Greatest Living Red Sox...and All Time too

TheoShmeo

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The CHB had a good column the other day on Yaz.

Early on, Dan referred to him as the Greatest Living Red Sox.

I’m old enough to have seen Yaz, though not to have experienced the 1967 season in any real way.

But I still saw a lot of his career and he was my first favorite Red Sox.

To me, the Greatest Living Red Sox is David Ortiz. And it’s not particularly close. 3 titles. Leadership and performance roles on each. So many key hits and walk offs.

Is this Dan Being Dan or is there a good case for Yaz?

Does Pedro enter into the conversation?

Again, I think it’s Tiz by a lot. And my only question is Greatest Red Sox ever, with the David versus Ted discussion being much more even.

Who do you have in that one?
 

Leather

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Yaz is the all-around best living Red Sox player (96.4 WAR!). But Ortiz has the claim to the most iconic/glorious.

Either one can be the "greatest" depending on how you define that term.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
The CHB had a good column the other day on Yaz.

Early on, Dan referred to him as the Greatest Living Red Sox.

I’m old enough to have seen Yaz, though not to have experienced the 1967 season in any real way.

But I still saw a lot of his career and he was my first favorite Red Sox.

To me, the Greatest Living Red Sox is David Ortiz. And it’s not particularly close. 3 titles. Leadership and performance roles on each. So many key hits and walk offs.

Is this Dan Being Dan or is there a good case for Yaz?

Does Pedro enter into the conversation?

Again, I think it’s Tiz by a lot. And my only question is Greatest Red Sox ever, with the David versus Ted discussion being much more even.

Who do you have in that one?
Depends entirely on what you mean by "great". On the one hand you have all the stuff you mentioned for Ortiz, on the other you have the fact that Yaz was easily the better all-around player of the two -- an even better hitter than Papi in his prime, and obviously much more valuable on defense and on the basepaths. His performance was the deciding factor in one of the most thrilling pennant races in baseball history.

Much as I hate to ever say these words, I think CHB got this one right.
 

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Yaz combined incredibly high peak seasons, (Yaz 67 is arguably the best season from a position player anyone alive has ever seen from a player in a RS uniform, with Betts 18 the only one even close) with incredible longevity.
Pedro had the greatest peak overall, doing his one thing extremely well.
Yaz outshines Ortiz primarily because he (Yaz) added so much value in the field.
Betts is the one who will be most likely to topple Yaz from this throne, after a few more seasons.
 

InstaFace

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First off, it's definitely CHB being CHB and he's trying to rile people up, with an extra helping of doing-down the brown guy. I'm sure it's still a coincidence this 53rd time.

That said, a vote for Ortiz would be heavily weighting (1) recency, (2) his team happening to win titles, and (3) his showmanship / personality.

I was born the year he retired, but Yaz has him beat as a batter, in longevity, and certainly as a fielder. Late-career Yaz dragged down his career OPS+ averages a bit, but whether you're just talking about single best years or top-7 or career WAR or whatever metric you like, it's not even close in favor of Yaz.

Best season:
Yaz 1967: .326 / .418 / .622 / 1.040 in 161G, 193 OPS+, 12.5 WAR, MVP-1 by a mile
Ortiz 2007: .332 / .445 / .621 / 1.066 in 149G, 171 OPS+, 6.4 WAR, MVP-4

Best 7-year run: (used in HOF discussions)
Yaz 1964-1970: .298 / .399 / .519 / .918 in 155 G/yr, 153 OPS+, 52.3 WAR, with an MVP and 3 other top-10s
Ortiz 2010-2016: .292 / .383 / .562 / .945 in 137 G/yr, 151 OPS+, 25.3 WAR, with 2 MVP top-10s
(yes, 2010-2016 was better than 2002-2008)

Career WAR:
Yaz 96.4 (35th in baseball history)
Ortiz 55.3 (238th in baseball history)

I mean, I love Papi, but he wasn't even the best hitter on his team until they shipped Manny out of town, and I bet he'd agree with that statement if asked.
 

Ale Xander

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This one is hard because 2004 was Pedro's worst as a Red Sox. But that 1998-2003 peak was so dominant, too bad he got hurt in 2001. I have to give the edge to Pedro. He was a better pitcher than Ortiz or Yaz were positional players.

Ortiz has the rings (plural) though.
If 1997 he wasn't in Montreal, but here, this would look better for Pedro.
 

Ale Xander

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Yaz combined incredibly high peak seasons, (Yaz 67 is arguably the best season from a position player anyone alive has ever seen from a player in a RS uniform, with Betts 18 the only one even close) with incredible longevity.
Pedro had the greatest peak overall, doing his one thing extremely well.
Yaz outshines Ortiz primarily because he (Yaz) added so much value in the field.
Betts is the one who will be most likely to topple Yaz from this throne, after a few more seasons.
99-00 is arguably the best 2 year stretch from a pitcher, in ANY uniform, though.
 

BaseballJones

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Pedro's peak was better than anything else the sport has ever seen. One amazing fact is that he never threw a no-hitter, which, given the number of unbelievable games he pitched, I still find hard to believe. He had no-hit stuff almost every time out for like 7 straight seasons. But I'm biased...you could get me talking about Pedro nonstop for days and I wouldn't even begin to break a sweat.
 

DJnVa

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First off, it's definitely CHB being CHB and he's trying to rile people up, with an extra helping of doing-down the brown guy. I'm sure it's still a coincidence this 53rd time.
It's him "doing-down the brown guy", but in the end you actually agree with him?
 

Ale Xander

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Also we paid a higher price to obtain Pedro than Yaz or Papi, so it has to be Pedro.


/snickers
 

Ale Xander

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Oh and Pedro is the one who was responsible for Theo getting Papi here. So if you count the front office production, its a cakewalk.
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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99-00 is arguably the best 2 year stretch from a pitcher, in ANY uniform, though.
Pedro's WAR from baseballreference.com:
1999 9.8
2000 11.7

Yaz:
1967 12.5
1968 10.5

WAR is obviously not everything, but I think this illustrates just how dominant Yaz was at his peak for those who didn't see him. And just as Pedro gets points for accomplishing what he did in perhaps the most offensively warped era of the modern game, Yaz's best years were in the worst offensive era of the modern game.

I love me my Pedro (and Big Papi) but Yaz was pretty special.
 

Ale Xander

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If Pedro was pitching in 1967, he'd probably have an 0.25. Just not sure if that would be WHIP or ERA.
 

InstaFace

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It's him "doing-down the brown guy", but in the end you actually agree with him?
Fair question. I'm ascribing motivations to him based on his words and history. It's not like his article digs into stats, it's just war stories and wasn't-life-grand-back-then nostalgia. He plays up the whole "Greatest living" thing like 3 times in his first few paragraphs about Yaz, he knows exactly what buttons he's trying to push in his readers.

Edit: The fact that the numbers back him up is coincidence, I feel pretty confident in claiming.
 
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Dewey'sCannon

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I started watching baseball in '67, so I saw Yaz through his peak years as well as his long, slow decline (and was at the game when he finally got his 3000th hit). In those peak years, he was just head-and-shoulders above everyone else, in a era with little offense, as reflected by his WAR and OPS+ numbers.

Pedro had a similar peak, in terms of being head and shoulders above everyone else in a high offense (juiced) environment. But that was basically all we got. We did not have his early years (Expos) or his decline years, which were spent with other teams and were not nearly as long or productive as Yaz'.

Papi was great, but not as much head and shoulders above the competition in his era. He obviously gets a lot of extra credit for helping to lead his team to three titles. But even then, he did not carry any of those teams on his back the same way Yaz did. And Yaz earns big points over Papi for his base running and defense - he was a tremendous LF in his prime, and a solid 1B even in his later years.

It's gotta be Yaz.
 

Moviegoer

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My head tells me Yaz. Then decides to go watch Papi's grand slam against the Tigers on youtube.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Fair question. I'm ascribing motivations to him based on his words and history. It's not like his article digs into stats, it's just war stories and wasn't-life-grand-back-then nostalgia. He plays up the whole "Greatest living" thing like 3 times in his first few paragraphs about Yaz, he knows exactly what buttons he's trying to push in his readers.

Edit: The fact that the numbers back him up is coincidence, I feel pretty confident in claiming.
So you're reading into his column for racism where there is zero evidence of it?

I mean, Shaugnessy's first (or 10th or 36th) sentence isn't, "David Ortiz sucks, Pedro Martinez is a bum and Mookie Betts blows. Yaz rules!" He said that Yaz is the best living Red Sox player, which at least by the numbers, he probably is. And I'm not the world's biggest Yaz fan, mostly because I didn't grow up in that era and he never did it for me the way someone like Ted Williams did. But Yaz was pretty awesome and his 1967 was otherworldly.

AND you came to the exact same conclusion as Shaughnessy. I'm not sure exactly why you're dragging race into this.
 

InstaFace

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So you're reading into his column for racism where there is zero evidence of it?

I mean, Shaugnessy's first (or 10th or 36th) sentence isn't, "David Ortiz sucks, Pedro Martinez is a bum and Mookie Betts blows. Yaz rules!" He said that Yaz is the best living Red Sox player, which at least by the numbers, he probably is. And I'm not the world's biggest Yaz fan, mostly because I didn't grow up in that era and he never did it for me the way someone like Ted Williams did. But Yaz was pretty awesome and his 1967 was otherworldly.

AND you came to the exact same conclusion as Shaughnessy. I'm not sure exactly why you're dragging race into this.
Hey man, don't make me justify my knee-jerk sportswriter hate and I won't make you justify yours :)

Back to the topic?
 

Bergs

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Yaz. And that CHB article is just an awful piece of writing.
 

curly2

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You could make a case for Yaz on playing ability alone, but what he meant to the franchise probably puts him over the top. The modern-day Red Sox, and "Red Sox nation" were born in 1967.

It's mind-boggling to think this, but the Sox had back-to-back games in 1967 where the attendance was 461 and 409. On Opening Day -- Opening Day! -- in 1967, the attendance was 8,324.

The 67 team made the Sox relevant again, and his amazing 12.5 WAR season -- which was part of a 96.4 WAR career, more WAR for the Sox than anyone not named Ted Williams.

I have issues with Shaughnessy sometimes, but he is not putting down any brown people here.
 

Spacemans Bong

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I know Fris has put forth a pretty well-argued case that CHB is prejudiced, but yeah I'm with the majority opinion on this one: CHB isn't stirring the pot, Yaz is just better.

Ortiz's sole argument is rings. He wasn't even really a better postseason performer than Yaz, because Yaz has a higher OPS. It's just sheer volume. So basically the argument is David Ortiz had better teammates than Carl Yastrzemski. Yes, yes he did.
 

reggiecleveland

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Yaz has Henry, Theo, Tito, Farell he wins a ring.

Henry doesn't allow his team to skip BP before a WS game.
Theo has better options to pitch in 77, 78
Tito, Farell pitch Bill Lee
 

curly2

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Yaz has Henry, Theo, Tito, Farell he wins a ring.

Henry doesn't allow his team to skip BP before a WS game.
Theo has better options to pitch in 77, 78
Tito, Farell pitch Bill Lee
Bill Lee decides not to show off and throw an eephus pitch in the World Series, Yaz has a ring.

(Yes, I know the inning should have been over if not for a Denny Doyle throwing error, but two wrongs don't make a right).
 

JokersWildJIMED

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To say that Yaz is a better postseason performer than Ortiz because of OPS is ludicrous. Yaz appeared in 17 post season games (talk about SSS), posting an OPS of 1.047 with Ortiz appearing in 85 games with an OPS of .947. A better comparison would be WS games, where Yaz (.993) in 14 games to Ortiz's 1.372) in 14 games.
 

BoSox Rule

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So Ortiz deserves all of the praise he gets. He was a great hitter, a great leader, and a key piece on three championship teams. Every body here would have killed for one title. He consistently came up big when it mattered.

Yaz is one of the 25 or so best positional players of all-time never mind living.
 

Minneapolis Millers

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Bill Lee decides not to show off and throw an eephus pitch in the World Series, Yaz has a ring.

(Yes, I know the inning should have been over if not for a Denny Doyle throwing error, but two wrongs don't make a right).
44 years later and this is still aggravating me.

It's Yaz. Longer peak than Pedro. Longer career than any Sox. Higher peak than Ortiz. Carried that Impossible Dream franchise back into relevance, as others have noted.

Yaz is one of the 25 or so best positional players of all-time never mind living.
I love Yaz, but I'm not sure about this. He's not in the top 25 hitters for WAR all-time, and there are guys on the list behind him who were probably better but didn't play as long (like Clemente).
 

Al Zarilla

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You could make a case for Yaz on playing ability alone, but what he meant to the franchise probably puts him over the top. The modern-day Red Sox, and "Red Sox nation" were born in 1967.

It's mind-boggling to think this, but the Sox had back-to-back games in 1967 where the attendance was 461 and 409. On Opening Day -- Opening Day! -- in 1967, the attendance was 8,324.

The 67 team made the Sox relevant again, and his amazing 12.5 WAR season -- which was part of a 96.4 WAR career, more WAR for the Sox than anyone not named Ted Williams.

I have issues with Shaughnessy sometimes, but he is not putting down any brown people here.
Clicking on your links, the 461 and 409 attendances were in 1965, not 1967. Makes sense, duh, especially the games being in September.

I vote Yaz for his great peak years, solid long, long career and great fielding, which BBREF DWAR doesn’t agree with. Like Reggie said, give Yaz the ownership and manager, although what was wrong with Dick Williams, and he has rings now.
 

BostonWolverine

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I was going to make an argument for Boggs but Yaz hit nearly as well, stole nearly as many bases as Boggs' career in a single season, has 3-times as many gold gloves, and isn't a terrible human...
 

LoweTek

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The thing about Yaz is he was so much better in his day than almost anyone else, especially in the American League. There were very few players at the time who could bring his complete game: hit for average, OBP and SLG; run, field, throw, clutch, etc. It was difficult toward the end and when he decided to finish it was probably a year or more later than it should have been. He earned it though.

The problem was he never had the supporting cast Ortiz or Pedro had.

The front office tried to surround him with better players but they were always going after right handed power bats (wall ball), when all along it was the pitching never having enough depth. I swear every Street & Smiths* I ever read would say, "If they get pitching, watch out!"

It really explains both '67 and '75. They got pitching; not quite enough but it was the difference.

I really can't argue with the claim he is the greatest living Red Sox. He's getting older though. He turns 80 in August. If you saw him play, this fact makes you feel a tad older. He was always a heavy smoker too. I'm not sure if he still is but it's pretty incredible he's made it to 80. I hope he gets the chance to see his grandson (Orioles org) play MLB. I'm sure it would be a treat for him.

*Street & Smith's was an annual pre-season team by team analysis of the upcoming season. It was a magazine usually released each year around late January, IIRC. It was all you had in the Winter in those days. Apparently, they still publish it.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Tom Seaver.

Though assuming the question is not just "best player that ever played for the Red Sox" then I have nothing to say that hasn't already been said.
 

Kliq

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What is interesting is that the main case for Papi would be the three rings, the kind of cache he had in the community, and his local popularity. As great as Pedro and Manny were, I don't think they can touch Ortiz when it comes to local popularity; Ortiz is up there with Orr, Bird and Brady as the most popular athletes to ever play in Boston.

Yaz though was a local sensation as well, and his success with the Sox during the 1960s and 70s revitalized Boston as a baseball town and if it were not for Yaz, it is unlikely that Papi would be such a legend today. The bottom line is that it is an incredibly fortunate question for Red Sox fans to ponder.

One thing I hope ages really well with Papi is the 2013 World Series, which was one of the greatest performances in the history of baseball. Over six games Ortiz made 25 plate appearances, went 11-16, walked 8 times, struck out once, and finished with an OPS of 1.948. For the series, the Sox hit .211 even with Ortiz hitting .688. For those six games, NOBODY was hitting except Ortiz, and yet almost single-handily, he hit enough for the Sox to win the series. I'd argue it is the greatest championship performance in Boston sports history, which is really saying something.
 

Bergs

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One thing I hope ages really well with Papi is the 2013 World Series, which was one of the greatest performances in the history of baseball. Over six games Ortiz made 25 plate appearances, went 11-16, walked 8 times, struck out once, and finished with an OPS of 1.948. For the series, the Sox hit .211 even with Ortiz hitting .688. For those six games, NOBODY was hitting except Ortiz, and yet almost single-handily, he hit enough for the Sox to win the series. I'd argue it is the greatest championship performance in Boston sports history, which is really saying something.
Good thing Mike Matheny is a complete moron.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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One thing I hope ages really well with Papi is the 2013 World Series, which was one of the greatest performances in the history of baseball. Over six games Ortiz made 25 plate appearances, went 11-16, walked 8 times, struck out once, and finished with an OPS of 1.948. For the series, the Sox hit .211 even with Ortiz hitting .688. For those six games, NOBODY was hitting except Ortiz, and yet almost single-handily, he hit enough for the Sox to win the series. I'd argue it is the greatest championship performance in Boston sports history, which is really saying something.
Imagine if the ball he hit for a sac fly had been a little bit higher and went for a grand slam. He was amazing that series. Funny to think he was 5-19 with 6 Ks before the grand slam in game 2 of the ALCS.
 

Kliq

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Imagine if the ball he hit for a sac fly had been a little bit higher and went for a grand slam. He was amazing that series. Funny to think he was 5-19 with 6 Ks before the grand slam in game 2 of the ALCS.
Yeah, when I went to dig up the stats from the WS I figured he was a beast for that entire playoff run but he was actually really bad in the ALCS; he was a beast in the division series against Tampa though.
 

snowmanny

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Pedro's WAR from baseballreference.com:
1999 9.8
2000 11.7

Yaz:
1967 12.5
1968 10.5

.
The funny thing is that in 1968 most fans didn’t notice that Yastrzemski was having THAT a great year, apart from the .301 batting title. We were all excited about Hawk Harrelson and confused by the pitching dominance.
 

reggiecleveland

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The writers loved Yaz. They loved his hard luck immigrant story, his name and the short nickname, his hustle, his tance, but mostly they loved he wasn't Ted.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
I know Fris has put forth a pretty well-argued case that CHB is prejudiced, but yeah I'm with the majority opinion on this one: CHB isn't stirring the pot, Yaz is just better.
Both/and is not only possible but a near-certainty in this case.

I was going to make an argument for Boggs but Yaz hit nearly as well, stole nearly as many bases as Boggs' career in a single season, has 3-times as many gold gloves, and isn't a terrible human...
Yaz hit "nearly as well" for his career only because his decline started a bit sooner. Their career wRC+ and OPS+ numbers are virtually identical, Yaz trailing Boggs by 2 and 1 points respectively. But in their peak years, Yaz was a bit better. In Yaz's six-year peak, from age 25 to 30, he had a 158 OPS+, 35th all-time for that age span. Boggs' best six-year OPS+ (also age 25-30) was 154, 53rd all-time.
 

BostonWolverine

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Both/and is not only possible but a near-certainty in this case.



Yaz hit "nearly as well" for his career only because his decline started a bit sooner. Their career wRC+ and OPS+ numbers are virtually identical, Yaz trailing Boggs by 2 and 1 points respectively. But in their peak years, Yaz was a bit better. In Yaz's six-year peak, from age 25 to 30, he had a 158 OPS+, 35th all-time for that age span. Boggs' best six-year OPS+ (also age 25-30) was 154, 53rd all-time.
I can definitely understand why some would argue that Yaz was better, I just have a bias towards OBP driven OPS numbers.
 

Al Zarilla

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Sure, but less than 500 people at a major-league baseball game?
In 9th place most of the season and 20s to 30s GB, not much incentive to go to Sox games late in the season (I didn’t look up individual orioles games attendance last year). I vaguely remember what was I think a common joke back then. One Red Sox fan says to another “Sox didn’t do bad last night.” “Oh, what happened?” “They didn’t play.”
 

nvalvo

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Something I just noticed: there are a relative handful of position players who have at least one 10+ WAR season.

14+: Ruth
12+: Yaz
11+: Bonds, Hornsby, Gehrig, Ripken, Wagner, Cobb, Mays, Musial, Morgan
10+: Betts, Williams, Collins, Foxx, Mantle, Trout, Yount, Boudreau, Sosa, Banks, Rosen, Speaker, Harper, Lajoie, Petrocelli,

The only players in that list who aren't in the HOF are Bonds, A-Rod, Sosa, Rosen, Harper, Trout and Betts.