In years past, the Red Sox have been blessed with literally dozens of talented players. From Ted Williams to Jim Rice to David Ortiz, it’s a team that has had superstars who transcend the confines of Fenway Park. And while the greatest players in Red Sox history tend to be well-known nationally, even to this day, occasionally one of their greats kind of sneaks through the annals of history, to be (mostly) forgotten by us “modern” baseball fans. The best of this class of Red Sox heroes, probably, is Rico Petrocelli.
Before the era of Nomar Garciaparra, another player with an almost equally-syllabic last name played shortstop for the BoSox. Petrocelli had a cup of coffee with the Sox in 1963, but took over as the regular six for the Sox starting in 1965. From the get-go, Petrocelli was invaluable to a rising Red Sox club, possessing a then-uncommon combination of solid shortstop defense and legitimate power.
In ‘65, Petrocelli took the position after cementing himself as the team’s shortstop of the future with solid play in the minors. Rico had injury and playing-time issues — you know, the same things virtually every young player deals with — but immediately made an impact through his slick fielding and right-handed pull power. Though he wasn’t a dynamic on-base force, he racked up 31 homers in his first two seasons, and was worth 3.7 Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) in his first two seasons, not too shabby for a rookie (at least in seasons where Carlos Correa and Kris Bryant don’t debut).
1967 would be Petro’s breakout season, however, a thrilling campaign by both the team and for Petrocelli personally. As the Sox made their run to the World Series, Petrocelli had his best season to that point, earning a spot on the American League All-Star team, earning MVP votes, and posting a very respectable .276 True Average (TAv). That True Average would be a little better than league average for a player at any position, but the combination of that with his solid fielding made him a star.
(I’ll note here that Baseball Prospectus’ FRAA fielding metric thinks less highly of Petrocelli’s defense than the metrics hosted at other sites. Petrocelli never had an outstanding reputation during his career … he never earned a Gold Glove for his work in the field, and adapted late to the position from the outfield.)
The next year was a down one — especially coming off the high of 1967 — as the Sox turned in a less-than-stellar overall performance as a team. Rico’s power waned and he battled an elbow issue, which turned out to be the calm before the storm that was 1969. In ‘69, Petrocelli bounced back with a season for the ages, one of the best, brightest years that any shortstop has had in the modern era of baseball.
Baseball Prospectus calculates Petrocelli’s value for the 1969 season as being worth an epic 8.4 WARP — a number that you see from MVP-level production.
Let’s start with the power. Rico, who’d never hit more than 18 homers in a season prior, exploded for 40 home runs in 1969. Everything about his game rose with his power. His walk rate shot up, likely due to pitchers fearing his taking so many balls over the left-field wall, and his OBP rose over 100 points from 1968 (to .403). His TAv leapt up to .341, a number more appropriate by Carl Yastrzemski’s standard, rather than a shortstop’s. Baseball Prospectus calculates his value for that year as being worth an epic 8.4 WARP — a number that you see from MVP-level production. To put this in perspective, Bryce Harper has been worth about 8.1 WARP so far in 2015. Petrocelli was awfully good.
In the next two years, Rico carried over some of the power from his unbelievable 1969, but unsurprisingly, could not maintain that level of overall performance. In 1970, he hit 29 homers, and in 1971, he hit 28. Though he couldn’t work the same offensive magic he had in 1969, he was a very effective offensive player in each of those next two seasons. He posted a .344 OBP and a .467 slugging percentage. In addition, at the start of 1971, he moved to third base to accommodate new Red Sox acquisition Luis Aparicio — which may have been for the best as his defense, though solid, would deteriorate over the next few years.
After two more years of excellence, the 1972-1974 seasons were solid, but hardly the same as his peak from 1969-1971. This three-year period saw Petrocelli carry more of an offensive load thanks to his new position — you simply need to hit more to stand out at third base compared to shortstop. His home run production slipped back down to the teens, posting between 13-15 homers during each of those next three seasons. When combined with his low batting average, the dip in power saw Petrocelli become a just-average hitter at the hot corner. He only managed to put together 1.1 WARP in 1972, 1.5 WARP in 1973, and 0.8 WARP in 1974.
At the end of that 1974 season, Petrocelli was struck in the head by a pitch, and had to miss the rest of the year. And that injury would haunt him for the rest of his career.
1975 and 1976 were, to put it bluntly, not good. After the beaning, he wasn’t the same hitter that he was prior to the event. His offensive numbers cratered, and by 1976, he lost his starting spot at third base to the immortal Butch Hobson. Those two seasons combined, he posted a .229/.306/.310 triple-slash line, in part due to a continued inner-ear issue that affected his balance. Also, having moved to third base, his overall value dropped to below-replacement levels.
Petrocelli retired after being cut following the 1977 Red Sox spring training, and that was the end of his Red Sox career. Unsurprisingly, it was also the end of his major-league career, as Petrocelli would never don another team’s colors in a regular-season game. After his time on the field, he remained a presence around the Red Sox, writing columns, working as a broadcaster, and managing the Red Sox’s Triple-A affiliate.
Are there other ballplayers who fit Petrocelli’s profile in the Red Sox system? In short, maybe. The current shortstop, Xander Bogaerts, might have been projected to be that kind of player, but the jury is still out on him regaining 12-20 homer power and maintaining excellent defense at short. Bogaerts is, probably, a good enough overall hitter to be the next Rico Petrocelli. Petrocelli had a career .270 True Average — a truly league-average TAv! — and Bogaerts has a .263 TAv this season. It’s not out of the realm of possibility to imagine that he could be as successful as Rico with the bat, or better, long-term.
But defensively? Nope. Bogaerts looks a lot better this year, but he’s no Petrocelli with the leather. There’s no one in Boston who looks quite like an old-school Petrocelli, but I think Brandon Crawford might be the best example of a Petrocelli-type currently in the league. He’s got the combination of power and defensive wizardry to be a modern-day version of Rico — despite getting his start at a much older age than Petrocelli.
However, any player would have trouble putting up a season like Petrocelli’s magical 1969. Since that year, only a few ballplayers have been able to post his level of value at the shortstop position. Going by both FanGraphs’ and Baseball-Reference’s WAR metrics, only Cal Ripken, Robin Yount, and Alex Rodriguez put up better shortstop seasons since then.
Rico’s a true-blue Red Sox legend, one of the few players to be both a tremendous overall talent, but also a Red Sox player for life. His single-season performance in ‘69 was legendary, and remains the benchmark to which Red Sox infielders aspire.
Photo by Malcolm Emmons/USA Today Sports Images