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The Boston Red Sox all-WAR team




So Bless You Boys and Purple Row have already done this with the Rockies and Tigers, so I thought I'd give this a go. We're looking at the best season by Fangraphs' WAR for each position.

I'm Rob Rogacki's methodology for this research, which means that each player can only appear once on the team, and they must have played 50% of their innings at the position in question. Position players were required to have 350 plate appearances to their name that year while starting pitchers must have topped 100 innings.

So here we go, the starting lineup:

C: Carlton Fisk-1977 (7.2)

Rogacki mentions in his article that Bill Freehan's 6.9 WAR season is the sixth-best season by a catcher in American League history. Suck it, Rogacki.

1B: Carl Yastrzemski-1970 (8.9)

Yaz's best year, 1967, came in Left Field. But as you'll see further down the list, we won't be using that.

2B: Dustin Pedroia-2011 (7.7)

Bobby Doerr has the most career war of Red Sox' 2B, topping Pedroia by almost 15 full wins, but Pedroia has the best season.

3B: Wade Boggs-1987 (8.9)

Wade Boggs holds the top six best season for third basemen in Red Sox history. Jimmy Collins, Adrian Beltre, and Boggs twice more round out the top ten.

SS: Rico Petrocelli-1969 (9.6)

Not having done any research before this, I was a little surprised to not see Nomar here, but Petrocelli and John Valentin both had stronger seasons than Nomar's 2000.

LF: Ted Williams-1946 (11.8)

This was Ted's first season back from World War II, it's also the best season by a Red Sox position player, period. Truly astounding.

CF: Tris Speaker-1912 (10.6)

Tris Speaker spent half of his time with the Red Sox before Fenway Park opened, looking at his career numbers you can tell how much help moving to that park gave him, as his numbers make a significant jump.

RF: Dwight Evans-1981 (6.6)

Ted's 1939 was better, but as he's already playing LF, we need to put another Hall of Famer in our outfield. No, I know he doesn't have a plaque there, but when I went to Cooperstown I hid a scrap of paper with his name on it there. So he's in the Hall whether they like it or not.

DH: David Ortiz-2007 (6.2)

I mean, are you surprised?

And the rotation:

Pedro Martinez-1999 (11.9)

Roger Clemens-1988 (9.7)

Cy Young-1901 (9.0)

Smoky Joe Wood-1912 (8.2)

Lefty Grove 1937 (7.9)

As a testament to Pedro and Clemens' dominance, they've filled out all five of the top five seasons of Red Sox pitchers. Joe Wood doesn't show up until #9, and Lefty Grove is outside the top ten entirely.

Well, there you go, your 1901-2014 All-WAR Boston Red Sox. Were there any surprises for you?