Who Was the 5th-Greatest Yankee? (The I-Know-Who-Won't-Win Poll)

Real question: who else is 1-4? Ruth, Gehrig, ...?

The I-Know-Who-Won't-Win Poll == Wade Boggs, obviously.

Mantle and DiMaggio. I wouldn't doubt that one or two players on the list above accumulated more WAR than DiMaggio, but I'm sure overwhelming consensus would put him in the top four.

I was thinking more of a player ILB loves to ridicule.

Ah, Home Run Baker.

Check that--looks like DiMaggio has the 4th-highest WAR as a Yankee too. The one guy I thought might be ahead of him isn't that close.

I do get a little exasperated with all the Home Run Baker jokes around here.

francisco cervelli

I'd say Yogi Berra.

That's who I thought might have been higher than DiMaggio, but he's not that close. Here are the top 10 batters and pitchers mixed together:

Babe Ruth	142.7
Lou Gehrig	112.4
Mickey Mantle	109.7
Joe DiMaggio	78.2
----------------------
Derek Jeter	71.6
Yogi Berra	59.4
Mariano Rivera	56.6
Bill Dickey	55.8
Whitey Ford	53.9
Willie Randolph	53.7
Alex Rodriguez	52.5
Andy Pettitte	51.6
Bernie Williams	49.4
Ron Guidry	47.9
Red Ruffing	46.8
Lefty Gomez	43.2
Bob Shawkey	42.8
Mel Stottlemyre	40.6
Waite Hoyt	35.6
Mike Mussina	35.1

I guess I should have had Bob Shawkey on the list.

yeah this is clearly jeter, though who knows how much differently we'd look at berra or dickey with newer defensive stats

I'd say Rickey Henderson is the best player on the list, but obviously his career was spread across many clubs.

Yogi Berra was on 13 Championship clubs, which is just a staggering number. (Keep in mind that Babe Ruth only won 4 titles with the Yanks.) I'd say in Yankee mythology, Berra ranks higher than Jeter. As players, they are probably kind of a wash, they both were great but really different talents. Stengel stated he thought Berra was the best ball player he managed over Mantle and DiMaggio. I remember seeing Jeter on Letterman years back when the Yanks won I think their 3rd or 4th title with Torre and the Captain stated that Berra reminded him of how many Championships he won with the Yanks as perspective.

Whitey Ford lost a couple of years to Korea which would have perhaps put him up another place or two in WAR totals.

Voting Yogi, past a diving Jeter.

none of them are true yankees

Phil Linz? (Actually, I wish a had included Bouton as personal tribute.)

I hate this thread for informing me that Cap is that high in WAR.

At least this will balm my soul:

http://news.upperplayground.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ef1a91002a05x426.jpg.jpg

I might be inclined to look at this positionally. Jay Jaffe has Berra as the 6th greatest catcher, Jeter as the 12th greatest shortstop, and Rivera as the 2nd greatest reliever. (Behind Eckersley, but I think his JAWS number includes his years as a starter--if so, Rivera's #1.) So I don't know--the assumption now (for good reason) is that closers are pretty replaceable, but we know Rivera is an exception to the rule. Championships (adjusted for how much more difficult it is to win one now) I'd count as a wash, or at least would reduce Berra's advantage.

Yogi Berra played a fair amount of outfield later in his career when Elston Howard came to the Yankees. If you look in the famous Mazeroski home run in the 1960 World Series it's hit to left field and you see Berra running up to the outfield in chase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE1nYMg-jU4

I'd be interested in seeing the math on which is harder: Berra's 10 World Series wins in an eight-team league (10 towards the end) with one round of playoffs, or Jeter/Rivera's five in a 14/15-team league with three rounds of playoffs. Pretty close would be my guess: twice as many wins, but only 2/3 as many teams and 1/3 as many playoff rounds.

Yogi
[ (1/10 + 1/9) * 0.5 ] ^ 10
Cap/Mo
[ (1/15 + 1/14 + 1/13) * 0.5 ^ 3 ] ^ 5

Shortcut:

http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/casey-stengel-hof.jpg

I might be inclined to look at this positionally. Jay Jaffe has Berra as the 6th greatest catcher, Jeter as the 12th greatest shortstop, and Rivera as the 2nd greatest reliever. (Behind Eckersley, but I think his JAWS number includes his years as a starter--if so, Rivera's #1.) So I don't know--the assumption now (for good reason) is that closers are pretty replaceable, but we know Rivera is an exception to the rule. Championships (adjusted for how much more difficult it is to win one now) I'd count as a wash, or at least would reduce Berra's advantage.

― clemenza, Wednesday, April 9, 2014 7:25 PM (Yesterday)

i'm kind of against this sort of analysis -- positional adjustments are included in the WAR calculations. it's certainly possible that WAR -- particularly as applied to players from several generations ago -- undervalues catchers, but we don't really have the ability to say that.

literal human genius dave cameron said the HOF benchmark for catchers should be like 45 WAR iirc so there's one vote for undervalues

dudes fucking destroy their entire knees by the age of 9 cut them some slack

(xpost) I know WAR adjusts for position, I'm just wondering if relative WAR when looking at a group of players who play that position matters. Rivera's JAWS calculation is 43.0, placing him 17.3 ahead of Lindy McDaniel in 12th (I'm eliminating Eckersley for the reason cited above). Berra's JAWS is 48.1, placing him 6.7 ahead of Mauer's 12th-place 41.4. Jeter's 56.9 is the 12th-greatest mark, so he's neutral. If you use career WAR instead of JAWS, the gaps would be comparable.

Does this matter in judging who's more valuable? I honestly don't know.

I'm just looking at the batters, but it's interesting to check WAR/PA to see how the players with less years with the Yankees fared while they were with the club. Here's the top 40 (minimum 1000 PAs):

Name	        WAR/PA	PA
Babe Ruth	        0.0163	9197
Lou Gehrig	0.0120	9660
Mickey Mantle	0.0113	9909
R Henderson	0.0109	2735
Joe DiMaggio	0.0108	7671
Charlie Keller	0.0101	4466
Joe Gordon	0.0095	4216
Alex Rodriguez	0.0087	5657
Mike Stanley	0.0083	1604
Brett Gardner	0.0080	2268
Bill Dickey 	0.0079	7060
S Stirnweiss	0.0077	3800
Yogi Berra 	0.0076	8355
Roger Maris	0.0076	3475
Mike Gallego	0.0075	1023
Gil McDougald	0.0074	5395
Red Ruffing	0.0073	1589
Tommy Henrich0.0071	5409
George Selkirk	0.0071	3322
Del Pratt	        0.0070	1774
Graig Nettles	0.0070	6248
Thur. Munson	0.0069	5904
Willie Randolph	0.0069	7464
Tony Lazzeri	0.0069	7058
Frank Baker	0.0068	2820
Reggie Jackson	0.0067	2707
Butch Wynegar	0.0067	1712
C Granderson	0.0064	2148
Ron Blomberg	0.0064	1324
Robinson Cano	0.0064	5791
Earle Combs	0.0063	6507
Wade Boggs	0.0063	2600
Ben Chapman	0.0063	4014
Jorge Posada	0.0063	7150
Oscar Gamble	0.0062	1707
Bill Skowron	0.0062	4102
Derek Jeter	0.0062	12005
Jesse Barfield	0.0062	1525
Phil Rizzuto	0.0062	6711
Kid Elberfeld	0.0061	2743

Neat. Not surprised Rickey's so high--he was peak-value during a couple of his Yankee seasons, and should have won MVP in '85 (146 runs in 143 games...him or Brett).

Yogi is a legend in his own mind and ours. I would vote for Ol' Case if we were counting managers, possibly ahead of DiMag.

looking at this has schooled me on the fact that Charlie Keller was, for a while, really really good! His 7-year run from 1939-46 was outstanding (41 fWAR) and his mediocre numbers starting in 1947 appear to the be the result of injuries (ruptured disc in his back)

I've narrowed my vote to Jeter or Rivera. Berra was obviously a great player, and I have nothing against him. But looking at the three MVPs, they seem to be a bit of a red herring. The first one, in '51, he had a good case: highest WAR among Yankees, tied for sixth among position players, and the leader, Williams...well, he wasn't going to win; he was 32, having a relatively normal year by his own standards, and the Red Sox finished 3rd (Williams finished 13th).

The other two are shakier. In '54, he's seventh among position players, but Mantle's ahead of him on the Yankees, and Avila, Williams, and Minoso are well ahead (Minoso, playing for a 94-60 team, almost three full games). In '55, he's ninth among position players at 4.5. Three Yankees are ahead of him. Kaline, at 8.3, is far ahead--the Tigers finished 5th that year, so if you hold that that matters, as I do (please, let's not get into another argument about that), I'll cut some slack there. But Mantle was at 9.5 (and somehow finished 5th). That has to be one of the largest gaps ever. If that vote happened today, and the writers talked about leadership and grittiness and all that other stuff as the rationale for their vote, I'm guessing Berra would become a target of scorn among sabermetricians in the way that Jeter is.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

lame

Who voted for Pettitte?!

I voted for Jeter in the end. The disdain for him outside of New York will always be a bit of a mystery to me.

Neyer talks to Jim Bouton about '64

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/world-series-1964-jim-bouton-yankees-interview-102414