Pinstripe Alley’s Top 100 Yankees

At the beginning of October, I put out a call for help. Ten years after Pinstripe Alley first began a Top 100 Yankees project, we were going to do an updated edition — one that would actually be written to its completion. I wanted some fan submissions to help us compile our overall rankings, and we’re very appreciative of those who sent in lists!

Today, Pinstripe Alley’s revised Top 100 Yankees will commence. Here’s how the master list came to be:

1. Among the PSA staff, Jake, Matt, John, Josh, Esteban, Peter, Sam, Andrés, Kevin, Casey, Noah, and I all submitted lists. Each list was given equal weight in the final tally.
2. To get a neutral perspective, I found the Top 100 Yankees by both Baseball Reference WAR and FanGraphs WAR, averaged the rankings, and created a single Top 100 from the resulting list. This is by my own admission not an entirely perfect method since different elements go into calculating each version of WAR, but it’s the one I chose to get a couple different objective rankings.
3. One last list came from the aforementioned fan vote. We had quite a few lists come in via e-mail, and while plenty were from people who just read the site rather than comment, I do want to salute PSA community members SJNYCPianoYank, pjhimself, Why’s The Name Gone, NJYankeeFan, rutgersstu, Citizenghosttown, francesco smith, and quingbokong for submitting lists! The final fan list was created from the 100 Yankees who had the highest average rankings.
4. A grand total of 216 different Yankees received votes for the Top 100! Obviously, not everyone ranked all 216 names, so whenever someone failed to appear on a list-maker’s Top 100, they were automatically given a ranking of 101. That way, the absence was acknowledged with no assumptions made regarding how low they might have fallen, and I didn’t have to haggle everyone for even longer lists.
5. The master list came from the average of the 14 sources noted in bold font above. The 100 highest-ranking names made the final cut.
6. With all due respect to the Casey Stengels and Gene Michaels of the world, no managers or executives were considered. Comparing non-playing personnel to the men on the field is like comparing apples and oranges; hell, peanuts and sweater vests might be closer.

If you have questions about some of the players included, I will direct you to this:

There will be criticisms about some players on our Top 100, but the simple thing that people don’t necessarily realize is that 100 is a big number! Even if you take the time to write down all the obvious Hall of Famers and dynasty staples, I can almost assure you that you are going to have quite a few spots left over for guys on the bubble who were superb players across a few years.

I think that this is a pretty damn good list, but also try not to get too attached to the rankings. They’re simply a device for us to remember 100 of the greatest Yankees in the 120 years of franchise history, which is the real fun of the endeavor!

We’ll begin from the bottom of the list today and I’ll update this post with links to each new story about a Top 100 players. Barring an emergency change of schedule, this series will run every day, sans holiday, from today until its completion in early February. That should take us to just before when pitchers and catchers report for 2024, so that works out pretty well.

Enjoy the rankings, stories, facts, and figures, and thanks in advance for reading!

100. Nick Swisher
99. Johnny Damon
98. Chien-Ming Wang
97. Ray Fisher
96. Ernest “Tiny” Bonham
95. Jimmy Key
94. Bobby Richardson
93. Scott Brosius
92. Mickey Rivers
91. Curtis Granderson
90. Joe Pepitone
89. Bucky Dent
88. Lou Piniella
87. Alfonso Soriano
86. Tony Kubek
85. Chris Chambliss
84. Dellin Betances
83. David Robertson
82. Wade Boggs
81. Al Downing
80. Eddie Lopat
79. Russ Ford
78. George Selkirk
77. Ray Caldwell
76. Fred “Fritz” Peterson
75. Clete Boyer
74. Jim “Catfish” Hunter
73. Frankie Crosetti
72. Vic Raschi
71. Frank “Home Run” Baker
70. Ben Chapman
69. Tom Tresh
68. David Wells
67. Sparky Lyle
66. Orlando “El Duque” Hernández
65. Tommy John
64. Allie Reynolds
63. Masahiro Tanaka
62. Bill “Moose” Skowron
61. Coming December 4th
60. Coming December 5th
59. Coming December 6th
58. Coming December 7th
57. Coming December 8th
56. Coming December 9th
55. Coming December 10th
54. Coming December 11th
53. Coming December 12th
52. Coming December 13th
51. Coming December 14th
50. Coming December 15th

(and so on)