Stanley was a first-round pick of the Red Sox in 1974, and worked his way up the ladder until debuting for the big-league club in 1977. Over his career–all of which he’d spend with Boston–he’d fill a variety of roles. Mostly a reliever (both long and short), he opened up his career as a starter in ’77. (Well, mostly.) At the start of the season he was used mainly as a starter, but by the time mid-June rolled around he was mostly working out of the ‘pen. By the end of the season, he had earned half a win over 151 innings–while he’d posted a 3.99 ERA and 3.93 FIP, his DRA was quite a bit higher at 4.76.

The following year, he spent a few games starting, but mostly lived in the bullpen as the team’s closer and late-inning ace. He appeared in 52 games, all but three as a reliever, and absolutely crushed it. He threw 141.7 innings with a 2.60 ERA and a 3.16 DRA; a large part of this success was due to his signature skill in inducing ground balls. With a 62 percent ground-ball rate this season, Stanley ranked in the top-25 of all pitchers with 50 innings or more that season. That’s a lot of worms killed, but it would also go on to be the worst ground ball rate of his career until 1985. At the same time, Stanley struck out virtually no one–his 2.4 strikeouts per nine was the fourth-lowest mark among that same sample of 247 pitchers. Despite his lack of whiffs, he earned a seventh-place Cy Young finish and the same share of MVP votes as teammate Fred Lynn.

Despite his lack of whiffs, Stanley earned a seventh-place Cy Young finish and the same share of MVP votes as teammate Fred Lynn in 1975.

So how do you follow up a season like that? Naturally, you move back to the starting rotation. Despite spending 30 games as a starter, Stanley also dropped into the ‘pen as needed from time to time, logging another 10 appearances there. He started a game and lasted a third of an inning, he started a game that lasted 10 innings. Along the way, he racked up a career-high in innings: 216.7. His DRA bumped up to 4.24, but he hit the top-10 in ground ball rate and he earned an All-Star selection for the first time in his career.

And that brings us to 1980. With the new decade came a rotation run, until a few poor outings to close June of that season booted him back to the bullpen. It would be the start of Stanley’s long run as the stalwart of the Sox’s bullpen. He went into July with a 4.43 ERA, but his performance in that month made him the Red Sox’s closer by August–in that month he appeared in 15 games, and either won or saved 14 of them. By the time the season was over, he dropped that ERA all the way down to 3.39 over his 175 innings. It wasn’t the almighty success as a starter that he or the team might’ve hoped for, but it set the tone for good things to come at the back of the bullpen.

Of course, before he’d really hit his stride in 1982, there had to be that misspent season of ’81, where his ERA was shiny (3.83), but his DRA was 4.64 and his cFIP was 117, meaning that both his deserved performance and his seasonal true talent level were far below average. The less said about ’81, the better … but this would lead to far better things coming forward for Stanley over the next four seasons.

Unlike the closers of today, Stanley was a pitch-chucking machine; he logged a massive 145.3 innings in just 64 appearances in 1983.

In both 1982 and 1983, Stanley was fire. ’82 saw The Steamer post a 73 percent ground ball rate–no Kent Tekulve (77 percent), but still!–and 3.3 WARP as a full-time reliever. In just 48 relief appearances, he logged a staggering 168.3 innings of work, and saw his strikeout rate rise to non-basement levels at 4.4 punch-outs per nine. Between that and the worm-burning ways of his sinker, he earned 3.3 WARP … and took home his second seventh-place finish in the Cy Young voting. ’83 would be more of the same: an 84 cFIP, an All-Star nod, and MVP votes as the closer for the Red Sox. Unlike the closers of today, Stanley was a pitch-chucking machine; he logged a massive 145.3 innings in just 64 appearances.

1984 and 1985 were very good years for Stanely as well, but he didn’t get the same awards recognition as the previous two seasons. In 194.3 innings over those two seasons, he’d post a 3.24 ERA and a 3.67 FIP, not too much different from his previous two years. The only major difference was the change in those innings pitched. After putting forth something close to starting pitcher innings in each of the past two years, he was merely doing the work of a mortal reliever in both ’84 and ’85.

Then it was on to 1986, or “The Year That Must Be Forgotten.” Stanley had pretty good peripherals (a 3.70 FIP and 88 cFIP put him solidly above-average in terms of walks, strikeouts, and dingers), but his ERA was the highest of his career to that point: an ugly 4.37. Our DRA metric that examines what his deserved performance was 5.67, which earned him a WARP of -0.6. That’s right, he was a below-replacement pitcher for the season. Part of the reason the ERA and DRA numbers differ so was due to his unearned runs–he gave up eight over the course of the season. If you take those into account, his ERA transforms into a 5.25 RA9, something far more ugly.

Then, of course, there was the World Series. In Game 6 of the World Series, he was the pitcher on the mound at the end of the game, attempting to close things out for the Sox. Effective in six appearances prior to Game 6 (2.31 ERA), Stanley relieved Calvin Schiraldi with two outs in the 10th, coming in to face Mookie Wilson. A wild pitch plated Kevin Mitchell, and then Bill Buckner’s error sent the series into a seventh and final game, and delayed the Sox’s grand curse-breaking for another 17 years.

The irony is that Stanley did the one thing he did better than anyone else: he induced the ground ball that he was supposed to. He did his work. Anyway, here’s video, if you need the pain to help you know you’re alive.

After that debacle, life moved on. By ’87, Stanley was nearing the end of his run, but the Sox decided to try and return him to the starting rotation. No matter where he pitched–rotation or ‘pen–he had a rough go of it. In 152.7 innings, he saw his signature ground ball rate dip all the way to 54 percent, and his ERA topped 5.00–just barely–for the year. By 1988, he had fallen back to the ‘pen, where he had a very solid bounceback year (101.7 innings, 3.18 ERA) that also included the lowest DRA of his career: 2.60. 1989 would be his final season, and he scuffled in 79.3 innings as both his strikeout rate and ground ball rate dipped from his career norms. In September, he’d announce his retirement, ending his run with the only team he’d ever play for in his career.

Looking back at the entirety of his career, we get the picture of a thrower who worked wherever he was asked: rotation, swingman, closer, and middle relief. His ability to leverage his rubber arm into multiple-inning stints gave him 1,707 career innings for the Sox, which is the sixth-most among all pitchers with the team since 1900. He only trails Tim Wakefield, Roger Clemens, Cy Young, Luis Tiant, and Mel Parnell. That career ground ball rate of 64 percent was the key to his 3.64 ERA as a useful pitching piece over more than a decade.

Looking back at the entirety of Stanley’s career, we get the picture of a thrower who worked wherever he was asked: rotation, swingman, closer, and middle relief.

I talked a little about the current Sox and how they could use a pitcher like Stanley: a little above average but able to function as swingman or leveraged reliever. But is there anyone on the team as currently constructed who could do this job? Perhaps. The guy that comes to my mind has great stuff and experience starting: Joe Kelly. Kelly could potentially be used as a swing starter or multi-inning reliever if a pitcher like Henry Owens or Roenis Elias bumps him out of the rotation. Kelly also has a pretty sweet ground ball rate–he didn’t display it last season (46 percent), but saw percentages around the mid-50s in previous seasons. Kelly could certainly play a Stanley role in a perfect world.

Reliable, versatile, and effective, Stanley was never a superstar, but was almost always available. Every team would love to have a team lifer like him as part of the plan, and precious few players like him have ever existed. He’s earned his spot in the Sox Hall of Fame, and in the annals of the team’s storied history.

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In 1974, Rice made his major-league debut, starting just a few games at the end of the season, but by 1975 he had supplanted Carl Yastrzemski as the team’s starting left fielder and sometime designated hitter just in time for the team to peak into a long playoff run culminating in a World Series appearance. From the jump, Rice demonstrated the skills that would be his calling-card for the entirety of his career: power, contact ability, and fair outfield defense predicated on a powerful throwing arm.

Rice never got the chance to play in the post-season during the Sox’s 1975 run–he injured his wrist after being hit by a pitch at the end of the regular season–and naturally the Sox went on to lose a very close World Series. Then, Rice really began to establish himself in 1976, following his return the following season. While his .315 OBP and 25 homers were nothing to write home about–dear Mom, I’m Matt Kemp–it was a good start. The next three years, however, would be his personal performance peak. In ‘77, he powered up, kicking in 83 extra-base hits, including 39 homers and an accelerated .310 True Average. When you hear about his reputation as a “feared hitter,” this is why. By this point, Rice was fast, strong, and able to hit for average and power.

Then there was 1978, Rice’s MVP season. He deserved every accolade he received that year, posting a .370 OBP and .600 slugging percentage, inarguably the best hitter in the American League even after accounting for his playing time in friendly Fenway. His 46 home runs led baseball, and it would set the tone for expectations throughout the rest of his career. Though this kind of electric output would never quite be repeated (for one thing, he hit an astonishing 15 triples for the second consecutive season in addition to the rest of his extra-base hits, becoming the second player in AL history to lead the league in both 3B and HR), he would carry on this production into another season.

In 1979, Rice put up his third consecutive All-Star performance, and posted his third season with a True Average above .300–.325 to be exact. From a high-level perspective, he was just as productive offensively as he was in 1978, but the big-ticket numbers (home runs, RBI) dipped a bit from 1978. Teammate Fred Lynn was a far better overall player–Lynn was a superior hitter that year and a great defensive outfielder–but Rice was again one of the best players in the game … and just heading into his age-27 season.

While most players used to peak at 27, Rice settled into a three-year performance lull. Still an effective hitter, Rice’s overall production faded as his power diminished. Still able to hit for a near-.300 batting average, his slugging percentage wavered much closer to .500 than his previous three seasons near .600. He averaged about 22 homers per year over the next few seasons, and performed at a good-but-not great level when factoring his position and defense. He earned an All-Star nod in 1980, but slipped from the rolls over the next two seasons.

1983 was a bit of a comeback year. Rice hit 39 dingers for the third season in his career, and his .304 True Average was his highest by a fair margin since 1979. By BP’s WARP metric, this was the second-greatest season of his career, behind only his MVP campaign.

The next year was a disappointment, with Rice’s overall offensive performance just a bit better than league-average despite a solid 28 homers. His walk rate, never enormous, dipped considerably to 6.8%, which helped to lower his on-base percentage to his lowest numbers since his 1976 season. Between that, his decreased power, and remarkable 36 instances in which he grounded into a double play, Rice was no longer the MVP candidate of previous seasons, but rather a league-average left fielder capable of bopping the occasional dinger. Nevertheless, Rice was entrenched as a celebrity and All-Star, and still was a regular fixture in the mid-summer classic.

Over the next two years, his home run totals would slide, but Rice gently raised his walk rate and lowered his strikeout rate, improving his overall offensive performance each year. Perhaps he was adapting his play style to stay relevant. While ‘85 was similar to his ‘84 (2.1 WARP versus the previous 3.4), in 1986 he burst back out thanks to career highs in doubles (39), batting average (.324), and OBP (.384). Best of all, he finally had a chance to play in a World Series after missing the opportunity during his first go-round. Rice wasn’t remarkably effective, as he struck out 26% of the time, but he hit two homers and scored an impressive 14 runs, despite all the Ks. He’d end up third in American League MVP voting, losing out to teammate Roger Clemens.

Rice remained effective through that 1986 run, but after his age-33 season, things went downhill in a righteous hurry. Over his last three seasons (1987-89), Rice put up replacement-level performance, with slight positive WARP gains (0.3 in two years) balanced by a -0.6 WARP performance in his final season, 1989. During those last three seasons, Rice’s signature power all but disappeared–he posted a .395 slugging–and without it, sluggish defense and baserunning didn’t help his overall case. At the same time, the team was flush with outfield talent, as part-timer Dewey Evans was still hitting while Mike Greenwell and Ellis Burks were rising.

He retired after the 1989 season, taking a host of positions with the Red Sox organization since then. Among Sox players, Rice retired with a .502 slugging percentage, good for eighth all time among players with more than 2000 PA, and his 382 home runs are fourth in the team’s history.

So which ballplayer of the modern era does Rice most resemble? Allow me to offer up a comparison to a recent former Sox player: Yoenis Cespedes. When we adjust for era, Rice handily surpasses Cespedes’ best offensive seasons during his 1977-79 peak, but overall his .292 True Average is actually behind Cespedes’s .297 mark. While Cespedes is likely to see his overall production decline when he reaches the twilight of his career, the two men are notable for similar reasons: loads of power–Rice’s career .502 slugging is not markedly different than Cespedes’s .486, especially accounting for era–lack of selectivity, and dynamite throwing arms. It’s very unlikely that Cespedes has either the longevity or the peak of Rice, though he appears to be a superior defender, but the two are similar enough.

Currently in the Sox’s system, there doesn’t seem to be an offensive-minded outfielder that fits the Rice mold, especially given the team’s focus on well-rounded offensive skillsets with a balanced approach. Then again, if Rafael Devers finds himself growing out of third base and moving to the outfield, he could certainly end up with a similar profile to Jim Ed … especially if his 4.6 percent walk rate in 2015 hangs around.

But even if Devers does eventually pull off a convincing Rice impersonation, it’s important to remember just how long, consistent, and stellar of a career that Rice had in Boston. Not only was he a Red Sox for life, he carried on a baseball tradition that–like playing center field for the Yankees–carries the weight of history. Before Rice, there was Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski manning the turf under the Green Monster. After him, there was Mike Greenwell (and a few years of Wil Cordero and Troy O’Leary, but whatever) and Manny Ramirez. Holding any man to the expectations of Red Sox left fielder can be terrifying and daunting, just ask Hanley Ramirez, but Rice shouldered the burden of expectations with grace and unbelievable skill. He did everything his team could have asked of him, and more, over his 16 seasons in uniform.

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Fred Lynn was, most famously, the first ballplayer to win both the Rookie of the Year and the MVP award in the same season. But Lynn was more than just a stellar, barrier-breaking debut season. He spent one partial year and six full seasons with Boston before moving on to California, and in those seasons he was a top-flight player and perennial All-Star.

After partial seasons in 1973 and 1974 in the Red Sox system, Lynn made his debut in 1974 with a Rusney Castillo-esque cup of coffee. I use Castillo as a comparable because, like the recent Cuban import, Lynn was awfully exciting in his first taste of big-league action. By BP’s WARP, he was worth almost a win in just those 15 games, thanks to timely hitting and two homers.

By the time 1975 started, Lynn was entrenched as the team’s everyday center fielder. He played a solid center by most metrics — BP’s Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) disagrees with the other metrics and posits below-average performance — and earned a Gold Glove Award, but that was probably the least impressive of his major accomplishments. Lynn was an offensive force, posting a .329 True Average (TAv) on the strength of 21 homers, 47 doubles and a league-leading .566 slugging percentage.

While the AL Rookie of the Year award may have been chalk for such an offensive outburst, WARP tells the story of a player who perhaps should have been passed over for his signature MVP award. WARP posts Lynn’s season as the 17th best among position players in baseball that season, behind American League stars like second-year player George Brett, Thurman Munson, Rod Carew and Reggie Jackson, among others. However, Lynn had the second-best OPS in baseball (.905), behind just National Leaguer Joe Morgan. The catch: OPS isn’t park-adjusted, and Fenway Park was a pretty wonderful hitters’ park in the 70’s. When you look at TAv (.329) instead, Lynn was still great, but fell into close proximity to players like Carew, Ken Singleton, Toby Harrah, and John Mayberry.

In 1975, Lynn had the narrative to win an MVP, but he was nearly as good — by WARP, not so much by traditional offensive stats — in 1976. His slugging slipped nearly 100 points, the homers were cut in half, but the defense may have improved to the point where he only lost 0.5 WARP from his sparkling debut season. Of course, he still made the All-Star team. 1977 saw another slip, this one more substantial. It would be his worst in a Red Sox uniform, as he barely hit at a league-average level (.249 TAv), and too many balls in play found a glove instead of grass. He still made his third All-Star Game, though this one seemed more a gift than a just reward.

The following season, Lynn returned to form somewhat, posting a 3.7-win season by BP’s metrics. Lynn’s batting average — a prime driver of his offensive performance — rebounded to .298 from .260 the previous season. He hit 22 home runs, which would become something of a yearly expectation as his career progressed. He made an All-Star Game. What else should have been expected?

In 1979, Fred Lynn played his best baseball in his penultimate season with the Red Sox. He won the batting, on-base, and slugging titles with a .333/.423/.637 slash line. He hit 39 homers, his career high, and played sharp defense by all modern metrics. He took home his second consecutive Gold Glove and — like clockwork — returned to his fifth consecutive All-Star Game. Despite such a season, bigger and better hardware eluded him.

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Lynn could have deserved his second MVP Award — he came in fourth in the voting behind Don Baylor, Ken Singleton and George Brett. And while Lynn handily out-performed Baylor and Singleton, George Brett had the greatest claim to that MVP in hindsight, having posted 9.63 WARP to Lynn’s 7.84. At that point, both players were at the peaks of their powers, but while Lynn may have been the superior hitter in ‘79, Brett had close offensive production paired with a world-class defensive performance at third base. He probably had the greater season.

1980 brought a close to Lynn’s tenure with the Sox, as he would be traded after the season. But, before he left, he’d give the team his sixth full season of very good performance. Despite only playing in 110 games, Lynn performed very admirably when in the lineup. His slash line was full of lovely numbers: .301/.383/.480, and he posted nearly five full wins in three-quarters of a season. He won yet another Gold Glove (his third in a row), and — yes — made yet another All-Star team.

It turned out that Lynn was leaving the Sox on a high note. The trade that sent him to the Angels didn’t bring much back to the Red Sox, but Lynn only had one more elite season left in him, his age-30 year in 1982. He’d play another 10 seasons with the Angels, Orioles, Tigers, and Padres, but more than half his career value was wrapped up in his seven years at Fenway.

Lynn’s legacy is that magical 1975, but also a couple of other things. He was peppered with minor and major injuries throughout his career, often playing in less than a full season and amassing between 450-600 PA in most years. He made nine consecutive All-Star Games as a center fielder, but the metrics tell us that he was more likely an average or slightly-above average fielder, despite four Gold Gloves. In his later, post-Boston seasons, he became a liability in the field.

Just because he wasn’t a Hall of Famer doesn’t make Fred Lynn less than a singular player in Red Sox history.

When it comes to overall career performance, Lynn looks like a classic case of a player who was very, very good, but not great enough to warrant induction to Cooperstown. He had a very good peak, but not a long enough one to offset very average performance in the later part of his career. His career WARP of 47.7 is admirable, but about 10 wins short of being in the sweet spot of potential Hall of Fame induction.

But just because he wasn’t a Hall of Famer doesn’t make Fred Lynn less than a singular player in Red Sox history. No other player had such a dynamic debut in red and navy, and he was part of a very memorable outfield in the late 70’s. He doesn’t compare identically to anyone currently on the Red Sox roster, but perhaps the player in the system who could be most like Lynn is Double-A center fielder (and top-20 prospect) Manuel Margot. Lynn leveraged good-but-not-great tools across the board into a couple of truly special seasons when everything came together, and there’s a chance that Margot could do the same in a best-case scenario.

More likely, there will never be another Red Sox player like Fred Lynn. He was a dynamic hitter and — at times — a dynamic fielder. He could hit, and hit for power, play defense — he just didn’t do it for as long as Sox fans might’ve liked. We’ll always want more players like Fred Lynn, and we’ll always want more Fred Lynn — but the time he played for the Sox was pretty special indeed.

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Then there’s Dwight “Dewey” Evans, a fixture in the Boston outfield for two full decades (70s and 80s) and a cornerstone of several competitive Red Sox teams. He put together seasons that the new-school sabermetrics kids might call “awesome”, but at the time he may have had more of a reputation as a steady, solid producer and not a superstar. And when it came time to consider his career in the context of the Hall of Fame, before those kids and their computers started running the numbers in earnest, he fell off the ballot quickly despite a solid case for immortality.

Perhaps most interestingly, Dewey was two different players throughout his lengthy career — at least in terms of balance of production. During the 1970s, he was a good hitter, but a great defender in right field. During the 1980s, he was a great hitter, but a fair-to-poor defender in right field.

I’ll actually start with defense because, perhaps more than anything else, great defense was Dwight Evans’ calling card for much of his career. Despite spending most of his innings in the defensively invisible position of right field, Evans had both a sterling reputation as a defender (especially once the late 70s rolled around) and the stats to back that reputation up … at least for a while.

Do you love good defensive plays? Good, because Dewey caught this ball just for you. World Series, 1975.

Magnificent. Range and a cannon arm, a devastating combo for a right fielder. Ken Griffey is still running, I think.

It’s interesting — Dewey’s defensive reputation appears to have logged behind the reality, at least according to our current defensive metrics. Here’s a quick table of Evans’ 20 years of FRAA stats, by year, along with the years he won the Gold Glove.

We don’t have the greatest data on defense from the 70s and 80s, but FRAA and the like make for pretty good proxies. I’m not saying that Evans didn’t deserve the award in the years that he won, or that he did deserve it in the early years where he didn’t — but it looks like the voters might’ve moved to reward Dewey just a bit late for his outstanding prowess in the field.

Eight Gold Gloves isn’t exactly chopped liver, but one might argue that a few were undeserved, while his early-career seasons of ‘74 and ‘75 are under-appreciated. Perhaps Evans got more credit in his later career for defense, because that’s when he started to really emerge as a hitter.

See, from the jump, Dewey Evans could get on base, but it wasn’t until 1981 that Evans’ bat really started talking. Prior to that point, Evans was a prodigious walker, regularly taking a free pass, and hitting for what most might consider today a “good enough” batting average. The combination of his patience and bat-to-ball abilities resulted in an on-base percentage that hovered between .320 and .365 for much of the 80s.

I probably don’t need to tell you today that excellent defense, plus a True Average that regularly topped .270 (average for the league) makes for a valuable player in any era. But Evans didn’t carry the power — or the RBIs — of teammates like Jim Rice right away. He’d regularly hit 10 to as many as 17 homers, but in 1978 the power started coming out.

First it was 24 homers in 1978, then 21 in 1979. By 1981, his best season offensively, he hit 22 homers in just 108 games, thanks to the strike-shortened season. This was good enough to tie for the league lead in home runs, and from that point on, Evans could be counted on to hit between 20-34 homers every single season until his final two campaigns.

Dewey Evans had a knack for going yard on the first day of the season. Opening Day, 1986:

As the power increased, Dewey also began walking at a higher rate than ever before, and his overall offensive performance stayed strong. Even as his defensive numbers shrunk, his offense carried the day, and he put up season after season of consistent, All-Star-level performance, despite only making the mid-season team on three occasions (‘78, ‘81, and ‘87).

Evans would finish his career with a .294 True Average, well above the average rate for his era. Since his career was as long as it was consistent, he finished with 385 career homers and 69.4 WARP, which places him firmly at 31st on Baseball Prospectus’s all-time position-player WARP leaderboard. Now, this admittedly doesn’t cover all of baseball history, just the latter part of the 20th century and the 21st — but it’s still an astonishing feat for any player.

There’s a pretty interesting comp for Evans in the big leagues today: St. Louis Cardinals right fielder Jason Heyward. Heyward, like early Evans, has a reputation as a truly outstanding defensive outfielder. Both men have otherworldly seasons by defensive metrics such as Baseball Prospectus’s FRAA. Evans had four seasons worth 10 or more runs defensively by that metric, and Heyward has two so far (including his ridiculous 26.4 FRAA last season).

There’s a pretty interesting comp for Evans in the big leagues today: St. Louis Cardinals right fielder Jason Heyward.

Both hitters know how to work the count, as Evans has his aforementioned tremendous walk rate of 13.2% — a rate that only increased as his career went on. Heyward’s walk rate is only 10.9% for his career, but one could see it increasing as time passes and he matures as a hitter. Evans was certainly the greater power threat — 385 career homers is no mean feat — but Heyward has flashed plus power at times as well, and could top 100 career dingers before this season is over.

As far as Red Sox players go, finding a comp to Evans is nigh-impossible. The closest comp might be Mookie Betts, he of the prodigious minor-league walk rate and will-he-won’t-he power stroke. But Betts profiles as less bat and more fielding, which is true of, oh, perhaps 90% of all baseball players in history. And Betts can run, which Dewey, sadly, could not. I’m stretching a little bit here — Dwight Evans probably isn’t walking through that door, unless Manuel Margot turns into something even his biggest fans haven’t seen coming.

Few hitters could post something like a .270/.370/.470 slash line over a season, much less a career. While Evans wasn’t exactly a singular performer, and sometimes overshadowed by players like Jim Rice and Fred Lynn, he was a critical piece on two decades worth of Red Sox teams.

Dewey was what I would consider a complete ballplayer … though he wasn’t always complete at the same time. He hit for power and for average. He got on base. He was a good, or maybe great, defensive outfielder for a portion of his career. He couldn’t really run, but he gets a pass there.

And not only was Evans great, but he’s played more games for the Red Sox than anyone not named Yastrzemski. 19 years, people! That’s just about a lifetime in navy and red, with only a handful of seasons putting up less than three WARP. That’s a career better than any Boston position player not named Williams, Yastrzemski, or Boggs. That’s what Dwight Evans brought to Fenway Park day in and day out.

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Drafted out of a Tampa high school in 1976, Boggs had one truly magnificent skill during his major-league career: he was a premium contact hitter, even by 80s standards. He leveraged this skill, combined it with a real focus on taking the extra base, and supplemented his offensive profile by playing solid defense at the hot corner. His performance during the 80s was astounding, becoming an offensive force despite virtually no power production. The end result is a guy who, even today, profiles out as one of the 50 or so best players of all time, and a no-doubt Hall of Famer.

Let’s start by discussing his ability to make contact. This manifested itself in two powerful ways: a batting average for which he became known, and an ability to avoid strikeouts. While batting average isn’t the greatest sabermetric stat in the world, back in the 80s and 90s, it was a useful shorthand for how good a hitter was. And by that metric, you could point to Boggs as one of the best hitters in the game. His career average of .328 was good enough for 33rd all-time, and most of the names above him on the career leaderboard made it into the Hall of Fame well before Boggs came into the league … or was even born. Say what you want about average as a shorthand for success, but this is an achievement.

The annals of history are littered with high-average, low-production “hitters.” What made Boggs so great was his ability to integrate that skill with another one that’s much more Moneyball: walking.

Wade’s bat-to-ball skills also allowed him to avoid strikeouts like a champ. Over his long and illustrious career, Boggs only punched out 6.9% of the time. Precious few players in baseball history posted a strikeout rate lower than that, especially in recent decades.

But as we’ve found over the years, contact ability alone doesn’t make one an offensive juggernaut. The ability to avoid strikeouts and hit for contact doesn’t mean very much at all on it’s own anymore, and the annals of history are littered with high-average, low-production “hitters.” What made Boggs so great was his ability to integrate that skill with another one that’s much more Moneyball: walking.

Boggs’ career walk rate was 13.1%, which means that on a rate basis, he walked almost twice as often as he struck out. Today, that’s just about unheard of. Not walking one-seventh of the time, of course, but the ability to walk without striking out. When you put the two of those things together, you get to the statistic that really explains the Wade Boggs value: on-base percentage.

At .415, Wade’s career OBP is 24th all time. That’s great, but even that undersells just how good Boggs was when he was at the peak of his powers. Between 1983 and 1989, Boggs led baseball in OBP six times in seven seasons, and placed second in OBP during 1984. His OBP over that total time period? .446!

That’s far, far better than the next closest guy on the leaderboard for that period, an OBP monster named Rickey Henderson, who posted “just” a .401 on-base during that time. That 1983 to 1989 sweet spot was a time when Boggs simply ruled the overall offensive numbers for the era. No offensive player in baseball was better, on a league- and park-adjusted basis. And that’s despite his greatest Achilles’ heel.

If Boggs could’ve hit for any power at all, aside from his freak 24-dinger 1987, he could have been a top-20 all-time hitter. But, well, he couldn’t. No one’s perfect. Boggs was never a threat to go yard, topping 10 homers in a season only twice, and finishing his career with 118 homers. Does this mean that in today’s game, with shifting defenses, more athletic defenders, and (slightly) better positioning, Boggs may not have been quite so prolific? Maybe. But for his time, he was an almost-prototypical hitter, save that inability to take the ball out of the park.

How rare was Boggs’ collection of offensive skills? To answer that question, I turned to the Play Index at Baseball-Reference. There, I filtered out all the careers of guys who played during the Expansion Era (1961-2015) who had 1.4 times the amount of walks as they did strikeouts, an OPS+ of 100 or better, and 3,000 or more plate appearances. The list is hella short.

Only ten players did what Boggs did, and plenty of them had a slightly different profile. Rusty Staub and Brian Giles hit for considerably more power. Tony Gwynn *never* struck out, but didn’t walk nearly as often as the patient Boggs. To me, Willie Randolph looks the most similar to Boggs in terms of overall profile, but this underscores just what a rare combination of walks, strikeouts, and overall hitting ability Boggs brought to the table.

Almost as an afterthought, we should talk about his defense. Boggs wasn’t a world-class defender at third base, but he was better than passable. BP’s FRAA metric rates him as a net positive over his career (15 runs above zero), mostly accounting for great defense in his first five or six seasons before slumming it in the negative numbers. Later in his career, Boggs snagged two Gold Glove awards for his work with the more telegenic Yankees, but his skills were at their peak in Beantown.

Then there’s the overall metric that didn’t exist back in the 1980s: WARP. Using WARP to calculate Wade’s overall value allows us to collate all aspects of his game, and the end result is tasty. He was worth 80.4 WARP over his career, and regularly tallied eight wins per season in the 1980s. Even on the downswing of his career, he was good enough to post enough WARP to qualify as an average regular or better, and that total amount of WARP is good to put him at 18th all-time among position players. That slots him right between Reggie Jackson and Ken Griffey Jr., two other no-doubt Hall of Famers.

Now, with all that being said about his skills  here’s the tough question. Who’s the closest thing to Wade Boggs in the game today? It’d have to be a player with (1) devastating ability to avoid strikeouts, (2) a world-class walk rate, (3) great overall offensive performance, and (4) good defense at a semi-premium position.

The short answer? No one has all the characteristics of a prime Boggs today, but in 2014 there was one guy who got kind of close. Former Red Sox catcher Victor Martinez posted a miniature 6.6% strikeout rate (the lowest in baseball) and 10.9% walk rate. That makes for a dynamite hitter, even before accounting for Martinez’s unexpected power spike. Martinez touched off three of the four items that made Boggs so interesting, with the sole exception being the poor defense that forced him into a DH role.

I’d love to be able to offer something up about a Red Sox player who could be considered the second coming of the Chicken Man, but it’s simply too hard to find anyone who strikes out as little as Wade did, while still being a world-class offensive threat. Perhaps the closest comp is Dustin Pedroia, who tends to at least keep his walks and his punchouts on the same level, percentage-wise.

Pedey actually ticks quite a few of the Boggs boxes, but on a smaller scale. While he doesn’t hit for the same average that Wade did, his batting average does stick above league average. Pedroia’s overall offensive performance never hit the heights of Wade’s .320 to .340 TAv seasons — in fact, Pedey’s 2015 performance (.301 TAv)  is the only season that’s sniffed Wade’s career mark of .302 TAv.

But Pedroia has hit for almost exactly the same overall power as Boggs, at least when it comes to a career slugging percentage. Boggs posted a .443 slugging over his tenure, while Pedroia checks in at .444, despite hitting dingers at a far higher rate than Wade ever did. And Pedroia plays stellar defense at a critical position, not all that different from Boggs, the two-year Gold Glove winner who manned third in the 80s.

No, Wade Boggs was the baseball equivalent of the famous quote from noted sportswriter (and noted doer of other stuff) Hunter S. Thompson.

“There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”

That sounds about right. No other Red Sox player was quite like him, before, since, or otherwise. As the game changes, it’s more and more unlikely that anyone ever will be. We are propelled headlong into a baseball world of increasing strikeouts and selling out for power at the expense of batted-ball skills. The chances of finding another third baseman, let alone any player at all, like Wade Boggs are minimal at best.

(Though we were able to identify someone who can play him in a biographical film.)

Top photo by Gregory Fisher/USA Today Sports Images