On Tuesday (8/26), ESPN ranked the top 3 RS players off all time.
Link
ESPN rank:
1-Ted Williams
2-Roger Clemens
3-Yaz

However, fans on-line voted:

1-Ted Williams
2-Cy Young
3-Yaz

Disclaimer: Fans had to following options to vote for:
Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens, Bobby Doerr, Carlton Fisk, Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, Jim Rice, Ted Williams, Cy Young and Carl Yastrzemski

Fans voted both Manny & Pedro ahead for Clemens. Can Clemens really be argued as a better 'Franchise Player' than Cy Young? Was Clemens really that much better than Pedro and better than Yaz? What's your top 3?


After watching the results on Baseball Tonight, Mrs. VRI says 'of course Cy Young should be ranked ahead of Roger. Clemens won 3 Cy Youngs with us but how many Clemens Awards did Cy Young win?' - that gave me a good chuckle.

When deciding on the best franchise player, I think it's a mix of achievement, longevity with the team, and how the fans remember and adore them. I don’t place Roger Clemens in my top 3 franchise players because of the way he soured his relationship with the fans. My line of thinking is that this player embodies the franchise. My order goes:

1- Ted Williams
2- Yaz
*3- Manny Ramirez

Number 3 may sound like a contradiction, but he did achieve a feat so great that he deserves to push the adoration aside. He was here for 8 years and won two WS rings (1 WS MVP). The only other guy I would place over him is Pedro.

Pass

Where's Tris Speaker?

I think my list goes:

Williams
Speaker
Foxx? Pedro? Manny? Yaz? An argument could be made for any of those. But given that it is ESPN, the criteria for the ranking and the analysis are most likely inane. And, no, I will not RTFA.

I'd vote along with the majority of fans. Williams, Yaz and Cy Young. The longevity thing affects Manny, Pedro and Roger. As much as I'd like to see Rice in the HOF, I'm surprised he's in the list to pick from. To me Williams and Yaz are no-brainers as they not only were great players but they personified the Red Sox. Cy Young is harder to gauge because he was so long ago. I think Pedro was the greatest in his prime with the Sox, but you could argue between him and Clemens for fourth all day long.

Where's Jody Reed!!!!

Cy Young was only with the Sox from age 34 to age 41. He pitched a buttload of innings, and he had some of his best years with the Sox, but he spent the majority of his career elsewhere. I don't see why you would consider him the second-best player in franchise history. Manny, for example, was with the Sox longer, and for more of his prime. Pedro and Clemens both rank ahead of him as the best pitchers in the history of the franchise, unless you feel that throwing crazy IP totals during the deadball era is somehow a bigger accomplishment than complete dominance during the steroid era.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/y/youngcy01.shtml

I don't think I could justify Cy Young.

I mean, the bum only won 18, 13, 21, and 21 games in his last four seasons in Boston. Two of those were losing seasons (the first two losing seasons of his career). He never had a 400-inning season for the Sox. He was in decline towards the end of his time in Boston.

No really. That all sounds ridiculous complaining about a guy winning 21 games, or not pitching 400 innings in a season. But it's not like Cy Young got all of his 511 wins with the Red Sox. He pitched 8 years in Boston. In their respective eras, I'll put Pedro's 7 seasons or Clemens's 13 seasons in a Sox uniform up against Cy Young's Red Sox career if I'm talking about guys who defined the franchise.

EDIT: F**k you, Mr. 4747. I thought of it first. You just type faster.

The man pitched 41 complete games for the Sox back in 1902, rom! What does he have to do to earn your respect???

Young, Clemens, Manny, and Pedro all played a large chunk of their careers elsewhere. If you're going to put Young there, why not Lefty Grove, Jimmie Foxx, or Tris Speaker?

Williams and Yaz are logical choices... for the last spot i'd consider guys like Doerr, Dewey, or Rice.

Sarcasm shields on, but, pitch in a little more "modern era"? Course, it wasn't his fault, but the dead ball era was about as relevant to today's baseball as football before the forward pass is to today's Brady to Moss.

Williams, then Yaz. You can fight over the rest.

But what Pedro did in Boston was like nothing baseball has ever seen. Pedro not being a top 3 is an insult.

Manny
Manny
Manny

Have to offset the alllskor/dink dog self important vote

Agreed. He was the most dominating pitcher of perhaps any era. He was pitching better than nearly anyone else in history in one of the most bloated and medically enhanced offensive eras. We don't even need to run down the numbers, I think every Sox fan and most baseball fans know this by now.

Ted Williams
Pedro Martinez
(insert 3rd person here)

I would not include Yaz if we're judging this by stats. If you want a sentimental pick, then fine, take Yaz. With the exception of a few seasons he was pretty middle of the road when you look at this numbers. I'd be far more apt to put Tris Speaker in there, like others have suggested. If we're talking about all-time great players then stats carry more weight in this than fuzzy memories of your favorite player from your youth.

I think there are two ways to look at this - significance to the franchise, and then performance while wearing the uniform.

The three most significant.

1) Ted Williams
2) Yaz (without Yaz, there is no 1967. No 1967, and there is no fanbase for 2004)
3) Pedro Martinez (broke the historically white franchise into the hispanic market, salved the gaping wound from Clemens leaving, was crucial in winning the team's first playoff series in 13 years with a bum shoulder, and helped win the first World Series in 86 years)

The three top performers

1) Ted Williams
2) Pedro Martinez
3) Cy Young (even though the Red Sox got the tail end of his career, the man put up an ERA+ of 147 over 2728.3 IP. That's nearly equal to Roger Clemens in terms of IP with the team, and more than double how many Pedro Martinez pitched)

Tris Speaker or Manny Ramirez could also easily go in the 3rd spot. I think people forget that outside of 1967 and 1968, Yaz was largely a durable, very good accumulator, not a dominant offensive force (and if you want to claim defense makes up the difference, well, there's Tris Speaker). He doesn't even crack the team's top 10 career OPS+ leaders.

Yaz has to be in there just because he was the guy that made the modern day Red Sox who they are and launched a generation of rabid fans. There was no bigger star when I was a kid. Before he came along, and really before 1967, nobody went to see the Sox. Yaz represented a new group of hard playing guys that would always seem to come close to winning. More than anyone else, he was the Red Sox for many of us. He may not have been the greatest player to suit up in a Sox uniform, but he may be the most important.

I think youre seriously underrating Yaz. He played in an era of extremely depressed offenses and dominated. When he won the triple crown he batted .326/44 HR/121 RBI... bear in mind that this means those numbers(which would be kind of pedestrian today - in any given year a few guys hit those numbers) were each good for the league lead! Yaz led the league in OBP 5 times and SLG 3. He was also phenomenal defensively.

Yaz is not mentioned in this debate because of the Impossible Dream team or because he's so beloved. Nor is it because he's so white and scrappy. Yaz is genuinely one of the greatest ballplayers of all time.

His numbers are not as immediately impressive as they should be because of the era he played in, and that really needs to be taken into account more. The 1960's were hell on offense. When you compare a player like Yaz to a player from today you really have to account for the big differences in offensive context... You give credit to Petey for dominating an era of bloated offenses, but you seem to be neglecting to give Yaz the same credit for putting up excellent defensive numbers during an era when the rest of baseball couldnt hit for s***.

alskor is right to a certain extent. The '60s were just a brutal time to be a hitter. Offensive levels were the lowest they ever hit outside of the dead ball era. Yaz deserves some bonus points for that, but so does Speaker. Oh, and Young gets some negative bonus points, I guess.

This is why we have stats that adjust for era, like OPS+, and Yaz doesn't even crack the team's top 10 of all time with his career. Obviously the sheer dominance of his 1967, 1968, and 1970 campaigns should be recognized, but let's not pretend that he was at a Pedro-equivalent level for 6-7 years in a row. If you want to talk about era adjustments for the offense, combined with defense, then Tris Speaker beats Yaz like a redheaded stepchild, if we're just talking about performance. Significance is obviously another matter entirely.

Williams
Pedro
Yaz

Pedro is the single reason there's a "Red Sox Nation" today. He brought in a brand new demographic of fan.

Color me ignorant but what demographic is that?

He was a top player in the game from 67-70 and then just became pretty good as he transitioned into the 1B/DH role for most of the 70's, which is a position that you'd want or expect more produciton from. Tris Speaker was an elite player for all but two seasons in Boston (his first two, when he was 19 and 20), rivaling his pal Ty Cobb, who is in the Pantheon of elite baseball players. Speaker was a defensive whiz himself too. That lopsided trade to Cleveland looks like it was just as bad as trading Babe Ruth (and just about everyone else).

And I get the fact tha the 67 team helped revitalize the Sox in Boston, but credit should also be given to the players that came after that who kept it going (Rice, Fisk, Evans, Tiant, Clemens, Boggs, etc.) and credit to the Red Sox for being able to develop real talent. Had the club not kept developing more players the Sox could have been a flash in the pan after that season. I think each starts of their era kept the Red Sox relevant and kept putting butts in the seats at Fenway.

Yaz was a fine player, a Hall of Famer, but I can't look at his numbers and say that he's in the top three or anywhere close to what Ted and Pedro were, regardless of his impact on the franchise and the fans.

When we say numbers though, youre ignoring his defensive contributions - which lap Teddy Ballgame's many, many times. When we're talking about the best "ballplayer" Yaz gets boosted back into the top 3 because of that IMHO. Compare him to Ted Williams and obviously he comes up short. Compare him to anybody else, translate for era, and adjust for defense... The guys prime seasons were the peak of the pitchers era - He was age 27 in 1967.

& the reason Yaz's career OPS+ doesnt rank among the best of all time is because he played until he was 43. When you compare him to players in still playing/in their prime youre not treating him fairly. His prime was phenomenal AND he hung around for a long time. Obviously he had a long protracted decline which hurts his career numbers.

As for Speaker, he only played seven full seasons for the Red Sox - and they werent even the "Red Sox" at that point. No one's questioning his greatness, but I dont see how a guy who played for the team in its infancy, and played for such a short time relative to his career can be on the list. He left the Sox at age 27. Plus, when he played for us there is the Cy Young problem - it was a very different game. I havent heard anyone mentioned Foxx, and he has to have nearly as good a claim as Speaker for what they did in Sox uniforms - and I wouldnt consider either for this list.

When comparing NFL teams or players, "post merger (AFL - NFL) is conveniently used to not have to deal with the Red Granges, Bronko Nagurskis and Ernie Nevers of the world (not that they weren't great), who played when the game was far, far different from today. Baseball doesn't seem to have a cutoff, not even the deadball era.

Firstly, Foxx has been mentioned a number of times in this thread, and he certainly deserves to be in the discussion of all-time great Red Sox.

Secondly, Yaz's OPS+ isn't one of the best all-time because he really only had three excellent years with the Sox: 67, 68, and 70. Outside of those campaigns, he was only a bit better than league average with the stick, and he spent a lot of that time at 1b/DH.

Thirdly, I think that you're overstating his defensive prowess. Left field for the Red Sox is one of the easiest defensive positions in all of major league baseball. If he was so good, why wasn't he playing right or center? Why did he spend so much time as a DH? Now, I realize that you are probably of an age where you actually remember Yaz playing but not Speaker, and this is why you are dismissing Speaker's accomplishments because the "team (was) in it's infancy" to use your term. However, there are many of us who don't remember Yaz's playing days, and you don't hear us making an argument that Mike Greenwell is a superior player to Yaz because Yaz played when "the team was in it's infancy." Speaker was better at the plate than Yaz, after adjusting for era, and that is reflected in their OPS+. He was also a better defensive player - that's why he was a center fielder (and a great one) and not a LF/1b/DH like Yaz.

If you want to make the argument that Speaker shouldn't be on a list of all-time great Red Sox because he spent more of his time with Cleveland than Boston, I think that's valid to a certain extent. But he was with Boston for 7 years and change, he won an MVP and a couple championships, and he was completely dominant for almost all of that time. Isn't that essentially the same argument that people are making for Pedro?

I guess that when you boil it down, the argument here is between peak value to the team and longevity with the team. I have a strong preference for peak value or dominance or whatever you want to call it, both because I think it contributes more to winning championships on the baseball field and also just because I prefer it aesthetically. I'll take Pedro over Clemens, Nomar over Omar Vizquel. You simply can't replace Pedro with any other player in baseball when he was at his best, nor could you replace Speaker at his most dominant (unless you had Cobb, I suppose), or Ted Williams for that matter. Outside of 67, I don't think you can say the same thing about Yaz. Anyhow, just my two cents.

My top 3 are:

Williams
Doerr
Yaz
Rice

My top 3 is better than your list. It has more people.

Your list still only has 3 people. Frozen severed heads don't count.

Ted Williams and Yaz are clearly the guys who were Franchise Players. Guys who were the face of the organization, who were leaders.

As for the last guy, I'm kind of stumped. Pedro was great, but hardly seemed able to stay healthy. Nomar was clearly a once in a generation player and face of the team... but his time was so short. Boggs was a Hall of Fame talent who went elsewhere, Rice wasn't a HoFer but he was the face of the team...

I guess if I really had to put one guy in third place, it'd be Pudge. I wasn't alive to see him play (for the Red Sox at least!) but is there anyone else who was as synonymous with the Red Sox? Or as beloved?

(Man, what if Fisk had stayed in Boston all those years? When he was 42 years old he had a OPS+ of 134, and he's a catcher! That's insane.)

You can't eliminate Boggs for going elsewhere and then nominate Fisk who played more games with teh White Sox than the Red Sox.

Well I guess you can, but the reasoning doesn't make sense.

Dude, that was rough. Leave Jim Rice alone.

Maybe I'm wrong, but Baseball Reference list the Boston Americans as last using that name in 1907 (his rookie year, 7 games played) and were the Red Sox during the rest of his Boston career. And if they weren't the 'Red Sox' then do we acknowledge their 1903 World Series championship? It is recognized on pretty much every site.

Anyway, I guess I'm making less of a case for Speaker and more for a case against Yaz. I think he was a fine player, but was only elite for a few years and spent the bulk of his career is a decent 1B/DH. The way I look at it, if I were going to start a franchise and had any of the Red Sox players at my disposal from any time period, who would I want? I'd be silly to choose Yaz over Ted, Pedro, Tris, Foxx, Manny, and so on... Perhaps I'm looking at this in a different way.