And not only that, but the Number 2 guy on today’s list, Phil Garner, was number 4 on yesterday’s list. It appears that if the Mets want to win division titles, they should never hire Edgardo Alfonzo as their manager.
--as usual, the source for today's list is the play Index database at baseball-reference.com