The best baseball players born on March 13

Who are the best players born on each day of the year? We have a list for every day on the calendar.

Here’s a subjective ranking of the top five for March 13.

1) Johan Santana (1979)
Santana had a relatively short career due to injuries, but his peak was spectacular. The left-hander won American League Cy Young Awards in 2004 and 2006, and a strong argument can be made that he should have won in 2005 as well. He continued to pitch well following a trade from the Twins to the Mets, leading the Majors with a 2.53 ERA in 2008, and after missing a full season while recovering from shoulder surgery, he returned to throw the first no-hitter in Mets history in 2012. However, he tore the anterior capsule in his left shoulder for a second time in 2013 and never pitched in the Majors again.

2) Will Clark (1964)
Will the Thrill was a consistent force at the plate throughout his career, posting a 118 OPS+ or better in 14 of his 15 seasons en route to a lifetime 137 mark. Clark is one of 10 first basemen (min. 50% of their total games at the position) in AL/NL history to record a career .300 average and at least 200 homers, joining Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Johnny Mize, Hank Greenberg and Jim Bottomley as well as Todd Helton, Don Mattingly, Joey Votto and Hal Trosky. He led the Giants to the NL pennant with a .650 average (13-for-20), two homers and eight RBIs against the Cubs in the 1989 NLCS, earning MVP honors.

3) Home Run Baker (1886)
This may seem like an ill-fitting nickname for a player with fewer than 100 career dingers, but the shortage of power during the Dead Ball Era (pre-1920) meant that John Franklin Baker was one of the top sluggers of his time. Although he never hit more than 12 homers in a single season, Baker led the AL in four straight years from 1911-14. The Veterans Committee elected him to the Hall of Fame in 1955.

4) Alejandro Oms (1896)
A member of the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame, Oms had an outstanding career both in the Cuban Winter League and in the Negro Leagues, where he played for the Cuban Stars and New York Cubans. According to the Center for Negro League Baseball Research, “El Cabellero” (“The Gentleman”) hit .328 with 38 homers and a .505 slugging percentage in 296 Negro Leagues games and owns the second-highest average (.343) in the history of the Cuban Winter League behind only National Baseball Hall of Famer Cristóbal Torriente, who is known as the “Babe Ruth of Cuba.”

5) Buzz Clarkson (1915)
Clarkson is part of the short list of former Negro Leaguers who eventually played for an AL or NL club, logging 29 plate appearances with the Braves in 1952, the last year the team played in Boston before moving to Milwaukee. The Negro Leagues database at Seamheads.com puts Clarkson’s career slash line at .326/.405/.555.

Other notables:

Helen Callaghan (1923): Callaghan had a five-season career as an outfielder in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, finishing first in the league with a .299 batting average in 1945. Helen and her older sister Marge were the first pair of siblings to play in the AAGPBL. Born in Vancouver, Callaghan became the first woman to be individually inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2021. (The Hall had previously inducted as a group all Canadian women who played in the AAGPBL.)

Mariano Duncan (1963): Duncan posted a career-high .340 average and .852 OPS for the 1996 Yankees, and his catchphrase -- “We play today, we win today, das it!” -- became the team's mantra on the road to the World Series title. The second baseman also won a World Series championship with the Reds in 1990.

Want to see more baseball birthdays for March 13? Find the complete list on Baseball-Reference.