25 Years Countdown: Top 5 Second Basemen

To celebrate 25 years of Triple-A baseball in New Orleans, we are taking a look back at the best players at each position over the last quarter-century. This week is the top five players who saw most of their time at second base.

Carlos Hernandez

Carlos Hernandez was a leader on the franchise's first championship winner in 1998, pacing the club in games played and hits. He tied for third in the Pacific Coast League with 29 stolen bases, and his 51 steals over parts of three seasons ranks fourth on the team's all-time chart. As one of the few holdovers to stay with the Zephyrs during their postseason run in September, Hernandez was named the PCL playoffs Most Valuable Player after hitting .324 with seven RBI in eight games, then batted .389 in the Triple-A World Series victory.
Hernandez shifted to shortstop for most of his 1999 campaign with New Orleans, and was second in the league in steals when he was called up by Houston to make his big league debut in late-May. He returned to the Z's for a brief stint in 2003, his final season in affiliated ball.

Keith Ginter

Keith Ginter manned second base during the Zephyrs' second title-winning squad in 2001, when he earned PCL All-Star honors by hitting .269 with 16 home runs and 70 RBI. Ginter led the team in runs scored (76), doubles (31), hits (123) and walks (61) and set a club record when he was hit by a pitch 23 times. Ginter's biggest contributions came in the postseason, when he belted a pair of home runs in Game 1 and gave the Z's an early lead in Game 2 with an RBI double en route to a three-game sweep of Iowa.
Ginter was back in 2002 to help New Orleans defend its title and added 28 doubles to his ledger, placing him ninth in franchise history, before moving on to a role as a semi-regular with the Milwaukee Brewers the following year.

Chris Burke

The Astros era in New Orleans came to a close with Chris Burke as the keystone, and his one season with the Zephyrs was likely the best by a second baseman. Burke batted .315 and ranked in the league's top 10 in hits (152), doubles (33), triples (6) and runs scored (93) while pacing the circuit with 37 stolen bases, the second-highest total in team history.
Burke reached base safely in 39 consecutive games in the middle of the year, during which he also appeared in the Futures Game in Houston, and was placed on the All-PCL team following the season, the only New Orleans infielder to earn the distinction.

Danny Richar

Like Burke, Danny Richar also batted .315 in his lone season as the Zephyrs' second baseman in 2010, good for ninth-best in the PCL. He ended both the first half and second half of the season on a tear, hitting a league-leading .418 in June and closing with a .363 average in August, en route to a team-high 42 multi-hit efforts.
The 2010 season was Richar's last in affiliated ball, having since spent parts of three seasons in independent leagues, though he does regularly participate in the Dominican Winter League.

Joe Thurston

Joe Thurston inherited second base from Richar in 2011 and turned in a solid season by hitting .300 with 13 home runs and 59 RBI. The last New Orleans player to appear in at least 100 games at second base, Thurston collected 34 doubles, tied with Casey Candaele for the sixth-best total in club history.
Thurston was hitting .316 when he earned a brief promotion to the Marlins in August, the final big league action of his career, and though he slumped upon returning to Triple-A, he went 6-for-13 with a double, three homers and nine RBI in three September contests to finish at .300.