The best baseball players born on Feb. 7

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 Feb. 7.

1) Carney Lansford (1957)
When you think of those great Oakland A’s teams of the late 1980s and early '90s, your mind automatically goes to splashy names like Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco or Dennis Eckersley. Lansford may not have been a Bash Brother, but he was an anchor piece for those squads, especially come playoff time. He hit .455 in the 1989 ALCS and then .438 in the earthquake-interrupted World Series, which the A’s ultimately won. One of the best-hitting third basemen of his era, Lansford was a .290 career hitter over 15 seasons and won a batting title in 1981 with Boston.

2) Burt Hooton (1950)
Armed with his signature knuckle curve, Hooton carved out an impressive 15-year career, much of which was spent in the Dodgers’ rotation in the late 1970s and early ‘80s and included a World Series ring in 1981. In that run to the title, Hooton was named the NLCS MVP, making two starts against the Expos without allowing a run. Though his time in Los Angeles got off to an inauspicious start, Hooton’s rough spell took a turn after he visited a hypnotist midway through the ’75 season. He went on to win 12 consecutive decisions to close out his season. “The hypnotist turned it all around,” Hooton said. The right-hander also twirled a no-hitter for the Cubs on a rainy day at Wrigley in 1972, finishing it with a line you probably won’t see a lot of today: seven strikeouts, seven walks and 118 pitches.

3) Dan Quisenberry (1953)
“He looked funny, he threw funny, he was funny,” George Brett once said of his beloved teammate Quis. A quirky, quotable, thinking man’s pitcher who published a book of poetry after his career had come to an end, the submarine-throwing Quisenberry emerged from virtually nowhere to become the Royals’ best closer of all time and a Kansas City cult hero. He made three consecutive All-Star teams from 1982-84, finished second in the Cy Young vote twice and set a single-season record for saves at the time with 45. While the late Quisenberry will always be remembered fondly for his contributions on the field to a World Series-winning team, his sense of humor was just as much a part of his legacy. Take the time President Ronald Reagan apologized for mistakenly calling him by the wrong name during a congratulations call after the 1985 World Series. “That’s OK, Don,” Quis quipped in response.

4) Al Smith (1928)
A three-time All-Star who finished as high as third in MVP voting in 1955 -- trailing Hall of Famers Yogi Berra and Al Kaline but leading two others in Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle -- Smith’s solid 15-year career is often overshadowed by one World Series blooper that was not of his own volition. In Game 2 of the ’59 Series, Smith went back for a ball at the wall and ran out of space and directly into a waterfall of beer coming from the first row of the stands. The infamous “Beer Bath,” which was accidental according to the perpetrator, was memorialized in an iconic photo peppered throughout the papers the following day, showing Smith looking directly up at the oncoming flood. “Everywhere I go, that’s the one thing people bring up,” Smith said at the 40th anniversary of that 1959 team. “Maybe I should make some T-shirts and sell them.”

5) Endy Chavez (1978)
There may be other players born on this day with more accolades or better career numbers, but one play alone, one magnificent leap and snow-cone catch at the wall, causes Chavez to catapult into the top five. Had the game ended differently for the Mets (we won’t harp on that moment here), Endy’s robbery of Scott Rolen’s home run and subsequent double play turn in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS might be remembered as the most clutch play ever made in postseason history, right up there with Willie Mays’ basket catch. "My name is not Endy Chavez anymore. It's Endy Catch," he told MLB.com in 2020.

Others of note:

Juan Pizarro (1937)
The durable Puerto Rican southpaw pitched 18 years in the Majors, not including his Winter Leagues work, and was a two-time All-Star with the White Sox. The late great Hank Aaron once said of Pizarro: “I’m not sure I ever saw a pitcher with more ability than Pizarro had when he came to us out of Puerto Rico at the age of 19.”

Zach Davies (1993)
Davies spent the first five seasons of his career in Milwaukee, where he was a reliable member of the rotation and made an NL-high 33 starts in 2017. He pitched the first six innings of a combined no-hitter for the Cubs against the Dodgers on June 24, 2021. The right-hander then pitched for the D-backs in 2022 and '23.

Jasson Domínguez (2003)
One of the most hyped international amateurs in recent memory, Domínguez signed with the Yankees as a 16-year-old out of the Dominican Republic in 2019. The highly touted outfield prospect, who is nicknamed "The Martian," made his Major League debut in 2023. He homered in his first big league at-bat, but played just eight games before his season was cut short due to an elbow injury, which would require Tommy John surgery.

Want to see more baseball birthdays for Feb. 7? Find the complete list on Baseball Reference.