Mark Lemke Deserves Way More Respect in Braves' All-Time Second Baseman Rankings

With a long offseason made unexpectedly longer by an unprecedented pandemic, baseball writers have taken to producing more timeless content than ever, in an effort to make us all recall better times gone by.

Which makes you wonder...if nostalgia was largely the goal of Braves writer Mark Bowman's all-time second baseman rankings, why did he pay so little attention to the man who manned the position during Atlanta's most glorious years?

Whether you agree with his placement outside the top five or not, Mark Lemke clearly deserved more consideration for the gig.

While Marcus Giles' 2003-2005 peak of his seven-year career outclassed Lemke numbers-wise, Giles was a representative face of the Braves' bloated years of excess. The team was embarrassed thrice in the NLDS during those seasons, twice at the hands of the Houston Astros. The team's magic was starting to wear off.

Lemke, on the other hand, held down a middle infield position for every single memorable Braves run.

Though he only hit above .260 once (.294 in the shortened 1994 season), and never managed over seven homers in a season, Lemke was a Braves semi-regular from 1990-1997. And while his numbers were pedestrian offensively, he often delivered when the spotlight was brightest, frustrating opposing pitchers who thought they had an easy out on their hands.

Lemke hit .417 in his very first World Series in 1991, and .273 in Atlanta's series win in 1995. Diehard fans will also recall that he torched the Cardinals in a comeback effort in the '96 NLCS, hitting an unbelievable .444 in 27 at-bats.

He was a solid, if unspectacular, glove man, an Eckstein-like spark plug, and a man deemed worthy of a lineup spot during the entirety of a borderline dynasty. If that's not worth a top-five spot over Glenn Hubbard, we're not sure what is.