This is a sequel to “One and Done.” There, I looked at players who spent one – and only one – glorious season with a team. Here, I’m going to take the next logical step and rank the greatest two-year stints of all time. (Don’t worry; this won’t be followed by “Three and Free” or “Four and Out the Door.”)

To qualify for this list, a player must have spent two consecutive seasons with a franchise, with no other games for the team in any other season. And both seasons have to be great, not just one. All the seasons have to be since 1900, and we’re not looking at the Federal League, for reasons which should be obvious.

25. Rick Wise, 1972-73 Cardinals

Just looking at Wise’s stats with the Cards, you’d think they would have been happy with his performance: back-to-back 16-win seasons, 250+ innings pitched each year, and ERAs in the low threes. But of course, that was small consolation for trading Steve Carlton just as he was about to explode on the league. Right after the ’73 season, the Cardinals sent Wise to Boston in a deal that got them Reggie Smith.

24. Pat Dobson, 1971-72 Orioles

In ’71, Dobson teamed with Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar, and Dave McNally to form the second (and last) starting rotation with four 20-game winners (the other one was the 1920 White Sox). The next year, Dobson’s record fell to 16-18, but he actually lowered his ERA from 2.90 to 2.65.

23. Al Oliver, 1982-83 Expos

At the age of thirty-five in 1982, Oliver won the batting title (.331) and set career highs in homers (22) and walks (61). He dropped off significantly the next year, but still hit an even .300. The Expos saw the writing on the wall, though, and sent him to the Giants. He was finished by 1985.

22. Ralph Kiner, 1953-54 Cubs

Heading into 1953, Kiner had been the NL home run champ for seven consecutive seasons – every year of his career. Understandably, Kiner wanted a raise. Branch Rickey, the Pirates GM, fired back, “We finished eighth with you; we can finish eighth without you.” Rickey was pretty ticked at Kiner. He went on an anti-Kiner publicity campaign, claiming, “If you had eight Ralph Kiners on an American Association team, it would finish last.” (Actually, Kiner’s offensive winning percentage in 1952 was .702, so my guess is that a Triple-A team with eight Kiners would almost never lose. Not sure how good the infield defense would be, though.)

Anyway, 41 games into the 1953 season, Rickey sent Kiner to the Cubs in a ten-player deal that also netted the Pirates a tidy $150K. I seem to recall that Rickey got a cut of any money that his team received in player transactions… With Chicago, Kiner was quite good, with OPS figures of .923 and .858, but he was clearly on the decline. He played one more year with Cleveland in 1955, and at just 32, he was finished.

21. Doc White, 1901-02 Phillies

Doc White is the youngest player on this list, 22 and 23 in the seasons in question. He’s also the oldest player on this list, in that he was born in 1879. As a rookie in 1901, he showed promise, with a 3.19 ERA in 236 innings. He followed that up with a solid 2.53 mark in 306 innings the next year – I say “solid” rather than “excellent” because the league ERA was 2.92. And then… he jumped the team. This was back before the American and National Leagues had made peace, and White abandoned Philadelphia in favor of the Chicago White Sox. He went on to have a nice run with Chicago, and won 189 games in his career.

20. Gaylord Perry, 1978-79 Padres

Perry was 39 and 40, certainly the most aged player on this list. But he wasn’t exactly unique as an old pitcher having a great two-year run. A few years later, both Don Sutton (36-37) and Phil Niekro (45-46!) put together solid pairs of seasons with the Astros and Yankees. Anyway, in his first year with San Diego, Perry won the Cy Young Award on the strength of a 21-6 record and a 2.73 ERA. It actually wasn’t that great a season (121 ERA+), but it was slim pickings in the National League that year. The next year, Perry declined to 12-11, but his ERA remained strong (3.06).

19. Bobby Bonds, 1976-77 Angels

Bonds’ 1975 season with the Yankees made it onto the previous list (One and Done). The Yankees traded him to California for Mickey Rivers and Ed Figueroa, who went on to help the Yanks to three straight pennants. As for Bonds, he was okay in ’76 and excellent in ’77: 37 homers, 41 steals, and 115 RBI. The Angels then flipped him to the White Sox in a deal that got them Brian Downing, who spent the next fifteen years with the franchise.

18. Ted Abernathy, 1967-68 Reds

From the 1971 Royals yearbook, reprinted in the Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers: “With the unique underhand motion, Abernathy’s curveball rises and his fastball sinks… He’s almost impossible to hit when you get only one shot at him. You see the over-handed stuff all the time, then this guy comes in there throwing the ball from out of the ground.”

After a poor season in 1966, Abernathy was left unprotected by the Braves, and the Reds took him in the Rule 5 draft. What a steal… In 1967, Abernathy threw 106 relief innings with a minuscule 1.27 ERA and a league-best 28 saves. He followed that up with a 2.47 mark in 134 relief innings the next season, and then was traded to the Cubs.

17. Bert Blyleven, 1976-77 Rangers

Going into his Age 25 season in 1976, Blyleven had a streak of six straight seasons with at least 275 innings pitched, 200 strikeouts, and an ERA no higher than three. A dozen starts into 1976, he was dealt to the Rangers in a deal that sent the Twins Roy Smalley, $250 grand, and various other odds and ends. With Texas, Blyleven went just 23-23, but that was just bad luck: his ERA was 2.76 the first year, 2.72 the second. After the ’77 season, he was traded to Pittsburgh in a four-team, eleven-player monstrosity, and he helped the Pirates win the World Series in 1979.

16. Del Pratt, 1921-22 Red Sox

Pratt is the only Red Sox player on this list, but the franchise has had more than its share of Two and Through players. Other good ones include Buddy Myer, Dick Stuart, Fergie Jenkins, Carney Lansford, and Carl Everett. As for Pratt, he’d already put together a very nice career with the Browns and Yankees, and in his two years with Boston, he hit .324 and .301, with a combined 80 doubles and 190 RBI. There’s a problem, though… The Sox got Pratt in an eight-player deal with the Yankees, and among the players they gave up was Waite Hoyt, whose whole Hall of Fame career was ahead of him. Oh, well.

15. Babe Herman, 1933-34 Cubs

The Cubs won the pennant in 1932, the year before they got Herman. They won 100 games and another pennant in 1935, the year after he left. In between, they had back-to-back 86-win seasons and third-place finishes. It’s hard to blame the Babe, as he played well both years, but it’s hard to blame Cubs fans if they thought they had their own Curse of the Bambino.

14. Jeff Kent, 2003-04 Astros

After years as a star with the Giants, Kent signed a two-year deal with Houston. He gave the Astros two standard Jeff Kent seasons and then left as a free agent. In his next-to-last game in an Astros uniform, Kent hit two home runs and passed Ryne Sandberg as the all-time leader for home runs by a second baseman.

Is Jeff Kent a Hall of Famer? I think so. His rate stats are outstanding, especially for a middle infielder. At his peak, he was an MVP. And career length is no longer a problem –he’s played almost as many games as Frankie Frisch, more than Hornsby and Sandberg, and way more than Bobby Doerr.

13. Bobby Murcer, 1975-76 Giants

The Yankees traded Murcer to the Giants for Bobby Bonds, whose lone New York season made the One and Done list. Murcer spent two years in San Francisco, earning a solid 21 Win Shares both seasons. He hit .298 and made the All-Star team in 1975. In ’76, his batting average dropped almost forty points, but he compensated by more than doubling his home run total. Before the 1977 season, he was traded to the Cubs.

12. Eddie Yost, 1959-60 Tigers

Yost was “The Walking Man,” of course, drawing 100 walks a year like clockwork. Until Bonds and McGwire, Yost’s 151 walks in 1956 were more than anyone not named Ruth or Williams. With the Tigers, he had a near-MVP season in 1959, hitting .278 with 21 homers, 135 walks, and 115 runs scored. (Of course, on-base percentage meaning nothing to MVP voters at the time, Yost received not a single vote.) You could make the argument that, until George Brett, Yost’s 1959 was the greatest offensive season by a third baseman in American League history. He dropped off in ’57, but still, he had a .414 OBP.

11. Mike Cameron, 2006-07 Padres

Of course, if Cameron ever rejoins the Padres, he’ll no longer qualify for this list… He was traded by the Mets straight-up for Xavier Nady, as the acquisition of Carlos Beltran had rendered Cameron superfluous in New York. Cameron has the worst luck with ballparks – Safeco, Shea, and Petco are all pitchers’ havens. But he always gets his customary 30 doubles, 20 homers, 20 steals, and 70 walks, and combined with great defense, that makes him a deceptively valuable player.

10. Roy Sievers, 1960-61 White Sox

In the fifties, Sievers was a star slugger with Washington (and a teammate of Eddie Yost). He was traded to the defending AL champion White Sox right before the 1960 season, and he put together a pair of alarmingly similar seasons. His triple crown numbers: .295-28-93 the first year, .295-27-92 the second. In 1960, he finished seventh in the MVP vote; in 1961, he made the All-Star team. The funny thing is that his 1961 numbers garnered zero MVP support, while a virtually-identical season had ranked him seventh a year earlier. Of course, the difference was expansion and the explosion of players like Maris, Norm Cash, and Jim Gentile, making Sievers’ numbers look rather puny by comparison. The White Sox sent Sievers to Philadelphia in the winter of ’61, and he immediately began his decline.

9. Gregg Jefferies, 1993-94 Cardinals

Gregg Jefferies was supposed to be great, but he never seemed to be able to put it all together. Except for these two years: with St. Louis, Jefferies finally played up to all the hype that had been showered upon him years earlier. He hit .342 in 1993, cracked 16 homers, stole 46 bases. When the strike hit in ’94, he was batting .325. Jefferies was still only twenty-six at this point, and it looked like he might turn out to be a superstar after all. The Phillies signed him to a four-year contract, but he declined significantly and was finished as a good player at 28.

8. Jack Clark, 1989-90 Padres

Clark had spent a year with the Yankees in 1988, hitting just .242 but with loads of walks and home runs in a pitchers’ year. He was traded to the Padres right after the season, and in his two years in San Diego, he was as great an offensive force as there was in baseball, with offensive winning percentages of .735 and .773. His trouble was staying in the lineup: Clark had 593 plate appearances his first year with the Padres, and only 442 the second. (He still led the league in walks both years.)

7. Albert Belle, 1997-98 White Sox

Dick Allen reborn. After the 1996 season, Jerry Reinsdorf made Belle baseball’s first $10 million-a-year man. There was a controversial clause in the deal that released Belle from the contract if he ever stopped being one of the top three highest-paid players in the game. Anyway, his first year with the Sox was a disappointment – after three straight seasons with an OPS over 1.000, Belle dropped off to .823. Still, the guy drove in 116 runs and finished fourth in the league in extra-base hits. In 1998 he returned to his customary dominance, hitting .328 with 49 homers, 48 doubles, 152 RBI. His .750 offensive winning percentage was the best in the American League. After the season, Belle demanded a raise, citing the aforementioned clause in his contract. The White Sox refused, and Belle became a free agent. He signed a whopper of a deal with Baltimore, but after two years with the Orioles, a degenerative hip condition forced him to retire.

6. Jimmy Wynn, 1974-75 Dodgers

You think Mike Cameron had it bad with ballparks… Jimmy Wynn played in a pitchers’ era (1963-77) and spent most of his home games in the Astrodome, one of the worst hitters’ parks ever. When he was finally traded out of Houston, it was to Dodger Stadium – talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. In his first year in L.A., the Toy Cannon hit .271 with 32 homers and 108 walks; given the context, that’s an MVP season. The Dodgers won the pennant, and Wynn actually got some respect in the voting that fall, finishing fifth. He declined the next season, but he was still excellent. In his two years with the Dodgers, Wynn’s offensive winning percentages were .708 and .679.

5. Lefty O’Doul, 1929-30 Phillies

O’Doul started as a pitcher, failed at that, and reinvented himself as a hitter. He was thirty-one in his first full season, with the Giants in 1928, and he batted .319. In one of the worst deals in franchise history, they sent him to the Phillies for Freddy Leach. O’Doul promptly established himself as an elite hitter, winning the batting title with a .398 mark in 1929. He added 32 homers and 122 RBI and was runner-up in the MVP vote despite the Phillies’ sub-.500 record. He continued to rake the next year, batting .383, and was then traded to the Dodgers. Yes, I know that O’Doul had the benefit of the Baker Bowl in the late twenties, but he was still a tremendous player. His offensive winning percentages with the Phillies were .814 and .769, both figures in the top five in the league.

4. Kevin Brown, 1996-97 Marlins

Brown led the league in ERA in 1996 with a 1.89 mark, and finished second in the Cy Young vote. He followed that up with a 2.69 ERA in the Marlins’ championship season in ’97. He was then traded to San Diego, where his ’98 season was one of the best one-year stints ever. One of the prospects the Marlins received was Derrek Lee.

3. Eddie Stanky, 1950-51 Giants

Stanky was a little older than Eddie Yost, but they were basically the same player. After the 1949 season, the Boston Braves traded their double-play combo, Stanky and Al Dark, to the Giants. Stanky hit .300 with 144 walks the first year, finishing third in the MVP vote. The next year his average dropped to .247, but he still drew 127 walks and hit a career-high 14 home runs, and the Giants won the pennant (“The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”). The Giants traded Stanky to the Cardinals, and he never played regularly again.

2. Gary Sheffield, 2002-03 Braves

By anyone else’s standards, Sheffield’s 2002 season was great: .307/.404/.512, 25 homers. It was his worst season in five years. He rebounded in 2003, hitting .330 with 39 home runs, 132 RBI, and 18 stolen bases. He finished third in the MVP vote, then signed with the Yankees, who were losing this guy:

1. Roger Clemens, 1997-98 Blue Jays

People thought Roger Clemens was finished. He was thirty-four, hadn’t won more than eleven games since 1992, and hadn’t won more than ten since ’93. Never mind that in 1996, he’d led the league in strikeouts and finished sixth in ERA. With the Blue Jays, he won back-to-back Cy Youngs, had records of 21-7 and 20-6 and ERAs of 2.05 and 2.65. In almost 500 combined innings, he gave up only twenty home runs. In his big ’97 season, he pitched 264 innings and allowed just nine homers. This isn’t just the greatest two-year, one-team stint ever; it’s the greatest by a wide margin.