25 for 25: Yankees

and put 1990 Kevin Maas instead of 1988 Jack Clark at DH

If you move Posada to 2007, you need to either move Rodriguez (9.9 WAR in ’07) to another year (necessitating further moves) or find a third baseman in 2000 or some other year (again, more changes). Same thing with Teixeira.

Moving Posada around doesn’t really improve your team enough to offset the downgrade off A-Rod’s great season. And in terms of WAR/WARP1, Teixeira’s ‘09 doesn’t stack up against Giambi’s 7.5 wins. I know Mark’s a much better defender (although that’s not much of a bar to clear there), but Jason was an offensive force. (And Tino’s numbers don’t look so hot, when compared with others on his own teams or the other first basemen.)

As for bumping this out to 2010, you’d probably add Cano, but you would need to replace one of Randolph / Soriano AND Rickey Henderson in 1985 (maybe just move him over to ’87 if you dump Willie).

Every time you make a move you need to replace the player you just bumped and fill in the year you just vacated.
- Cano is at best a push compared to Willie, plus you have to replace Wang and find somebody for ‘87.
- Of course, Gallego is better than Stankiewicz, but ’93 is taken and you need somebody for ’92.
- Matsui would have to replace Sheffield for ’04, which would open a spot for an outfielder, which would necessitate adding Barfield back on the team. Also, using (B-R) WAR / (BP) WARP1, Bernie’s best season is 1995.
- Tino’s ‘97 is nowhere near as good as Giambi in 2002 (switching to him to DH is basically a push with Clark). Plus you’ve vacated ‘02 and kicked Pettitte and Wang off the team.
- If you do it legitimately, adding Key and Cone would bump Stanley at catcher (you don’t have many options) and Brosius at third. And yes, Mussina’s best year was 2001 (maybe the 2nd best of the whole era), but ’08 is a decent fallback position for Moose and allows you to add another quality starting pitcher in Clemens (5+ wins).
- You have 2 or 3 players off the 1998 team (Brosius is already there, and you add Cone and maybe Bernie) and 3 for the ’93 team (Stanley at C, Gallego at SS, and Key at SP).

The point of the exercise is to force you to pick somebody from every season and only one per year. It causes you to make tough decisions and let go of some good players / seasons because you can’t fit them all in.

Plus keeping up with the comments at the websites. So that’s roughly 300-350 hours total work, most done at home, some done at my job during slow days.

That’s just the basic lists – the extended one I did for the 1910-1934 Cardinals teams took 35-40 hours by itself and I still need to do the ‘35-’59, ‘60-’84, and ‘85-’09 teams. But it is quite a bit of fun to research the older players and read the great stories about Pete Alexander and Austin McHenry and Doc Lavan. Also, finding old pictures and putting faces with the names is cool, too.

I know the Yankees and their fans probably have the greatest attention to their history of any of the franchises in baseball, but if someone here wants to give this sort of thing a shot, it is a great introduction to the past for many of the visitors on here. I’m pretty sure few people really talk about the pre-Ruth teams around here.

Then I had a couple Cubs buddies (I live in the northern burbs of Chicago) that know their baseball, so I worked up a couple lists for them (85-09, 10-34). Then I started futzing around with the NL Central and I got the taste for it. At this point I probably couldn’t just drop it – I need to see how it ends.

This is probably better for the offseason, but I need to get this done before season’s end so it’s current. (I started this back in December.)

Although I am contractually obligated to perform objective criticism. Without diving into the numbers, here’s what I see:
- You have 26 players on this team. You have both Sanderson and Hall from the ‘91 team.
- I noticed that you have just one shortstop. There’s not a lot to choose from other than Jeter, is there?
- Not having Rodriguez on the team is a big oversight, but I noticed a minimum number of malcontents and troublemakers, so that might be the reason.
- The combination of a 26-man roster and only one SS means you have 7 outfielders (yet surprisingly no O’Neill).
- Giambi played the majority of his games at first base, not designated hitter. Whether he can be considered a first baseman is another matter entirely.

It is harder than it looks at first glance, but it’s a good thought exercise.