Introducing the Alphabet All-Stars

by Jim McLennan on Jan 19, 2009 8:32 PM EST

Just a bit of off-season fun. Put together the finest 25-man roster you can, drawing from all those who've ever played the game - but you are only allowed one player whose last name starts with each letter of the alphabet. So if you want Ty Cobb in the outfield, that's fine - but you then can't have any other C's on your roster, so no Clemens, Clemente or Campanella. No major-leaguer has ever had a last name which started with the letter X, so that leaves tthe remaining twenty-five letters for the twenty-five positions. These should be broken down as follows:

8 starting position players
1 backup catcher
1 backup corner infielder (1B or 3B)
1 backup middle infielder (2B or SS)
2 backup outfielders
5 starting pitchers
1 left-handed reliever
4 general relievers
1 set-up man
1 closer.

To stop you from stuffing the bullpen with closers, the closer is the only one allowed to have more than 50 career saves. Here is a convenient form you can use to copy and paste in the comments, with your efforts:

C
1B
2B
3B
SS
LF
CF
RF

Backup C:
Backup CI
Backup MI
Backup OF1
Backup OF2

Starter #1
Starter #2
Starter #3
Starter #4
Starter #5

Loogy
Reliever #1
Reliever #2
Reliever #3
Reliever #4
Set-up:
Closer:

I've started work on my team, and it's an interesting exercise. You have to trade off letters for utility. Dan Quisenberry is easily the best Q player - but that would lock up your closer's spot immediately, so do you really want to do that? Or should you pick a better closer, and use a lesser Q, perhaps for one of the backup spots? [Pagin Carlos Quentin!] The aim is to create a roster that's strong overall, remember.

There's also a lot of difference in available talenty between the individual letters. A quick check reveals the letter C has most members in the Hall of Fame - 31, albeit including umpires and owners. While some of the short-stacked letters are unsurprising, with no Qs, U's, X's or Z's, there are also only three N's [all pitchers: Newhouser, Nichols and Niekro] and six T's enshrined in Cooperstown. Here's an alphabetical list of all current Hall of Fame inductees, which might help with the process. Baseball-Reference.com's list of most-searched players is another good place to start with this.

Doing this as a Fanpost, since I think it might take a few days for me to come up with a complete roster!

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Comments

Off the top of my head, just to get it out of the way (don't mind the spelling):

I’m pretty bias in my picks, and I would love to have more people added, but when stuff comes to mind, i just wrote it, here we go:

C Joe Mauer
1B Albert Pooholes
2B Chase Utley
3B Evan Longoria
SS Hanley Ramirez
LF Grady Sizemore
CF Josh Hamilton
RF Ichiro Suzuki

Backup C: Brian McCann
Backup CI: Kevin Youkilis
Backup MI: Dustin Pedroia
Backup OF1: Matt Holliday
Backup OF2: Ryan Ludwick

Starter #1: Cliff Lee
Starter #2: Tim Lincecum
Starter #3: Brandon Webb
Starter #4: Danny Haren (i’m bias)
Starter #5: Ervin Santana

Reliever #1: Jose Arredondo
Reliever #2: Grant Balfour (I just like him)
Reliever #3: Brandon Morrow
Reliever #4: Mariano Rivera
Set-up: K-Rod
Closer: Brad Lidge

by sergey606 on Jan 19, 2009 8:47 PM EST reply actions

Close, but

Not sure you quite got the bit about only being allowed one player for each letter. You have three R’s – Rodriguez, Rivera and Ramirez – as well as three L’s and three M’s. And also too many closers. Rivera, Rodriguez and Lidge have all had 50 career saves. On the other hand, credit for using all players who are currently active, which would make things even tougher…

by Jim McLennan on Jan 19, 2009 9:49 PM EST up reply actions

sowwy

yeah, i didn’t even read the part with the different letters, so my bad.

by sergey606 on Jan 19, 2009 10:10 PM EST up reply actions

This is pretty good

I’ll have to think about it.

Please, say that you care, or say that you think that I'm... beautiful.

by soco on Jan 19, 2009 9:04 PM EST reply actions

No major-leaguer has ever had a last name which started with the letter X, so that leaves tthe remaining twenty-five letters for the twenty-five positions.

Shouldn’t Xavier Nady get an exception?

"Of course, it’s downright frightening to imagine how two Adam Dunns would turn the double play." - Joe Posnanski

by DbacksSkins on Jan 19, 2009 9:21 PM EST reply actions

Boom, outta here. No repeated letters, used not just active players

C: Joe Torre
1B: Albert Pujols
2B: Chase Utley
3B: Cal Ripken Jr.
SS: Ozzie Smith
LF: Carl Crawford
CF: Mickey Mantle
RF: Hank Aaron
Backup C: Dioner Navarro
Backup CI: Wade Boggs
Backup MI: Brandon Inge
Backup OF1: Luis Gonzalez (have to have him)
Backup OF2: Jermaine Dye

Starter #1: Sandy Koufax
Starter #2: Brandon Webb
Starter #3: Randy Johnson
Starter #4: Cy Young
Starter #5: Barry Zito (when he was good)

Loogy: Jesse Orosco
Reliever #1: Jose Valverde
Reliever #2: Chad Qualls
Reliever #3: Dennis Eckersley
Reliever #4: Brad Lidge
Set-up: John Franco
Closer: Trevor Hoffman

by sergey606 on Jan 19, 2009 11:04 PM EST reply actions

Better...

But…

To stop you from stuffing the bullpen with closers, the closer is the only one allowed to have more than 50 career saves.

I still like having the rule, to avoid closer-frenzy, but to help with the process, here are the relievers with 200 or more appearances, 80% or more of them in relief, but less than 50 career saves, sorted by ERA+
All-time best non-closer relievers
There are 48 with an ERA+ of 120 or better, so should give you enough to chew over. Impressed to note that #14 on the all-time list, with an ERA+ of 135, is Chad Qualls, our Q-perstar, as ’Hacks puts it.

by Jim McLennan on Jan 19, 2009 11:49 PM EST up reply actions

thx for the query

…I had four RPs from your list on my roster already, so I’ll stick with what I had and hit “Send”:

C Yogi Berra
1B Jimmie Foxx
2B Nap Lajoie
3B Michael Jack Schmidt
SS Honus Wagner

LF Rickey Henderson
CF Tyrus Cobb
RF George Ruth

Backup C: Joe Torre
Backup CI – Darrell Evans
Backup MI – Arky Vaughan
Backup OF1- Hank Aaron
Backup OF2 – Al Kaline

Starter #1 Big Train Johnson
Starter #2 Lefty Grove
Starter #3 Satchel Paige
Starter #4 Pedro Martinez
Starter #5 Denton True Young

Loogy – Hideki Okajima
Reliever #1 Brendan Donnelly
Reliever #2 Jeff Innis
Reliever #3 Paul Quantrill
Reliever #4 Jeff Zimmerman
Set-up: Jeff Nelson
Closer: Ugueth Urbina (237 saves)

Thank you for letting me talk

by Diamondhacks on Jan 20, 2009 2:37 AM EST up reply actions

Edits

Backup OF1- Hank Aaron
Backup OF2 – ~~Al Kaline~~ Willie Mays

Starter #1 Big Train Johnson
Starter #2 Lefty Grove
Starter #3 Satchel Paige
Starter #4 ~~Pedro Martinez~~ Sandy Koufax
Starter #5 Denton True Young

Loogy – ~~Hideki Okajima~~Jesse Orosco

I’d rather have Pedro than Koufax, but Mays is a more significant upgrade over Kaline, resulting in a lineup w/ the six highest Win Share individuals (excl Bonds):

Ruth 756
Cobb 722
Wagner 655 (largest positional W/S advantage over #2 man)
Aaron 643
Mays 642
Cy Young 635

….and the highest W/S performer at six defensive positions:

RF – Ruth
CF – Cobb
3B – Schmidt
SS – Wagner
C – Berra
P – Young

a. #1 regret is probably Ted Williams, but Wagner is my keystone. The gap between him and the other shortstops (Ripken, Vaughan, Yount) is larger than the spread between Ted v Musial, Bonds, Rickey – at least if you dont project Ted’s war years.

b. tough choices among the M’s: Musial, Mantle, Morgan, Mathews, Maddux, Mathewson.

c. Best Pick – Leroy Paige

d. Second best pick – Darrell Evans

e – Worst Pick(s) – Urbina, Zimmerman, but to echo TAP, “who cares”

Thank you for letting me talk

by Diamondhacks on Jan 22, 2009 8:04 PM EST up reply actions

Question

Any chance of relaxing the 50 save rule? Even someone like Jesse Orosco has 144.

I’m compiling a HOF caliber team, but there’s a disturbing talent decline among RPs with less than 50 saves. Those pitchers just arent that good, and also arent that easy to identify. Or maybe I just havent figured out how to locate them (ie they’re not on any HOF lists or readily available stat lists).

Suggestions? Alterations?

Thank you for letting me talk

by Diamondhacks on Jan 19, 2009 11:29 PM EST reply actions

Answer

…..wikipedia. Search for like Rolaids Relief Man of the Year or the other Reliever Award. Wikipedia is a good way to put together an “All-HOF” team, cause they list all for every position, but I mixed it up.

by sergey606 on Jan 19, 2009 11:32 PM EST reply actions

Gee, thanks

You’re not, by any chance, the ‘Sergey’ who founded Google?

Thank you for letting me talk

by Diamondhacks on Jan 20, 2009 12:01 AM EST up reply actions

nope

……nope

by sergey606 on Jan 20, 2009 2:57 AM EST up reply actions

Randy Wolf

turns down the Dbacks’ free agency offer.

Piecoro says the word on the street is that the offer to Garland was for one year with two club option years, and the Dbacks will probably now go after Looper.

"Of course, it’s downright frightening to imagine how two Adam Dunns would turn the double play." - Joe Posnanski

by DbacksSkins on Jan 20, 2009 12:17 AM EST reply actions

Lots of pitches getting to the screen...

as our usable form excludes a starting catcher.
; )

Putting a team together with starting letter restrictions may actually be an easier exercise than what Josh and other GMs face with budget restrictions, arb and FA timing, etc. This will be fun.

by TAP on Jan 20, 2009 12:18 AM EST reply actions

Bear that in mind

Given the void behind the plate, I’d be picking pitchers who get the ball put in play, rather than strikeout machines. :-) Duly corrected!

by Jim McLennan on Jan 20, 2009 12:21 AM EST up reply actions

TAP's team by the letters

Operating under the assumption that my bullpen could not include starters nor pitchers with 50+ career saves (except the closer), I chose to fill the position players and starting pitchers first, believing that with starters like Johnson, Young, and Gibson heading up my staff, we wouldn’t regularly get deep into the bullpen. I also based my roster on the belief that this is a one-year team, and I specified which year I pulled each player out of my magical baseball time machine.

C: Bench, Johnny (1972)
1B: Pujols, Albert (2008)
2B: Hornsby, Rogers (1925)
3B: Robinson, Brooks (1964)
SS: Smith, Ozzie (1987)
LF: Williams, Ted (1941)
CF: Mays, Willie (1965)
RF: Aaron, Hank (1959)
Backup C: Fisk, Carlton (1977)
Backup CI: Ivie, Mike (1979)
Backup MI: Carew, Rod (1977)
Backup OF1: DiMaggio, Joe (1941)
Backup OF2: Quentin, Carlos (2008)

Starter #1: Johnson, Randy (2002)
Starter #2: Young, Cy (1901)
Starter #3: Gibson, Bob (1968)
Starter #4: Zambrano, Carlos (2004)
Starter #5: Niekro, Phil (1969)

Loogy: Thornton, Matt (2008)
Reliever #1: Linebrink, Scott (2005)
Reliever #2: Kuo, Hong-Chih (2008)
Reliever #3: Veras, Jose (2008)
Reliever #4: Urrea, John (1981)
Set-up: Okajima, Hideki (2007)
Closer: Eckersley, Dennis (1992)

by TAP on Jan 20, 2009 3:10 AM EST reply actions

not bad

I like it

by sergey606 on Jan 20, 2009 3:31 AM EST up reply actions

Your Alphabetical Diamondbacks

Here’s a team comprised entirely of our local boys. I had to go down to the minors to find anyone with the letter I, since we’ve never had one reach Chase Field. Inciarte hit .296 for us at two rookie-level teams in 2008: this may be his 15 minutes of fame… There wasn’t much choice at Z or U where we’ve only had one player: Q, Y [two apiece] or N, T [three each] weren’t much better So those seven spots basically picked themselves, which helped!

C: Snyder, Chris
1B: Lee, Travis
2B: Hudson, Orlando
3B: Tracy, Chad
SS: Drew, Stephen
LF: Gonzalez, Luis
CF: Young, Chris
RF: Upton, Justin

Backup C: Estrada, Johnny
Backup CI: Zinter, Alan
Backup MI: Ojeda, Augie
Backup OF1: Finlay, Steve
Backup OF2: Inciarte, Astolfo

Starter #1: Johnson, Randy
Starter #2: Webb, Brandon
Starter #3: Batista, Miguel
Starter #4: Anderson, Brian
Starter #5: Reynoso, Armando

Loogy: Myers, Mike
Reliever #1: Nippert, Dustin
Reliever #2: Villarreal, Oscar
Reliever #3: Peña, Tona
Reliever #4: Cruz, Juan
Set-up: Qualls, Chad
Closer: Kim, Byung-Hyun

by Jim McLennan on Jan 20, 2009 6:25 AM EST reply actions

I could not resist:

C – Johnny Bench
1B – Lou Gehrig
2B – Joe Morgan
3B – Mike Schmidt
SS – Arky Vaughan
LF – Ted Williams
CF – Joe DiMaggio
RF – Babe Ruth

Backup C: Carlton Fisk
Backup CI: Willie Upshaw
Backup MI: Eddie Collins
Backup OF1: Bill Nicholson
Backup OF2: Greg Luzinski

Starter #1 – Cy Young
Starter #2 – Jim Palmer
Starter #3 – Sandy Koufax
Starter #4 – Walter Johnson
Starter #5 – Grover Cleveland Alexander

Loogy: Hideki Okajima
Reliever #1: Joel Zumaya
Reliever #2: Jeff Innis
Reliever #3: Mark Eichhorn
Reliever #4: Chuck Taylor
Set-up: Chad Qualls
Closer: Trevor Hoffman

I don't specifically articulate my motives, because that wouldn't travel as well as a boo does.

by Kyle Lobner on Jan 20, 2009 11:13 AM EST reply actions

Baseball Players by the Letters

Now this was an interesting exercise. My strategy was to start with the position players (outfielders first, then infielders). Then I filled in the starting pitchers and reserves. This left the leftover letters for the relief pitchers. I assume these could not be leftover frontline starters (you already said only one legitimate 50 save closer allowed). I tried for a mix of speed and power (which led to Rickey Henderson over Ted Williams) and a combination of lefty and righty.

I got into some interesting problems right away. By choosing Babe Ruth, that meant I couldn’t get Brooks Robinson at third, Cal Ripken at shortstop, Jackie Robinson at second, Nolan Ryan at Pitcher or Pudge Rodriguez at catcher. (Wow, how about an all “R” team?) Bob Feller meant I couldn’t get Carlton Fisk, Whitey Ford or Nellie Fox. Tony Perez meant no Satchel Paige – and so on.

My leftover letters for relievers ended up being O, I, Z, N, T and W (those last three being somewhat of a surprise for me). Irabu is the guy that really lucked out because of his letter. Hope it was okay to call him a reliever, even though he started for the Yankees for a while. Since the best Loogy ever (Jesse Orosco) had too many saves to qualify as a Loogy, I ended up with two left-handers to choose from (Thornton and Ohman). I’m not even sure they are considered legitimate Loogies. I don’t figure relievers are too important on this team anyway, since most of the starters regularly came up with complete games.

In a couple of cases I ended up with more than one viable alternative at the position (Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle, Randy Johnson or Walter Johnson, Warren Spahn or Tom Seaver, Dizzy Dean or Don Drysdale). Spahn and Randy Johnson won out becuase they are left-handed. A couple of other U players were intriguing at middle infield – Dan Uggla or B.J. Upton (who may have settled in as an outfielder), but I went with experience. Obviously some guys won out because of the letter of their last name. My team is heavily weighted toward veterans and hall-of-famers. [Incidentally, no team of mine will ever have Barry Bonds on it – so there!]

Catcher – Ernie Lombardi R-R (HOF) .306, 190 Home Runs, 990 RBI (1931-1947)
1st Base – Lou Gehrig L-L (HOF) .340, 493 Home Runs, 1995 RBI (1923-1939)
2nd Base – Johnny Evers L-R (HOF) .270, 12 Home Runs, 1 RBI + (1902-1929)
3rd Base – George Kell R-R (HOF) .306 78 Home Runs, 870 RBI (1943-1957)
Shortstop – Ernie Banks R-R (HOF) .274 512 Home Runs, 1636 RBI (!953-1971)
Left Field – Rickey Henderson R-L (HOF) .279 297 Home Runs, 1115 RBI (1979-2003)
Center Field – Willie Mays R-R (HOF) .302 660 Home Runs, 1903 RBI (1951-1973)
Right Field – Hank Aaron R-R (HOF) .305 755 Home Runs, 2297 RBI (1954-1976)

Backup Catcher – Jason Varitek S-R (Active) .263 161 Home Runs, 654 RBI (1997-
Backup Corner Infielder – Tony Perez R-R (HOF) .279 379 Home Runs, 1652 RBI (1964-1986)
Backup Middle Infielder – Juan Uribe R-R (Active) .253 111 Home Runs, 454 RBI (2001-
Backup Outfielder – Babe Ruth L-L (HOF) .342 714 Home Runs, 1983 RBI + (1914-1935)
Backup Ourfielder – Ty Cobb L-R (HOF) .367 117 Home Runs, 727 RBI + (1905-1928)

Starting Pitcher – Cy Young R-R (HOF) ERA ++, 511-315 (Won-Lost), 2798-1217 (SO-Balls) (1890-1911)
Starting Pitcher – Warren Spahn L-L (HOF) 3.08 ERA, 363-245 (Won-Lost), 2583-1434 (SO-Balls) (1942-1965)
Starting Pitcher – Bob Feller R-R (HOF) 3.25 ERA, 266-162 (Won-Lost), 2581-1764 (SO-Balls) (1936-1956)
Starting Pitcher – Randy Johnson R-L (Active) 3.26 ERA, 295-160 (Won-Lost) 1489-1466 (SO-Balls) (1988-
Starting Pitcher – Don Drysdale R-R (HOF) 2.95 ERA, 309-166 (Won-Lost) 2486-855 (SO-Balls) (1956-1969)

Closer – Dan Quisenberry R-R (Retired) 2.76 ERA, 244 Saves (1979-1990)
Set-up – Brian Wilson R-R (Active) 4.34 ERA, 48 Saves (2006-
Loogy – Will Ohman L-L (Active) 4.16 ERA, 2 Saves (2000-
Reliever – Matt Thornton L-L (Active) 3.97 ERA, 5 Saves (2004-
Reliever – Hideki Irabu R-R (Retired) 5.15 ERA, 16 Saves (1997-2002)
Reliever – Vladimir Nunez R-R (Active) 4.76 ERA, 21 Saves (1998-
Reliever – Brad Ziegler R-R (Active) 1.06 ERA, 11 Saves (2008-