Boston Red Sox - All-Decade 2000-09

The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox have been locked in a bitter rivalry since the time of Babe Ruth, so it's fitting that these two teams finished first and second in winning percentage over the course of the 2000's (the decade, not the millennium). Separated by just 48 games in the loss column from 2000-09, the Sox won the same amount of World Series championships as the Yanks in that time frame (two apiece), but Boston has added two more in the ensuing decade, while New York is in the midst of a decade-long title drought. Here's how the Red Sox all-decade roster stacks up, organized by games per position, followed by years active with the team.

The Sox's all-decade leader in games played, switch hitting catcher Jason Varitek, is one of only two backstops to play the entire decade with the same team. (The other one is Jorge Posada, who we saw in the last post featuring the Yankees.) While he played his entire major league career in Boston, 'Tek was actually drafted by the Mariners, and sent to the Sox in one of the most lopsided deals in baseball history, as he was traded alongside Derek Lowe (see below) in exchange for 1.5 years of reliever Heathcliff Slocumb. Going by games at a single position, big-bodied DH David Ortiz (9th all-time in Red Sox wins above replacement) narrowly edges out left fielder Manny Ramirez (24th), but if you consider the games that the latter spent at DH, those two would be flipped (even taking into account the former's games at 1B). If we extend things past my extremely logical cutoff point of 2009, Ortiz has the clear edge, as Big Papi remained with the team through 2016. Although ManRam had a shorter overall Red Sox tenure, he has the distinction of making the All-Star team in every season that he played in Boston, including prior to being traded to the Dodgers in 2008.

Going down the games played list, next we have right fielder Trot Nixon, who had exactly one spectacular season (his 5.1 WAR 2003), but he represents the type of consistent year-in, year-out performance that good teams need to flourish. Switching to overall games across multiple positions, Kevin Youkilis put up 691 combined between both corner infield spots, but he still comfortably leads the team in games at first base alone (followed not especially closely by Kevin Millar). The personification of the long-haired, bearded "idiots" persona adopted by the 2004 championship team, Johnny Damon really came into his own upon signing with the Red Sox prior to the 2002 season, making the All-Star team in two of his four seasons there. Mike Lowell split his 2000's about 60-40 between Florida and Boston, making just one of his three career All-Star appearances after joining the Red Sox. Although the middle infielders have the lowest all-decade positional totals on the team, both Nomar Garciparra and Dustin Pedroia occupy spots on Boston's all-time WAR leaderboard, at 14th and 10th, respectively. Nomar put up some of his best numbers in the previous decade (including his Rookie of the Year 1997), while Pedroia is still technically with the team, although a significant knee surgery has put his future in question.

With knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, we've already seen almost 40% of all the players who spent the entire decade playing the same position with one team (there are 13 overall, the Yankees had three, and the Sox check in with two). As if his 250 games started weren't impressive enough, the swingman also logged 94 relief appearances, pushing his running total to 344 total games. While Pedro Martinez pitched more than 200 fewer games than Wakefield during his Red Sox tenure this decade, the Dominican Hall of Famer still managed to finish 8th on Boston's all-time WAR leaderboard. Pedro's back-to-back Cy Young awards were rather ill-timed for the purposes of this project, as one took place in the last year of the previous decade, while the other started off the one in question. Like Mike Lowell above, Josh Beckett split his decade between Florida and Boston - indeed, they were both acquired in the same trade (which saw recent Red Sock Hanley Ramirez and current major leaguer Anibal Sanchez go to the Marlins in return). While Derek Lowe places fourth in terms of games started, it's also important to remember that he served as the club's closer from 2000-01 (and also for parts of 1998-99, but that's beyond the scope of this project). While I normally cut off starters at five per team, Curt Schilling and Jon Lester are so close that it's worth including them both... even though Schilling's 21 relief appearances in 2005 would put him over the edge if I counted those in his favor.

After a couple years each from the above-mentioned Derek Lowe and changeup artist Keith Foulke, Jonathan Papelbon really solidified Boston's closer role in the mid part of this decade. (And that was before his All-Star-choking shenanigans in Washington.) Mike Timlin's career as a reliever started way back in the beginning of the previous decade, where he won two World Series titles with the Blue Jays. Fast forward to the next decade, and he would win two more with the Red Sox, while also becoming their all-decade leader in game's pitched. Manny Delcarmen might not be a name that comes to mind when you talk about relief stalwarts of the 00's, but the Boston native pitched all but nine of his career games for his hometown team. It's always fun when these compilation rosters happen to feature a tough lefty in the top few spots of the bullpen, and the well-traveled southpaw Alan Embree fills that role for the all-decade Sox. It's clear that Boston's bullpen consistency outdoes that of rival New York's, as Japanese righty Hideki Okajima is the only reliever in the top five not to cross the 200 game threshold, a mark he missed by just two games in the decade in question. He would go on to pitch 63 more for the team in the following decade, with just five career games pitched outside of Boston.