New York's Baseball All-Time Dream Team

What would a dream team roster look like for major league players born in New York?

Issue #110

This is the 15th article in a series where I am creating all-time dream teams for players born in each of the fifty US states. I’m publishing each write-up on the anniversary date that the particular state joined the union. So far I’ve covered Maryland, Louisiana, Minnesota, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Virginia, Idaho, and Wyoming.

Next up is the big state of New York—which also happens to be my home state, as I live in Rochester, NY. New York was one of the original 13 colonies, and became the 11th state admitted to the union on July 26, 1788 (according to Wikipedia.) New York is of course one of the most populated states, so there were a wealth of candidates to consider here.

Important caveat to what follows: I’m creating these all-time dream teams based on the birthplace data available at baseball-reference.com. I realize this might mean some players will appear for a state’s all-time dream that seems odd, e.g., a player who was born in one state but lived there only briefly, while then spending most of his youth, or especially critical years playing baseball in high school in another state. So that is an important caveat to the below dream team roster—and I’ll discuss the players that I know went to high school in a state other than New York towards the end of this article (and vice-versa, those born elsewhere but who went to high school in New York.)

Here is the all-time dream team I came up with for players born in New York:

This roster is loaded given how populated New York state has been throughout baseball’s entire history. 2B is has three Hall of Famers (Collins, Frisch, and Biggio) and one should-be Hall of Famer (Whitaker). And 1B has arguably the greatest ever in Gehrig, along with Greenberg, Brouthers, and Yastrzemski—who gets the nod as the top LF on this roster.

You could argue how to rank the guys at a few other positions such as CF, RF, and SS, with I think A-Rod and Joe Torre being the obvious starters at 3B and C, respectively. Old-timer King Kelly also spent time as a catcher, as did B.J. Surhoff—but they were both quite versatile defensively so I gave them two utility spots on this dream team roster.

There were many other position players that I considered, and they deserve at least honorable mention, including Jimmy Collins, Bid McPhee, Heinie Groh, Joe Judge, Johnny Evers, Deacon White, John McGraw, Phil Rizzuto, Tommy Davis, Mike Griffin, George Burns, Rico Petrocelli, Tommy Holmes, Heinie Zimmerman, Frank McCormick, Cy Seymour, Bobby Bonilla, Ross Barnes, Dave Orr, Snuffy Stirnweiss, Richie Zisk, A.J. Pierzynski, Raúl Ibañez, and Fats Jenkins, a star of the Negro Leagues.

Starting lineups for this all-time dream team could look like this:

Against RHP:

1. Eddie Collins 2B (L)

2. Álex Rodríguez 3B (R)

3. Carl Yastrzemski LF (L)

4. Lou Gehrig 1B (L)

5. Dan Brouthers DH (L)

6. Joe Torre C (R)

7. Andy Van Slyke CF (L)

8. George Davis SS (S)

9. Willie Keeler RF (L)

Against LHP:

1. Frankie Frisch 2B (S) / Craig Biggio 2B (R)

2. Álex Rodríguez 3B (R)

3. Hank Greenberg LF (R)

4. Lou Gehrig 1B (L)

5. Rocky Colavito RF (R)

6. Edgar Martinez DH (R)

7. Joe Torre C (R)

8. Tommy Leach CF (R)

9. George Davis SS (S)

As noted earlier, some positions here are crowded with star players, so you could create a variety of reasonable starting lineups. For instance, while I am an advocate for Lou Whitaker for the Hall of Fame, I had to go with Eddie Collins as the starting 2B against RHP. Since Frisch was a switch-hitter and Craig Biggio batted right-handed—and like Collins they would work well as leadoff men here—I listed both of them as the 2B against LHP.

Similarly there were a lot of great hitters between 1B and LF. As it so happens, Yastrzemski hit righties far better than lefties, and Hank Greenberg hit lefties far better than righties, so I decided to platoon them in LF. I couldn’t see ever benching Lou Gehrig, so I worked old-timer Dan Brouthers in as a DH, platooning him with Edgar Martinez. Two other platoons that made sense were Andy Van Slyke and dead-ball era star Tommy Leach in CF, and then Willie Keeler and Rocky Colavito in RF.

As for the pitchers, you could debate what order the starters should be arranged in, but I went with Warren Spahn’s consistent excellence over a long career in the first spot, followed by Sandy Koufax’s shorter brilliance. I then went with Jim Palmer in a close call over Whitey Ford, followed by another Yankee great, Waite Hoyt, to round out the five-man rotation.

You could make a case for Orel Hershiser over Hoyt for that spot of course, and then I rounded out the starting staff with two 19th century hurlers in Old Hoss Radbourn and Mickey Welch. I considered several others, and they deserve at least honorable mention, including Frank Viola, John Tudor, Sal Maglie, John Candelaria, Johnny Antonelli, Johnny Podres, Eddie Lopat, Hooks Wiltse, Hal Schumacher, Dick Rudolph, George Earnshaw, Herb Score, and old-timers Ed Morris, Will White, and Larry Corcoran.

For the bullpen, there were plenty of candidates to consider, and I ended up listing ten on this roster. I started with John Franco, whose 424 career saves still ranks fifth all-time. I then went with several outstanding relievers (Face, Murphy, McMahon, Konstanty) who pitched prior to the stronger specialization of the role we’ve seen in recent decades, before returning to more recent closers and setup men (Johnson, Koch, Giusti, Betances, Ottavino.) How exactly you choose to order these guys in a list could be debated, as could whether a few others should have been included instead, such as Joe Sambito, Heathcliff Slocumb, or Ted Wilks.

To wrap up, several of the above players were born in New York but grew up and in particular went to high school in other states, including at least the following:

• Alex Rodriguez = Florida

• Jim Palmer = Arizona

• Orel Hershiser = New Jersey

• Edgar Martinez = Puerto Rico

• Lou Whitaker = Virginia

• Babe Herman = California

What about the other direction—born elsewhere but went to high school in New York? I found several good players like that:

• 1B/2B Rod Carew, born in Panama, but went to HS in New York City

• LF/RF Manny Ramirez, born in the Dominican Republican, but went to HS in New York City

• RP Joe Nathan born in Texas, but went to HS in Pine Bush, NY

• 2B Willie Randolph, born in South Carolina, but went to HS in Brooklyn, NY

• 1B Mo Vaughn, born in Connecticut, but went to HS in Pawling, NY

• CF/LF Bobby Thomson, born in Glasgow, United Kingdom, but went to HS in Staten Island, NY

• CF Devon White, born in Jamaica, but went to HS in New York City

• LF Ben Oglivie, born in Panama, but went to HS in Bronx, NY

• SP Tom Browning, born in Wyoming, but went to HS in Malone, New York

So if you were to remove the players who went to high school in other states, and include some of the above, here are the changes I’d make to the roster:

• Frankie Frisch would be elevated to be the starting 3B in place of Rodriguez.

• Rod Carew would take the roster spot of Lou Whitaker, and split time with Eddie Collins at 2B against RHP, and get some at-bats as a DH too.

• Manny Ramirez would take Babe Herman’s roster spot, and be in the mix in RF and DH (LF is crowded with Yastrzemski and even Greenberg, given this roster’s 1B talent).

• Joe Nathan would get included on the roster, and be either the number one or two reliever listed.

• Willie Randolph, Mo Vaughn, Bobby Thomson, Devon White, Ben Oglivie, and Tom Browning would all get some consideration along with the others I mentioned above as honorable mentions, in order to replace the roster spots of Jim Palmer, Orel Hershiser, and Edgar Martinez.

All data is from Baseball-Reference.com, and also their subscription service Stathead.com. If you are a big sports fan, be sure to check out the latest features at Stathead and the Sports Reference family of sites. The state map, flag, flower, and bird images are from Wikipedia.

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Did you know? I wrote a book with the same title as this Substack newsletter / blog: Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises. It was published in early 2019, by ACTA Sports, the publisher of the annual Bill James Handbook and other popular titles. You can learn more about it at www.NowTakingTheField.com, or buy directly at Amazon and other booksellers.