Red Sox All-Time Team v.2012

Last year's team can be seen here.

The Red Sox are one of the most storied franchises in baseball history.  It's important to note that we have a post-1920 rule for our teams.  We only make exceptions to that rule if a player was truly an all-time great, having played the majority of his exceptional career in a particular city and if no other worthy alternatives exist.  With that in mind, we decided to pass on Cy Young and Tris Speaker.  Those two were certainly pre-1920 all-time greats but not necessarily Red Sox greats (neither don the Red Sox cap in Cooperstown).  Passing up on Young was a very painful decision for me - Young had six 20 win campaigns with Boston in eight seasons and led them to a World Series win in 1903.  The problem is that less than half of Cy's 511 career wins were earned in Boston.  You could say that we're wrong and you might be right but we went with a couple other pitchers that we felt deserved recognition on this team.

We had to add an infielder and two starting pitchers to last year's team.

The extra infield spot came down to David Ortiz, Nomar Garciaparra and Johnny Pesky.  This was a very painful decision.  Pesky is Mr. Red Sox.  Nomar won two batting titles and was revered by the fans.  Big Papi secured his place in Red Sox lore by slugging .569 against the Red Sox.  At the end of the day, we went with the only player of those three to lay claim to a World Series victory. 

To round out the rotation, we added Luis Tiant and Mel Parnell. Tiant is very underrated - borderline Hall of Fame - and thankfully for Red Sox fans, he spent 8 years in Boston. Parnell is another guy that deserves recognition on this team. He spent his entire ten year career in Boston, winning 123 games to go along with a 3.50 ERA. He had four 18 win seasons (two 20 win seasons) and found his way onto four MVP ballots. We passed on a few guys like Jim Lonborg and Tim Wakefield but I feel confident with this rotation.

A few current players (Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury) could eventually player their way onto this team but for now, the only active and current Red Sox on this team is Big Papi.

Here's our team.  Tell us what you think.

C - Carlton Fisk
1B - Jimmy Foxx
2B - Bobby Doerr
SS - Joe Cronin
3B - Wade Boggs
IF - David Ortiz
OF - Ted Williams
OF - Carl Yastrzemski
OF - Jim Rice
OF - Dwight Evans
SP - Pedro Martinez
SP - Roger Clemens *
SP - Luis Tiant
SP - Mel Parnell
CL - Jonathan Papelbon

4 comments:

  1. Tris Speaker! Better player than 3/4 outfielders listed here.
    Joe Wood - short career, arm problems, but deserves to be on this list

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  2. Not going to argue with you about Speaker being better BUT the question is this - is he a better representative in the OF for the Red Sox All-Time team? To that, I'd say no. It's close... but he has two things working against him; he's not wearing a Red Sox cap in Cooperstown (he played significant time in Cleveland) and he played pre-1920 which makes it tough for comparison. In the end, we've got four outfielders that rank 1,2,3 and 4 in hits, HR, RBI and runs scored as a Red Stocking (in various order but they're all in the top 4 - of any position, mind you). Again, we want the best represenatives, not the best players. Very important distinction... we'll almost always go with tenure over prime for these teams. Our All-Decade teams tend to be more prime oriented.

    We did discuss Joe Wood, too... pre-1920. We will use pre-1920 players on occasion but they have to be all-time greats - guys like Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Cap Anson and Christy Mathewson. Joe Wood didn't quite measure up in that regard but if you look at prime only, Joe Wood had as much talent as anyone.

    Thanks for commenting.

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  3. Let's see.. I'd Replace Cronin with Garciaparra..I think he was just better. Ortiz's hitting is just too solid to ignore so I guess Cronin would be off my team. If Tris Speaker had played longer with the Sox maybe replace Rice with him. But he didn't. I couldn't resist putting Babe Ruth on the pitching staff though. You know, just because.

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  4. I agree with Nomar over Cronin. Not sure how Cy Young doesn't get into the all time great category and on the team over Parnell. Could even make the case for Lefty Grove.

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