The Pyramid Rating System’s All-Time Boston Red Sox

In my last installment of the Pyramind Rating System series, I began to tackle the best all-time rosters I could put together for each team. The first team I broke down was the Orioles, and today I’m tackling the Red Sox.

Paul Moehringer’s Pyramid Rating System & All-Time Teams Aug. 27, 2015: The Pyramid Rating System: JAWS on a Career Scale March 15, 2016: The Pyramid Rating System: The Results Aug. 12, 2016: The Pyramid Rating System All-Time League and the All-Time Baltimore Orioles

What is the Pyramid Rating System and what is the thesis behind my all-time teams? Well, if you’re interested in diving into the minutae, I would suggest reading the articles in the box on the right. But if not, here’s the quick breakdown, from the article entitled “The Pyramid Rating System All-Time League and the All-Time Baltimore Orioles.”

The idea behind this is not just to imagine what each of these teams would like look on its own but also to mirror what the Great American Fantasy League does, and put each of the teams in context of what a whole league of all-time teams would look like. What I’ve tried to do with each of these franchises is build a team and a strategy behind it for a 162-game regular season as opposed to just naming off the best players at each position, or just listing the best season a player had at each position.

Again, there’s more to it than that, but that should you give the basic idea.

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Franchises Included: Boston Americans (AL) 1901-1097, Boston Red Sox (AL) 1908-Present
# Of Hall of Famers on 25-man roster: 6
Manager: Terry Francona

Despite the franchise’s history and long-term success, the Red Sox have surprisingly only had two managers in their team’s history who have managed at least 1,000 games. One is Joe Cronin and the other is the manager of the Pyramid Rating League’s all-time Red Sox, Terry Francona.

Throughout Francona’s seven year tenure in Boston, the Red Sox were a consistent American League powerhouse, reaching the postseason five times, winning the World Series twice, and never experiencing a single season below .500. In fact, Francona has the longest tenure of any manager in Red Sox history never to experience a losing season.

Since his somewhat controversial firing, Francona has gone on to experience continued success in Cleveland, where he has yet to post a losing season to this point, and is putting himself into serious Hall of Fame discussion.

Best Overall Player, Hitter and Position Player: Ted Williams

Even though its been over 50 years since he retired, “The Splendid Splinter” still easily ranks as the greatest Boston Red Sox player of all-time. In this league, Williams would be a solid contender for the Silver Slugger, but may be taken out of MVP discussion due to the fact that on this team he will be used almost solely as a DH. Doing this covers Williams’ biggest weakness as a player, which was his defense, and with a left field platoon of Fred Lynn and Carl Yastrzemski the Red Sox will have one of the best defensive left fielders around no matter who plays.

Among AL hitters who could match Williams at the plate, you could count the number on one hand and still have fingers left over. Over a 19-year career with the Red Sox, Williams batted .344 and had a .482 on-base percentage, which ranks first all-time. Added to a .634 slugging percentage, he had a career OPS of 1.116, second only to Babe Ruth in both categories.

Williams led the league in walks eight times, and never struck out more than 50 times in a season. While that strikeout total might rise given the increased number of power pitchers Williams would be facing, even in a league as deep and talented as this one Williams would be a threat to win the Triple Crown. Without having to worry about defense, Williams would be able to focus solely on hitting. Given his dedication to the science, it could be enough free time to make him the best hitter in either league.

Best Pitcher: Roger Clemens (Honorable Mention: Pedro Martínez)

I promise I won’t be doing a 1 and 1A mention for every team, but as with Baltimore it wouldn’t be fair to mention one without also bringing up the other, given how closely the two rank and how great both pitchers were. With all due respect to Jim Palmer and Mike Mussina, neither was even close to how dominant both Clemens and Martínez were at their peak with the Red Sox.

Between Clemens and Martínez, they led the AL in ERA eight times, wins three times and strikeouts five times. They have a combined five Cy Young Awards between them. Martínez’s 2000 season is viewed by many as the greatest season ever by a pitcher. His 1.74 ERA would rank among the league leaders in any year, but in the teeth of the steroid era a 1.74 ERA ranked nearly two full runs lower than the second-ranked pitcher in the AL that year — Clemens.

In Clemens, we have what is in my opinion the greatest pitcher of all-time. Without the one-team-only rule, Clemens would be on the 25-man roster for all four teams he pitched for, including Toronto. Two years is normally not enough for me to justify somebody being on an all-time team, but when your ERA+ over those two years in 196, and you pitched over 230 innings in both years, I would make an exception.

Without question, though, his best years came in Boston. His 13-year tenure with the Sox was by far the longest he had with any team and his three Cy Young Awards were also the most he won with any team.

With all due respect to the other dream one-two combos, I think this is the best of the bunch. Unlike a lot of the other dream one-two combos however, this could actually have happened if the Red Sox had kept Clemens.

Best Player Not on the Roster Due to the One-Team-Only Rule: Lefty Grove

The Red Sox could have featured the best starting rotation in the AL. In addition to losing out on Grove, the Sox also lose out on Cy Young. (Keep in mind what I mentioned in the first article about including Young’s peak seasons and being “city-centric” with where players were placed.)

With the Red Sox, Grove led the AL in ERA four times. If that were added in with Clemens and Martínez, the front three of the Red Sox rotation would have led the AL in ERA 12 times over a combined 28 seasons, or more than 40 percent!

As great as Grove was in Boston, there is little doubt that his golden years came under Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s, who are included as their own team independent of the Oakland Athletics.

Even without Grove and Young the Red Sox still have one of the deepest and strongest rotations in the AL, but their joint loss takes them out of contention for having the best rotation in the AL.

Strengths

Offensively, the Red Sox have one of the top three lineups in the AL. Nearly every starter was an MVP at one point in his career with the Red Sox, and those that weren’t all finished in the top 10 in MVP voting in at least two seasons. It is this type of depth that allows the Red Sox to leave both Jim Rice and David Ortiz off the 25-man roster, as there is more than enough offense to make up for their loss, and there are plenty of better defensive players to choose from. Of the first six hitters in the Red Sox lineup against righties, five are in the Hall of Fame and with the exception of Fisk, all bat from the left side of the plate.

One of my favorite little quirks with this team is the platoon situation at first base with Carl Yastrzemski and Kevin Youkilis. No matter if you’re a lefty or a righty, you’re facing a perennial .300 hitter with power hitting from his favorite side of the plate.

We have another platoon situation in left between Lynn and Yastrzemski, both far better defensive players than Williams. The biggest reason Lynn is not in the Hall of Fame is because he could never hit lefties (just a career OPS of .710). But with the depth of this team, he never has to and can focus solely on bashing righties, something he did quite well. In 1979, Lynn batted .364 against righties and hit 34 of his 39 home runs on the year in just under 400 at-bats. That’s a home run in roughly every 12 at-bats.

Defensively, the Sox are nearly as strong, featuring a former Gold Glover at every position. The big question mark to me would be the man in center, Tris Speaker. One the most underrated players in baseball history and the all-time leader in doubles, he is a fairly easy call to get the starting nod, but while his bat’s greatness is a given, his glove may not be.

Its nearly a unanimous consensus that Speaker was the greatest defensive outfielder of his era, but how would the greatest defensive outfielder of the 1910s and ’20s compare against Andruw Jones, or Paul Blair? We don’t know.

I don’t think any outfielder from that era would compare well against his modern counterparts, but Speaker might be the one exception. The way he played center field probably couldn’t be replicated in this league given how much livelier the ball is. How well Speaker could make that adjustment can’t be tested, but if he is even as half as good as his legend claims he was, I still think we are at worst looking at an average defensive center fielder and combined with his bat, he would still be an All-Star candidate. If his glove was anything better than average, he could be a dark horse for MVP and with Williams being limited to just DH duty, Speaker might be the most valuable position player the Sox have.

Returning to pitching, the Red Sox have one of the AL’s better rotations. Having Ellis Kinder as the No. 3 starter might seem like a bit of a gamble, but he had a 23-win season and if there were any struggles I would have no issue with moving him to the bullpen and bringing in either Tex Hughson or Derek Lowe to take his spot in the rotation.

In terms of the bullpen, the Red Sox have one of the best seventh-eighth-ninth combos in all of baseball. Most remember Bob Stanley for being on the mound when the ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs in the ’86 World Series, but Stanley was also one of the most dominant relievers in the American League throughout the ’80s, appearing in two All-Star Games and twice finishing in the top 10 in Cy Young voting. For several teams that would be good enough to be the closer. On the Red Sox he’s a “bridge man” for the non-green monster.

In Dick Radatz, the Red Sox have one of the best closers in this all-time league. From 1962-’64, I think it could be argued that Radatz wasn’t just the best reliever in baseball, but the best pitcher as well. Over that three year stretch Radatz went 40-21 with a 2.17 ERA over 414 innings pitched, struck out more than a batter an inning and had a strikeout to walk ratio of better than 3:1. Some even argue that he’s a Hall of Famer. I don’t know that three great years is enough to justify that, but few pitchers, starter or reliever, had as great a stretch as Radatz had from ’62-’64. For this reason, I would put Radatz in the top five for closers around the league.

Weaknesses

Probably the biggest strength on this Red Sox team is that it has no real weaknesses. Aside from Dustin Pedroia, there isn’t a single easy out to be had when facing a righty and against lefties only Carl Yastrzemski stands out as a player I would prefer not to have up, but calling a former MVP and a Hall of Famer an easy out relative to the rest speaks to how dangerous the Red Sox lineup really is.

Top to bottom this ranks as one of the best teams in the AL, but facing a lefty heavy lineup could potentially cause problems for Boston. Jon Lester and Tom Burgmeier aren’t the only left-handed pitchers. When Clemens and Martinez are on the mound, I don’t think it would be much of an issue, but with every other starter a left-handed dominant lineup would give me some cause for concern.

Conclusions

In the Red Sox, I see a team that even in this league should be a given to win 90+ games. The fact that there are MVPs who don’t make the 25-man roster is the biggest testament I can offer to how deep the offense is.

The biggest omission from the team obviously is David Ortiz. In my opinion, he is the best player in history not on a 40-man roster for some team. As mentioned in the first article, my primary purpose is to show how these teams would be built, which is not the same as a straight ranking system. If I were to rank Red Sox position players all-time, Ortiz would be in the top 10. But so would Jim Rice, who also misses the 25-man roster for much the same reason as Ortiz. They provide value in areas where the Red Sox are already incredibly strong.

For Ortiz to be on the team, he would have to be the DH; he doesn’t meet the position qualifications for any defensive position, including first base. Throughout his career in Boston, the Red Sox have always carried two first basemen and the same would have to happen here. Yastrzemski and Youkilis take care of that, but the real issue lies in who Oritz would be replacing. The obvious choice would be either Bobby Doerr or John Valentin. Ortiz ranks far ahead of them, but losing either would leave the Red Sox without a backup second baseman or shortstop.

The likely victim would be the starting right fielder, Dwight Evans. Against righties it makes no difference. The Red Sox would be defensively downgraded with Williams being forced out to left field and Lynn in right. Against lefties though, Lynn and his career .710 OPS would still be starting in right field, in a league where virtually every team has at least one starting left-handed pitcher who was an All-Star. That pretty much wipes what you gain with Ortiz hitting instead of Evans who, keep in mind, led the AL in OPS twice during his career and, unlike Lynn, is a very good hitter to have up against righties. Dwight Evans had a career OPS of .910 against lefties. That’s why I have him batting fourth against lefties as opposed to seventh against righties. How would the Red Sox lineup look with Ortiz in the lineup?

The right-hand side of the lineup, I think, is an overall upgrade. The five batters hitting in front of Ortiz (Boggs, Speaker, Williams, Lynn and Yaz) would set him up for tons of RBI opportunities. The left-hand side, though, is a far bigger downgrade than the right side is an upgrade and that’s on top of the defensive downgrade with Williams in the field now in place of one of the all-time great defensive right fielders. They go from being beatable against lefties to flat-out vulnerable, and if you want to have any chance at beating the Yankees, you will need to hit left-handed pitching. Also remember: The Philadelphia A’s are their own team. They’re in the AL East along with the Red Sox, and their starting staff contains three Hall of Fame lefties.

As fun as it would be to have Ortiz on the roster, there’s just no way to get him in without also taking out a would-be starter. If it’s any consolation though, I think having Ted Williams as a DH is a pretty good replacement and not having to play Williams in the field gives the Red Sox perhaps the best defensive outfield in the league. Even assuming the worst with Speaker, few could hold a candle to what the Red Sox have.

It’s tougher to explain why Ortiz isn’t on the 40-man roster. If the team didn’t have Williams, I would put Ortiz on the 40-man roster, probably even on the 25. But unless Williams was injured, Ortiz would be a left-handed pinch hitter for an AL team loaded with left-handed bats.

If Williams got hurt for an extended period of time I would probably put Ortiz on the 40-man roster in place of Rico Petrocelli and promote him to the 25-man team in place of Williams.

But again, this is not a straight ranking system. It’s building a team, where it’s not always the best players who play every day. Just because I don’t have Ortiz listed doesn’t take away from the fact that he has over 500 career home runs, is maybe the greatest DH of all-time, and is a possible future Hall of Famer. I look at it as an indication of how great the Red Sox have been as a franchise that they could do away with someone like Ortiz and still be one of the most dominating teams I will write about in this series. Like a guy who doesn’t want a free Porsche because he already has a Ferrari in the garage. That’s the Red Sox.