While the stars steal all the headlines in baseball, it’s a team’s backups that steal the bases, steal the hearts of fans and push a team far into the Major League postseason.
More often than not, the big market teams feature the best backups – in many cases, players who could start for half of the other teams in the league (perhaps more). It’s also true that some rosters feature former starters that are reduced to the backup role now that their age has caught up to them – but that doesn’t mean that each still can’t hit, or play defense.
At any rate, it’s a tricky one to piece together, but here’s my list of the top ten best backup bench players in Major League Baseball.
I think you’ll be quite surprised by the top choice…