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Top 50 Sox Seasons: Honorable Mentions and Links

Well, the Top 50 Red Sox seasons are done, culminating some months of work. Thanks again for all the great feedback. Credits go to "Red Sox Century" by Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson, which provided many dead-ball era anecdotes, as did the New York Times and Sporting News free archives. Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs, of course, remain indispensable for their ability to sort and disseminate a large array of the statistics on which I based my list.

When I started this whole thing, I began by using the B-R Play Index to determine the Top 20 seasons in about 10 or so categories each for hitters and pitchers -- from batting average to OPS+ to runs created, or ERA to ERA+ to wins for pitchers. That gave me a total of 63 hitting seasons, 58 starting pitching seasons and 28 relief pitching seasons, or 148 in all. I whittled those down to a "final 89," which, as I ranked them, I was able to cut further to 75. I initially was going to write up a Top 75 list, but chose instead (out of laziness or perhaps realization that my time before Opening Day was running out) to write up only the Top 50.

Still, that leaves 75 honorable mentions, which I list below, in chronological order with the other 50. You can tell which are the honorable mentions because they don't have links to their individual posts, like the Top 50 do. Without further ado...

Top 50 Sox Seasons #1: Pedro Martinez, 2000

18-6, 1.74/0.737/.173, 217 IP, 284 K, 32 BB, 11.8 K/9, 1.3 BB/9, 8.9 K/BB, 5.3 H/9, 4 SHO, 291 ERA+
Cy Young, All-Star, Sporting News Pitcher of the Year, MVP -- 5

Some day, as ERA+ and OPS+ become more and more acceptable to the mainstream sports commentariat, 291 will be to pitching what .406 is to hitting. Had Pedro Martinez merely put up a 191 ERA+ in 2000, it would have been tied for the 52nd-best mark of all time. But he exceeded that by 100 points.

Let me state this unequivocally: Not only did Pedro Martinez in 2000 post the best season by any player in Red Sox history, he posted the best pitching season ever in the history of baseball. His 1.74 ERA, stripped of all context, is still in the top 100. When considering the league-average ERA in 2000 was 5.07, the mind boggles. No hitter has ever bested the league-average OPS by 190 percent – no one’s really ever come close.

Top 50 Sox Seasons #2: Ted Williams, 1941

.406/.553/.735, 1.287 OPS, 606 PA, 185 H, 147 BB, 37 HR, 120 RBI, 335 TOB, 12.3 AB/HR, 235 OPS+
All-Star starter, ML Player of the Year, MVP – 2

.406.

You know what it is. No labels. No context. You don’t even need to be a Red Sox fan or a particularly serious baseball fan. You hear it; you know it. .406. The magic number.

But 1941 was about so much more than just .406; one could say Williams was so good that year, he managed to overshadow even himself.

Top 50 Sox Seasons #3: Pedro Martinez, 1999

23-4, 2.07/0.923/.210, 213.1 IP, 313 K, 37 BB, 13.2 K/9, 1.6 BB/9, 8.5 K/BB, 6.8 H/9, 243 ERA+
Postseason: 3 G, 2-0, 17 IP, 6 BB, 23 K, 0.00/0.647/.089
CY Young, All-Star starter and MVP, MVP – 2

We all as Red Sox fans must have done something right to have been granted the privilege of watching this skinny Dominican throw a baseball.

From the beginning of the season, Pedro was a revelation – proving that his 1997 was no fluke, and that the tastes of dominance he’d shown us the year before were just that: Mere tastes. The main course was so much better. For the first and only time in my life, I remember commentators realistically wondering whether a pitcher could win 30 games. Through 79 games in 1999, Martinez had won 15, and he entered the All-Star game the unquestioned best pitcher in the game.

Top 50 Sox Seasons #4: Carl Yastrzemski, 1967

.326/.418/.622, 1.040 OPS, 680 PA, 189 H, 91 BB, 44 HR, 121 RBI, 360 TB, 79 XBH, 284 TOB, 193 OPS+
MVP, ML Player of Year, All-Star starter and MVP, Gold Glove

There’s a simple reason why this is one of the top two offensive seasons in Red Sox history – most of us are likely Red Sox fans because of it.

We all know the story. A dissatisfied Tom Yawkey, never recognizing the team-building flaws that continually thwarted his efforts to win a championship for Boston, is tired of losing money on the Red Sox. Attendance is sinking – Fenway draws just over 800,000 in 1966, an average of just more than 10,000 fans per game – as is the team, finishing ninth out of 10 AL teams. He begins thinking seriously about moving out of Boston, leaving the Hub of the Universe with no big-league teams.

Then came Yaz.

Top 50 Sox Seasons #5: Cy Young, 1901

33-10, 1.62/0.972/.236, 371.1 IP, 158 K, 37 BB, 7.9 H/9, 3.8 K/9, 0.9 BB/9, 4.3 K/BB, 5 SHO, 216 ERA+

There are plenty of reasons why Cy Young – the first dominant pitcher of the American League – is deserving of so high a rank for his 1901 campaign. The pitching Triple Crown (the first and only time he would manage that), the stratospheric ERA+ (fourth-highest in team history), the silly-low walk rate (which he would actually surpass three times in Boston).

But the real reason is because without Cy Young performing so well, American League baseball may never have survived in Boston. Granted, players like Buck Freeman and Eddie Collins also played roles, but Young was the fan favorite, and his 33 wins equaled 42 percent of the team’s total of 79 (in 2008 terms, that’s 94 wins, and a pitcher would have to win 39 games to equal Young’s percentage, which stood as a big-league record until Steve Carlton broke it in 1972). It should be no surprise that the pitcher whose blazing fastball was partially responsible for moving the mound back 10-and-a-half feet played such an important role in Boston.

Boston scored a coup, making headlines across the country when it signed Young on March 10 – something the Trenton Times called a “clever trick.” He opened the Huntington Avenue Grounds less than two months later with a 12-4 win. In July, he won 12 straight games, including his 300th. He won 20 games by his first start in August and 25 wins before September. Although the Americans slumped in August and fell from the race, Young was the Red Sox’ first superstar, enshrining Boston’s love with its superstar pitchers – those who won or contended for the award named for Young himself, from Lonborg to Clemens to Martinez to Schilling to Beckett.

Key game: Aug. 27. With Boston and Chicago fighting in the first American League pennant race, Young is lights out against Detroit, giving up just a first-inning run. But Roscoe Miller is just as good, allowing Boston to tie in the second but giving nothing more. They match zeroes for another 12 innings before Boston breaks through for a second run in the top of the 15th. Young retires the side in the bottom half, having managed to scatter 11 hits and two walks for his 25th win.

Top 50 Sox Seasons #6: Roger Clemens, 1990

21-6, 1.93/1.082/.231, 228.1 IP, 209 K, 54 BB, 8.2 K/9, 3.9 K/BB, 4 SHO, 213 ERA+
Postseason: 2 G, 0-1, 7.2 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 5 BB, 4 K
All-Star, MVP – 3, CYA – 2

One need look no further than 1990 to understand Red Sox’ fans stormy relationship with Rocket Roger. On the one hand, his regular season was amazing – by many measures his best in a Boston uniform. He posted his lowest ERA, highest ERA+ (despite the lowest league ERA in his career), fewest walks and far and away the fewest runs. In his final 12 starts of the season, Clemens posted a 0.97 ERA with four shutouts, seven games with zero runs allowed and a 9-2 record. Only Bob Welch’s 27-win season kept Clemens from his third Cy Young in five seasons.

The season marked the return of Clemens to dominance. After posting steadily declining numbers since his breakout 1986 campaign, Clemens opened a monster three-season peak with this, his highest ERA+ season until 1997. After 1992, no pitcher had had a better three-year peak from ages 27-29, and the only two to do it since are Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez.

Top 50 Sox Seasons #7: Ted Williams, 1957

.388/.526/.731, 1.257 OPS, 546 PA, 163 H, 119 BB, 38 HR, 87 RBI, 67 XBH, 11.1 AB/HR, 233 OPS+ All-Star starter, Major League Player of the Year, MVP – 2

Those who look for career-year performances at an old age as an indicator of steroid use should beware the example of Ted Williams – who was 38 and 10 years removed from his last full 200 OPS+ season. In 1957, Williams was fighting off injuries and age. He hadn’t played 150 games since 1948, 145 games since 1951. After two years in Korea, he played only 117 and 98 games. In 1956, Williams played in 136 games, the most in five years. While he was excellent (175 OPS+), it did not portend the monster year that would follow.

Top 50 Sox Seasons #8: Pedro Martinez, 2002

20-4, 2.26/0.923/.204, 199.1 IP, 239 K, 40 BB, 6.5 H/9, 10.8 K/9, 6.0 K/BB, 202 ERA+
All-Star, CYA -- 2

Pedro Martinez had only himself to blame. Returning from an injury-plagued 2001, Martinez’s last two healthy seasons had been among the best in the history of the sport. Yet in 2002, he lost the Cy Young to Barry Zito, he didn’t manage to win any of the player or pitcher of the year awards given out by any other agencies, and the season on the whole is overlooked when considering Martinez’s dominance as a member of the Red Sox. This, obviously, is a disservice to the baseball history we witnessed.

Top 50 Sox Seasons #9: Babe Ruth, 1918

.300/.411/.555, .966 OPS, 380 PA, 95 H, 58 BB, 11 HR, 66 RBI, 48 XBH, 194 OPS+
13-7, 2.22/1.046/.210, 166.1 IP, 40 K, 49 BB, 6.7 H/9, 121 ERA+
Postseason Batting: 1-for-5, 3B, 2 RBI
Postseason Pitching: 2 G, 2-0, 1.06/1.176/.203, 17 IP, 2 ER, 4 K

He scoffs when he hits a single, merely lifts his eyebrows at a double, begins to take a little interest in life when he hits a triple, and only begins to have a good time when he slams out a home run. That’s George Babe Ruth, the caveman of baseball, who is whaling away to fame this season with the Boston Red Sox. – The New York Times, July 21, 1918.

Putting together arguably the most unique season in Red Sox history, Ruth divided his time as a pitcher and an outfielder and was phenomenal at both. Ruth’s abilities as a pitcher were clearly slipping – either because he was fading or because he was concentrating on his offense instead. Nevertheless, he had this final great year, one of the 10 best in the league.

Meanwhile, Ruth’s bat became a wonder of baseball. The Red Sox as a team hit 15 home runs – 11 of which were by Ruth. Eleven home runs were more than the Senators and Browns hit combined. On the mound, Ruth was second in WHIP and winning percentage and fifth in ERA. Ruth is certainly the only player to post OPS+ and ERA+ both over 120 while qualifying for the batting and ERA titles. Only two other full-time pitchers have ever also qualified for the batting title, with the Giants’ Doc Crandall in 1910 the only other player to even approach Ruth’s numbers at the plate and on the mound.

As Stout and Johnson note, Ruth’s remarkable 1918 season – which showed he was likely a better hitter than a pitcher – was only made possible by World War I, which left Boston short on players and forced manager Ed Barrow to try Ruth out as a hitter in spring training. Baseball would never be the same.

Key game: Aug. 24. Ruth the pitcher hurls a gem against St. Louis, giving up just five hits and one run, with two walks and four strikeouts. On offense, with Ruth at third and Jack Coffey on first, the Babe steals home on the front end of a double steal. The Red Sox win, 3-1.