Over 1200 players have picked up a bat and over 700 players have thrown a pitch wearing a Boston uniform, so who has made the most of his opportunity with the franchise? FenwayFanatics.com, home to Boston Red Sox fans everywhere, presents a new series this season that takes a look at the all-time top 25 pitchers and positional players in franchise history. Players past and present who have played at least four years in Boston are ranked according to totals accumulated with the Red Sox through the end of the 2007 season.

To further qualify, pitchers must have started at least 50 games or made 100 appearances and thrown a minimum of 440 innings, while positional players must then have a combined totaled of at least 720 at-bats and walks and played a minimum of 200 games. Rankings are then decided strictly by regular season numbers, so post-season heroics don’t count here, nor do Cy Young and MVP awards, batting titles, no-hitters, and All-Star selections, among others outside factors.

Our inspiration comes from Baseball-Reference.com, the definitive site for statistics tied to every player in Major League Baseball history. In addition to providing the batting, pitching, and fielding statistics of each player, it also ranks players based on the statistics and accomplishments of former players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. One of those is the Hall of Fame Career Standards measurement, which is used “…to measure the overall quality of a player’s career as opposed to single brilliance (peak value)…”[1] and based primarily on similar methods used by Bill James in his book, The Politics of Glory. From there, we tweaked the formula for our own use[2] and the results will be published here over the next six months. Stay tuned!

[1] Leader Glossary. Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved 07 April 2008.
[2] FenwayFanatics.com All-Time Top 25 Rankings Explained.

Tags: Boston Red Sox, top players