2001 Fleer Red Sox 100th Pt. 16: Babe Ruth

NAME: Babe Ruth

POSITION: Starting Pitcher, Outfielder

WHY IS HE HERE?:  Arguably the most famous baseball player of all time.  Ruth started his career in Boston as a starting pitcher, but gradually was moved to the outfield.  He had a record of 89-46 with a 2.19 ERA in 1,190.1 innings with 483 strikeouts.  He had his best season in 1916 when he was 23-12 with a league-leading 1.75 ERA.  In his only full season as a position player for the Red Sox in 1919 he set a then-record with 29 home runs and led the league in runs (103), RBIs (113) and twice led in home runs.     

WOULD I PUT HIM IN IN 2001?:  Absolutely.  

ANY BETTER CHOICES IN 2001?:  The only better choices are already in the set.

WOULD I PUT HIM IN NOW?:  Once again, of course.

ANY BETTER CHOICES NOW?:  Guys like David Ortiz and Mookie Betts are probably among the more popular players since this set came out.  And those players absolutely would be in the set.

The Worst Red Sox Team of All Time Pt. 34: Howie Storie

Failure is often even more fascinating than success. I am definitely intrigued by the 1932 Boston Red Sox, the worst Red Sox team of all time. The team finished with a record of 43-111, for a winning percentage of .279 and very little went right.

Howie Storie is another one of those ultra-obscure players to play for the Red Sox in 1932.  Storie actually played parts of two seasons for the Red Sox, but that was for a total of 12 Major League games.  During that time, he did not make a single error and he caught one of the two attempted base stealers on him.

Storie was just 20 years old when he made his Major League debut with the Red Sox in 1930.  That year, he appeared in six games, accumulating 20 plate appearances.  He had two hits and three walks against two strikeouts and scored two runs.  That gave him a line of .118/.250/.118.  

He spent most of the 1932 season in the minors, appearing in 34 games with a line of .227/.227/.351.  Of his 22 hits, four were doubles and four were triples.  He made it into another six games in the Majors, but had just eight plate appearances, mostly early in the season.  He had three hits and had a line of .375/.375/.375.  

Storie played in 13 games in the minors in 1933 and hit just .167.  He was released at some point in the season, and that was it for his career.

2001 Fleer Red Sox 100th Pt. 15: Joe Dobson

NAME: Joe Dobson

POSITION: Starting Pitcher

WHY IS HE HERE?:  Dobson was a consistent and reliable starting pitcher for the team during the late 1940's and was an All Star in 1948 (16-10, 3.56).  He won 106 games with the Red Sox which is tenth in team history.  He had a record of 106-72 with a 3.57 ERA in Boston.  

WOULD I PUT HIM IN IN 2001?:  Probably not.  I was a little surprised by Dobson's inclusion in the set.  Even though he was seventh in career wins in team history at the time the set came out, he was never really dominant.  

ANY BETTER CHOICES IN 2001?:  Well, just looking at the wins leaders, Bob Stanley does not appear in the set and he had more wins than Dobson.  Ellis Kinder is also not in the set and he had some huge seasons for Boston.  Tom Brewer, Ernie Shore and Rube Foster also deserve consideration.

WOULD I PUT HIM IN NOW?:  Not unless it's a huge set.

ANY BETTER CHOICES NOW?:  Among starting pitchers since 2001 that are not present in the set are Tim Wakefield, Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, Rick Porcello and Chris Sale.  

The Worst Red Sox Team of All Time Pt. 33: Andy Spognardi

Failure is often even more fascinating than success. I am definitely intrigued by the 1932 Boston Red Sox, the worst Red Sox team of all time. The team finished with a record of 43-111, for a winning percentage of .279 and very little went right.

Andy Spognardi is another of those super obscure players from the 1932 season.  1932 was his only Major League season, but he did get a bit more playing time than guys like Hank Patterson, Johnny Lucas and Regis Leheny.  Spognardi was a Boston native who signed a contract with the team and did not spend a day in the minors before making his Major League debut.  He played 17 games in the Majors in 1932 and that was it for his Major League career.

Spognardi played second, third and shortstop for the Red Sox.  In his 41 plate appearances, he accumulated a surprisingly successful .294/.400/.324 line with nine runs scored, a double, an RBI and six walks.  Despite that, he played just a handful of games in the minors the next two seasons and never made it back to the Majors.

According to his biography on SABR, Spognardi was just using baseball to help pay some of his medical school tuition.  He became a doctor after his playing career was over.

Mailday Madness Pt. 11

Keeping this thing going.  Let's get into this.

This was just a one-card trade for Hanley Ramirez.  That's right, that's Hanley, not Manny.  I believe I have talked about this before, Hanley was the first prospect I really collected from the Red Sox.  I got in on the ground floor, grabbing his very first minor league card as soon as it came out.  Then in 2003 when he started getting Major League cards, I grabbed a lot of them.  As such, I have a rather impressive amount of his first year cards, including an autographed X-fractor and a printing plate.  I probably could have made some decent money had I sold my cards in the first few years of his Major League career when he was one of the most exciting players in the game.  Unfortunately, Ramirez was traded after he made just two at-bats in Boston before he was traded to the Marlins in the Josh Beckett/Mike Lowell deal.  Ramirez did come back to Boston in 2015 and had a really good year in 2016.  

1.  Jarren Duran.  As I am typing this I just picked up Duran for my fantasy team.  Hopefully he can build on his season from last year.

2.  Alex Verdugo.  This is a nice-looking Verdugo card.

3.  Enrique Hernandez.  Hey, the border of this card matches Hernandez's socks.

4.  Bobby Dalbec.  Dalbec is probably at the turning point in his Boston career.  With C.J. Cron on hand now, it becomes less likely that Dalbec will stick around.

1.  Nick Pivetta.  Pivetta is in the running for Opening Day starter.  He is not my first pick, I would go with Brayan Bello.  Pivetta is a reliable starter though and fun to watch.

2.  Trevor Story.  I am predicting a 20/20 bounceback season for Story this year.  He looks healthy and has been playing well this Spring.

3.  Jackie Bradley Jr.  It looks like JBJ has retired.  He finishes with a line of .225/.303/.381 with 109 home runs, 449 RBIs and 69 stolen bases.  His most impressive stat is his 10.3 career dWAR.  

4.  Manny Ramirez.  This is one of my favorite insert sets of recent years, particularly the non-Chrome cards where they are actually die-cut.

5.  Johnny Damon.  It is sort of odd looking over Damon's career that he was only an All Star twice.  And both of those came during his time with Boston.  That's right, never with Kansas City and never with the Yankees.  

6.  Cecil Cooper.  Cooper spent six seasons with the Red Sox and hit .283/.324/.447 with 40 home runs.  He was then traded to the Brewers in the deal that brought back George Scott and Bernie Carbo and got a lot more playing time and blossomed.

7.  Kyle Schwarber.  It looks like the pitcher Boston gave up in the Schwarber deal stalled out.  Aldo Ramirez looked like a decent prospect in 2021, but struggled after the deal and hasn't pitched since.  I am not sure what happened.

1.  Hirokazu Sawamura.  Sawamura had a pretty good ERA during his two seasons in Boston, but his FIP was a less-than-impressive 4.59 and his release becomes a little more clear.  I still liked him though and was disappointed when he was simply released.

2.  Jonathan Arauz.  A Rule 5 pick by Boston prior to the 2020 season, Arauz hit .204/.280/.320 with four home runs and 18 RBIs in 59 games played as a utility infielder.  He has played with the Orioles and Mets since, but has never hit much.

3.  Xander Bogaerts.  

4.  Rafael Devers.  Here's another City Connect uniform card.

5.  Dustin Pedroia.  Pedroia will be on the Hall of Fame ballot for next season.  

1.  Michael Chavis.

2.  Rafael Devers.

3.  Hirokazu Sawamura.

4.  Tanner Houck.  Houck looks like a good bet to make the starting rotation this season, giving Boston three home-grown starters for the first time in a very long time.

5.  Chris Sale.  Sale and Houck are almost mirror-images of each other on the mound.

6.  Rafael Devers.

7.  Mookie Betts.  Betts has a lot of really cool cards that I missed out on.

8.  Jarren Duran.

More Wong Updates

I started my fantasy baseball draft today.  How early is too early to grab Connor Wong?  It takes several days for us to do our draft, so it will probably be awhile before I start to think about trying to grab him.  As I am writing this, I just made my fifth round pick.  Triston Casas is my only Red Sox player so far.

Anyway, here are the Wong cards.

Here is the Holiday Easter Eggs parallel and the Yellow parallel.  I don't like the Easter parallels quite as much as the Halloween parallels from Topps Update last year.  They are just kind of odd.  Unfortunately, I recently missed out on a Printing Plate from 2024 Topps, not because I was outbid, but because I got really busy suddenly and just missed the auction ending.  It was annoying.

Mailday Madness Pt. 10

This one will be pretty quick.  I have just two packages to show off and neither of them are very big.  The Red Sox are in a bit of trouble with Lucas Giolito going down with an injury, possibly for the entire season, and Vaughn Grissom also having issues.  It would be nice to add another starter, but the team seems unlikely to do that.  

1.  Moe Berg.  My parents called me one day and my dad started talking to me about this movie they had just seen the night before called The Catcher was a Spy.  Of course I remembered this as the title of the biography of Berg which I have read a couple of times.  Berg was an enigma.  I have yet to see the movie, but maybe I will check it out soon.

2.  Cy Young/Roger Clemens.  It is pretty cool to have a card featuring the pitchers who are tied for the all-time team record in wins (192).  Tim Wakefield came close with 186 wins.  

3.  Kutter Crawford.  Crawford is a pitcher I think could turn into something pretty good.  I am not predicting stardom, but a good middle-of-the-rotation arm.  He had some impressive peripheral numbers.  

1.  Josh Beckett.  Beckett won 89 games with the Red Sox.  He is tied for 18th all-time on the Red Sox leaderboard with a legendary figure himself.  He is tied with Babe Ruth.

2.  Mookie Betts.  The MVP subsets/inserts from Donruss sets were not as beloved as the Diamond Kings, but some of the choices were still pretty unusual.  They were also not nearly as long-lasting.

3.  Rafael Devers.  Devers has been on fire this Spring.  I am looking forward to seeing what he will do this season.

4.  Corey Kluber.  Kluber goes down as another star pitcher who spent just one year with the Red Sox.  Unfortunately, his last season was a disaster.  He appeared in 15 games, starting nine (and notching his only career save), but had a record of 3-6 and an unsightly 7.04 ERA.  He struck out 42 and walked 21 in 55 innings.  

Another Wong Bites the Dust

I don't mean to imply anything by that title of course.  It just worked.

Here is the next Wong update.  Two cards in today.  

The first card is the 2022 Topps Chrome Purple Speckle Refractor.  This is one that is somewhat common, yet has eluded me.  Part of that is that I just did not realize I did not already have it.  The second one is the regular Holiday parallel from 2024 Topps.  I am not sure what this design is, or how it relates to Easter, but I have never claimed to know much about that particular holiday.

Mailday Madness Pt. 9

This is another big one.  An individual I made a trade with recently decided he wanted to get rid of some Red Sox duplicates he had and offered to just send me a bunch.  So, all of the below cards were free.  Tough to argue with that.

1.  Xander Bogaerts.  This features a cameo from Rafael Devers.  Bogaerts and Devers always seemed like great friends.  It was sort of concerning after Bogaerts defected that Devers would do the same.  Luckily that did not happen.

2.  Carlton Fisk.  Is this another shot from his Game 6 World Series-winning homer?  I don't really know.  

3.  Bobby Dalbec.  Boston recently signed C.J. Cron, which spells trouble for Dalbec making the team this year.

4.  Rafael Devers.  This is a pretty cool shot with the stadium in the background.

5.  Alex Verdugo.  Last year I was planning to push Verdugo to 100 cards.  He will get there this year, probably mostly due to TCDB.

6.  Bobby Dalbec.

7.  Xander Bogaerts.

8.  J.D. Martinez.  I am running out of things to say about some of these players.  Martinez shows up in a ton of these packages.

9.  Kyle Schwarber.  Schwarber had a very odd year last year with the Phillies.  He hit just .197, but walked so much that his OBP was a respectable (but not great) .343 and he hit 47 home runs and drove in 104 runs.  His brief time in Boston, he hit .291 (which would have been a career high by a significant margin had it been over an entire season) but with a similar walk rate, so his OBP was .435.  I still wonder what it would have been like to keep him over Martinez after 2021.  

10.  Chris Sale.  Here's another player who shows up a ton in these packages.

11.  Rafael Devers.

12.  Mookie Betts.  And yet another one.  This package in particular contains a lot of Mookie cards.  And I am kind of okay with it because I have come to realize how lucky I was to witness his tenure with Boston.  He was easily one of the greatest all-around players the team has ever developed and it is so frustrating that they traded him away.  And I say that as probably the biggest Connor Wong fan.

13.  J.D. Martinez.

14.  Andrew Benintendi.  And another one.  Benintendi has had such an odd career.  If he has another season like last year, I'm not even sure he is a regular player anymore.  It's so strange to go from the seventh overall pick to this.

15.  Mookie Betts.

16.  Rafael Devers.

17.  Mookie Betts.  I need to get back to my Diamond King Roundup posts.  I left that series incomplete.

18.  Mookie Betts.

19.  Mookie Betts.

20.  Mookie Betts.  

21.  Mookie Betts.  See what I mean about there being a lot in this?  I like this card because I had a Shohei Ohtani from this insert set.

22.  Mookie Betts.  I really like this one too.

23.  Ted Williams.  Williams likely should have won at least a couple more MVPs than his two.  It's a shame he never got another chance to play in a World Series after 1946.

24.  Mookie Betts.

25.  Mookie Betts.

26.  Chris Sale.

27.  Andrew Benintendi.

28.  J.D. Martinez.

29.  Mookie Betts.

30.  J.D. Martinez.

31.  Mookie Betts.

32.  Rafael Devers.

33.  Chris Sale.

34.  David Ortiz.  In his postseason career, Ortiz hit .289/.404/.543 with 17 home runs and 61 RBIs in 85 games.  His average and OBP are slightly better than his regular season numbers while his slugging percentage is slightly worse.  These things tend to even out after larger samples, so this is not surprising.

35.  Team Card.  This is the 2018 World Championship team, one of the most dominant teams of my lifetime, and certainly the most dominant Red Sox team.

36.  Rafael Devers.

37.  J.D. Martinez.

38.  David Ortiz.

39.  Roger Clemens.  I started paying attention to baseball in 1991, but didn't really watch a lot of games until around 1995, and even then could only watch nationally-televised games and superstation teams.  Unfortunately that meant I missed out on a lot of the Roger Clemens dominance.

40.  Xander Bogaerts.

41.  Nomar Garciaparra.  One thing I am beginning to think that Hall of Fame voters are getting completely wrong is that players with insanely high peaks should be in.  Sandy Koufax and Dizzy Dean are in, why isn't Nomar Garciaparra in?  He was easily one of the best players in the game for about a seven-year stretch.

42.  Cy Young.  I love this photo and have seen it several times on cards.  It looks like he's in someone's backyard.  

43.  Roger Clemens.

44.  David Ortiz.

45.  Xander Bogaerts.

46.  J.D. Martinez.

47.  Carl Yastrzemski.  Yaz won three batting titles during his career (1963, 1967, 1968).  The one he won in 1968 came when he hit just .301 and was the only player in the league to hit over .300.  That was when baseball decided to lower the pitching mound a little.

48.  Nomar Garciaparra.

49.  Wade Boggs.  Boggs is another player, like Mo Vaughn, that I get kind of nostalgic about.  I didn't get to see him play much, but his career in the 80's was so fascinating.  How did he never come close to an MVP award?

50.  David Ortiz.

51.  Chris Sale.

52.  Michael Chavis.  Another player that appears a lot.  I was thinking about some of the big prolific home run seasons around the game.  2019 was one of the biggest.  I was thinking about how few Red Sox seemed to have benefited from that, but then I remembered Chavis.  He hit 18 home runs.  It was his rookie season so it didn't seem odd because he had great power in the minors, but he has not come close to that since.  

53.  Rafael Devers.

54.  Pedro Martinez.  As with Mookie Betts, I am happy I was able to witness the historic dominance of Pedro Martinez.  I often say I have not seen anyone better than he was during his peak years with Boston.  

55.  Andrew Benintendi.

56.  Gorkys Hernandez.  This is an odd one.  Hernandez was acquired to be a backup outfielder in 2019, but ended up playing in just 20 games.  He hit just .143/.218/.245 with zero home runs and two RBIs.  I am surprised he ended up even getting a card.  

57.  Christian Vazquez.  Two others that clearly seemed to benefit in 2019 from the juiced ball were Christian Vazquez (23 home runs, second best is nine) and Xander Bogaerts (33, second best is 23).  1996 and 1987 are other big home run seasons.

58.  Nathan Eovaldi.  Eovaldi is often cited as an example of the team being cheap, but the Red Sox actually offered him a better deal than the one he eventually got.  He thought he could get a better deal elsewhere and when that did not happen, he came back to the Red Sox, who had already moved on.  Unfortunately, Corey Kluber did not work out.

59.  Chris Sale.

60.  Eduardo Rodriguez.  This is one player I really wish would have stayed in Boston.  Rodriguez was often frustrating, but when he was on, he was so good.

61.  J.D. Martinez.

62.  Michael Chavis.

63.  Christian Vazquez.

64.  Xander Bogaerts.

65.  Enrique Hernandez.  Hernandez recently re-signed with the Dodgers, which seems to be his preferred team.

66.  Rafael Devers.

67.  Jackie Bradley Jr.  Maybe one of the greatest defensive center fielders in team history.  I still like to go back and watch highlight videos of him on Youtube.

68.  Tanner Houck.  Houck has looked good this Spring.  He could be in line for a starting rotation spot, but I still think he would make a good closer.

69.  Xander Bogaerts.

70.  Pedro Martinez.

71.  Carl Yastrzemski.

72.  Ted Williams.

73.  Tanner Houck.

74.  Nomar Garciaparra.

75.  Bobby Dalbec.

76.  Nick Decker.  Decker was the second-round pick in 2018.  He has struggled in the minors and is now 24 and still in Class A.  I think he is quickly running out of time.

77.  Michael Chavis.

78.  Durbin Feltman.  Feltman was the third-round pick in 2018.  Once thought to be on the fast track to the Majors, he never really got going in the minors.  He was released and spent last season in the Athletics system where his numbers improved, but back in AA ball.  

79.  Darwinzon Hernandez.  Hernandez spent last season in the Orioles system where he put up some good numbers.  Control continues to be an issue.  He has good stuff, if he can harness it.

80.  Dustin Pedroia.  I would put Pedroia in a category similar to Nomar, though his peak is not as high.  It's a shame that injuries prematurely ended his career.  Had he had a few seasons of decline instead of an abrupt end, his chances of election to Cooperstown would look pretty good.

81.  Rafael Devers.

82.  David Price.  Price will probably go down as a big free agent bust.  After signing the biggest free agent contract in team history, he delivered just four seasons of mostly injury-plagued ball.  2016 was the only year he was fully healthy and he had a rough 3.99 ERA, though he did strike out 228 batters in 230 innings.  In Boston, he was 46-24 with a 3.84 ERA and 609 strikeouts versus 156 walks in 588 innings.  All of that can be forgiven though with his amazing performance in the 2018 World Series, for which he should have won MVP.

83.  David Price.

84.  Andrew Benintendi.

85.  Jackie Bradley Jr.

86.  J.D. Martinez.  What's this?  A boring Stadium Club photo?

87.  Chris Sale.  This one makes up for it.

88.  Wade Boggs.

89.  Craig Kimbrel.  Kimbrel and Kenley Jansen both look like potential Hall of Famers.  Kimbrel spent three seasons in Boston and saved 108 games with a 2.44 ERA and a shocking 305 strikeouts in just 184 innings.  He will not wear a Red Sox cap on his plaque, but I hope he gets in all the same.

90.  David Ortiz.  Closing things out is a hug between Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia.

Mailday Madness Pt. 8

I'm just going to do one package today because the next one will be a big one and I don't have a ton of time to generate a post this morning.

1.  Rafael Devers.  There are rumblings that Devers has been working on some things with his swing over the offseason and that he has built up a little more muscle.  If he has protection in the lineup, a 40-homer season is possible.

2.  Chase Meidroth.  Meidroth was the fourth-round pick in 2022 and looks like a potential utility player in the Majors, primarily at second and third.  He is a decent contact hitter, but doesn't have much power.

3.  Nomar Garciaparra.  I need to work on getting some of the Panini products from last year to grab some of the retired players.  I do hope that Panini branches out somewhat on different players in 2024.  Let's see George Scott, Rick Burleson, Jim Lonborg, Bill Monbouquette, Rudy York, Billy Werber, Buddy Myer, Dutch Leonard and Duffy Lewis.  I could go on and on and on, but some kind of stars of the past set would be a lot of fun.

4.  Kenley Jansen.  Jansen has not been very happy with the direction of the team and I suppose I get that.  He is coming close to the end of his career and wanted to play for a winning team and Boston's direction has been pretty confusing lately.  

5.  Adam Duvall.  Duvall is still a free agent.  After Boston signed C.J. Cron, I don't see them bringing him back, but he had some good moments in 2023.

6.  Mikey Romero.  Romero was the first-round pick in 2022 and looks like a decent hitter, but might have to move to second base.  With the number of middle infield prospects in the system, it would be difficult for Romero to stick out.

7.  Masataka Yoshida.  Yoshida will be the full-time DH in 2024 which will hopefully keep his bat consistent.  He had some down times in 2023 which kind of overshadowed the moments he was at his best.

8.  Ted Williams.  This is one of those manufactured patches.  Williams won the MVP in 1949 when he hit .343/.490/.650 with 43 home runs and 159 RBIs.  He led the league in OBP, slugging, home runs, RBIs, runs (150), doubles (39) and walks (162) for a team that missed the playoffs by one game.  He missed the batting title by percentage points.