Blue Jays: Marcus Semien pushing Alomar’s franchise records

Marcus Semien has been so good during the 2021 season that he’s setting new bars for second basemen in Blue Jays franchise history.

The 31 year old has turned out to be an absolute bargain, and the only downside is that his contract was just for one season at 18 million dollars. The Blue Jays paid a fairly steep rate for a one-year deal on a former MVP candidate looking to bounce back, and Semien has rewarded them and likely even exceeded the high-end hopes they had for him by putting up the best numbers of his career.

After last night’s thrilling three-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth, Semien is now slashing .266/.333/.529, and he’s been arguably the most steady presence in the lineup throughout the course of the season. His 34th blast last night set a new personal career high, and his 81 RBI leaves him just 11 away from doing the same for that stat as well. He’s well on his way to passing Aaron Hill’s single-season home run mark of 36, as he needs just three more to pass him. With 29 games remaining, he has an outside shot at the franchise RBI record for second basemen as well, which Hill also set with 108 in 2009, but he’ll have to stay hot to catch up to that mark.

This morning I got thinking about if Semien was having the best single season from a two-bagger in franchise history, and despite the fact that Aaron Hill holds some of the franchise power standards, I’m sure that 99% of fans would agree that the best second baseman in Blue Jays history would be Roberto Alomar. He was the first Hall of Famer to wear a Blue Jays cap on his plaque, and a true legend of the team in the 90’s.

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As I was about to go look up some stats and start the comparison, I conveniently came across a tweet from Chris Black (@downtoblack), a fairly notable Blue Jays fan on Twitter. He did some of my homework for me, and pointed out that Semien is now 3rd on the single-season bWAR leaderboard for Blue Jays second basemen, trailing Alomar’s best two seasons of 6.6 (1992) and 6.1 (1993), with Semien coming in at 5.8.

If we turn to Fangraphs for a comparison of fWAR, Alomar’s best season came in 1992 with a score of 6.1, followed by a 5.7 in 1993. He had two better seasons with Cleveland later in his career (at least by WAR standards), but we’re looking at time spent with the Blue Jays here. Semien isn’t far behind in this category either with a mark of 5.5 thus far.

One thing they have in common is that both Alomar and Semien are assets in pretty much every facet of the game. Semien might not be quite up to Alomar’s standards on defence, but he’s an above-average defender at second, and has added value when he more than capably covers for a day off for Bo Bichette at shortstop. Semien may not hit quite as well as Alomar did at his peak in terms of average and on-base percentage, but Alomar never hit more than 17 home runs in a single season as a Blue Jay. They’re not the same player, but the comparison is still legitimate.

They’re also two players that have played in different eras, but the two WAR measures help to at least make the comparison. With 29 games to go, there’s a good chance that Semien will set a new standard before the 2021 campaign is over.