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Jerry Crasnick has a story today on Jose Altuve, the exciting spark plug for the Houston Astros. Yes, I just wanted to write "spark plug." At 5-foot-5, Altuve looks like a player better suited to 1896 than 2012. But the dude can hit. Anyway, here's an all-time all-short team in honor of our new favorite second baseman.

C: Yogi Berra, 5-7 (1946 to 1965)
A Yankees scout who saw Berra when he was a teenager turned in this report: "He does everything wrong, but it comes out right." Berra refused to sign with his hometown Cardinals because they wouldn't give him the same bonus as his neighborhood pal Joe Garagiola. Berra knew he was better. He was right.

1B: Joe Judge, 5-8 (1915 to '34)
First basemen are supposed to be tall and powerful, and Judge is the only 5-8 or shorter one to have a lengthy career. He was a good player for the Washington Senators, although he didn't hit for much power (71 career home runs). He hit better than .300 nine times and finished with a .298 average and more than 2,300 hits. Judge broke Walter Johnson's ankle during spring training in 1927, essentially ending Johnson's career. Bill James wrote that when Johnson later managed the club and had to bench an aging Judge, the two men who had been best friends ended up in a nasty public feud.

2B: Joe Morgan, 5-7 (1963 to '84)
The two-time MVP and Hall of Famer was easily the best player in baseball during his 1972-1976 peak. When we did the all-time best season bracket, I wrote about Morgan's remarkable 1975 season, when he was five wins better than any other NL player. (Although Baseball-Reference.com has since modified its WAR calculations, and that margin is down to 3.4 wins.)

3B: John McGraw, 5-7 (1891 to 1906)
Although remembered as one of the greatest managers ever, McGraw was a valuable third baseman in the 1890s because of his on-base skills. In 1899, he hit .391 and drew 124 walks for a .547 OBP, the fourth-highest single-season mark. Back in McGraw's day, third base was actually more of a defensive position than second base because of the large number of bunts employed, so you see a lot of small, spry third basemen up until the 1920s. The only notable "modern" third basemen under 5-9 would be Chone Figgins and Grady Hatton, a good player with the Reds in the late '40s/early '50s.

SS: Freddie Patek, 5-5 (1968 to '81)
Listed at 5-5, Patek might have been an inch shorter. You could go Phil Rizzuto (5-6) or Rabbit Maranville (5-5) here, but we'll give Patek bonus points for being even shorter than those two guys. Nicknamed "The Flea," Patek was a three-time All-Star with the Royals and finished sixth in the 1971 AL MVP vote.

LF: Tim Raines, 5-8 (1979 to 2002)
Raines deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. He was an on-base machine and one of great base stealers ever. If we lower the bar to 5-7 (there haven't been many short left fielders), we'd go with George Burns, a Raines-type player with the Giants in the teens and early '20s who led the NL five times in runs scored.

CF: Hack Wilson, 5-6 (1923 to '34)
Built like Kirby Puckett except even shorter, stronger and more barrel-chested, a unique figure in baseball history. Wilson is rare among short players in that he had enormous power, leading the NL four times in home runs, including 1930 when he drove in an MLB-record 191 runs with the Cubs. His career fell apart after that because of heavy drinking and his Hall of Fame résumé is based on a scant five-year run, but you wonder whether such a player could even exist today.

RF: Willie Keeler, 5-4 (1892 to 1910)
Keeler arrived in the big leagues as a third baseman with the New York Giants, but the Giants sold him to Brooklyn for $800. He was later traded to the Baltimore Orioles, where he played with McGraw as the Orioles won three straight NL pennants from 1894 to 1896. A .341 career hitter and Hall of Famer, and Baseball-Reference.com lists Keeler as a left-handed thrower (he hit lefty), but that's a mistake. Here's a picture of him late in his career with the Giants, throwing right-handed.

DH: Matt Stairs, 5-9 (1992 to 2011)
He actually didn't DH all that much, but there haven't been many short guys to play more than a handful of games at DH. We'll put Stairs here, especially because he's generously listed at 5-9. Brian Downing, 5-10, became a regular DH the last few years of his career (1973 to 1992).

P: Dolf Luque, 5-7 (1914 to '35)
"The Pride of Havana" won 194 games, including 27 with the Reds in 1923. He had a good fastball and big curveball and from 1921 to 1928 averaged 262 innings per season. There were some excellent short pitchers in the 1800s, but of course we see very few short hurlers in modern baseball. Since 1950, the pitcher with the most wins who was 5-9 or shorter is Tom Gordon with 138, and only five have won 100. At 5-10 (listed heights), you get Whitey Ford and Billy Pierce.

RP: Roy Face, 5-8 (1953 to '69)
Credited with 193 saves, Face is famous for his 18-1 season with the Pirates in 1959. He also saved three games for Pittsburgh in the 1960 World Series.

Just a little blast from the past to whet the appetite for spring training ...

There are a lot of columns and analysis out there advocating the case for Tim Raines for the Hall of Fame. I probably won't add anything new to the discussion, but let me start here:



Player A is Raines. Player B is Tony Gwynn. That final column is times reached base. Yes, Raines reached base more often in his career than Gwynn, in just slightly more plate appearances. I'm not the first writer to come up with that comparison. Joe Posnanski, among others, is especially fond of this factoid. The point of the statistic isn't to bring down Gwynn, rather to show how potent and devastating an offensive player Raines was. The arc of his game was a little different than Gwynn's but the results are similar: Gwynn got more singles, Raines walked more and had a little more power. He was one of the great base stealers of all time and scored more runs in his career than Gwynn.

That's what Raines did: He scored runs. He's 51st on the all-time list and of the 50 players ahead of him, all eligible candidates are in the Hall of Fame except for Jimmy Ryan and George Van Haltren, two 1890s outfielders; turn-of-the-century shortstop Bill Dahlen; and Rafael Palmeiro.

A common refrain about Raines from his advocates is that he was one of the best players in baseball over a span in the 1980s. This isn't some after-the-fact hocus-pocus going on. It was widely believed at the time. In a 1984 Sports Illustrated piece on Raines, Pete Rose said: "Right now he's the best player in the National League. Mike Schmidt is a tremendous player and so are Dale Murphy and Andre Dawson, but Rock can beat you in more ways than any other player in the league. He can beat you with his glove, his speed and his hitting from either side of the plate." In his annual Baseball Abstracts, Bill James often argued the case of Raines' all-around brilliance. Raines finished fifth, sixth and seventh in MVP votes, despite playing for mediocre Expos teams.

Raines' five-year peak was 1983 to 1987. According to Baseball-Reference's WAR ranking, the top five players during those years were Wade Boggs (39.7), Rickey Henderson (34.1), Cal Ripken (33.3), Schmidt (31.4) and Raines (30.7). Pretty nice company. (The next five were Alan Trammell, Gwynn, Eddie Murray, Murphy and Keith Hernandez.)

To be fair, this alone doesn't make him a Hall of Famer. I checked every five-year period since 1969 (1969 to 1973, 1970 to 1974, etc.) and not all of the names that appear in the top five are Hall of Famers or future Hall of Famers. Heck, Sal Bando rated as the best player in baseball from 1969 to 1973.

Some characterize Raines as having too short of a peak level of dominance. From 1988 to 1995, he averaged .283/.375/.409, with 81 runs and 33 steals per season. Maybe not an MVP candidate anymore, but still a good player, top leadoff hitter and valuable contributor. He's hardly alone in this aspect. He had six seasons with an OPS+ of 130 or higher, the same as Jim Rice, Dawson and Ernie Banks, and more than Kirby Puckett, Roberto Alomar, Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Yogi Berra, Tony Perez or Robin Yount.

Maybe Raines doesn't have a slum-dunk case. But he has a case. Maybe voters have forgotten his great years in Montreal (and they have forgotten; he received only 37 percent of the vote last year). Maybe they remember his final seasons with the Yankees, when he became a part-time player on two World Series champions. Maybe they can't believe he compares favorably with Tony Gwynn.

Believe.

There have been 35 Game 7s played in the World Series. They provide many of the most indelible moments in the sport’s long history: Bill Mazeroski’s home run, Jack Morris’ shutout, Luis Gonzalez’s blooper, Joaquin Andujar going nuts.

Now we have 36, the first one since the Angels beat the Giants in 2002. As Matt Harrison prepares to face Chris Carpenter, here is an abbreviated history of Game 7s, which usually feature three primary ingredients:

1. They are close. Thirteen of the 35 games were decided by one run and another seven by two runs.

2. Good pitching. There have been nine shutouts altogether, and in the past five Game 7s, no team has scored more than four runs and the team average over those five is just 2.2 runs per game.

3. The home team does well -- at least recently. It has won the past eight Game 7s. The last road team to win was the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates.

Best pitching performances
1. Jack Morris, Twins, 1991: Ten scoreless innings. Game score: 84.

2. Sandy Koufax, Dodgers, 1965: Pitching on two days’ rest, pitched a three-hit shutout with 10 strikeouts. Game score: 88.

3. Ralph Terry, Yankees, 1962: A four-hit shutout to win 1-0. Game score: 83.

4. Johnny Podres, Dodgers, 1955. Scattered eight hits, but blanked the mighty Yankees to finally deliver a title to the Bums. Game score: 73.

5. Bret Saberhagen, Royals, 1985. The youngest pitcher to start a Game 7 (21 years, 1999 days), he only struck out two, but threw just 92 pitches in limiting the Cardinals to five hits and no walks in an 11-0 victory. Game score: 79.

Best hitting performances
1. Yogi Berra, Yankees, 1956. Only five times has a player driven in four runs in a Game 7 -- Berra and teammate Bill Skowron each did it twice, and Detroit's Paul Richards did it in 1945. Only once has a player hit two home runs, and that was Berra in 1956. He hit two-run homers in the first and third innings to stake the Yankees to a 4-0 lead, added two walks and another run scored.

2. Willie Stargell, Pirates, 1979: Went 4-for-5 with two doubles and a two-run homer in the sixth that gave the Pirates a 2-1 lead in an eventual 4-1 victory.

3. Max Carey, Pirates, 1925: Went 4-for-5 with three doubles, three runs and two RBIs in Pittsburgh's 9-7 win.

4. Ken Boyer, Cardinals, 1964: Singled and scored in the fourth, doubled and scored in the fifth, homered in the seventh.

5. Bucky Harris, Senators, 1924: Went 3-for-5 with a home run and two-run single in the eighth that tied the game.

Managerial blunders
1. Bucky Harris, Senators, 1925: Left Walter Johnson in to surrender 15 hits and nine runs -- including five over the final two innings in a 9-7 loss.

2. John McNamara, Red Sox, 1986: The game after Calvin Schiraldi helped blow Boston's 10th-inning lead, McNamara brought Schiraldi back in with the game tied in the seventh inning. He immediately gave up a home run to Ray Knight, two more hits and a wild pitch and left after recording just one out (and that was on a sacrifice bunt).

3. Dick Williams, Red Sox, 1967: He brought back ace Jim Lonborg on two days' rest and left him to give up 10 hits and seven runs in six innings.

4. Charlie Grimm, Cubs, 1945: Hank Borowy had started Game 5 and pitched four innings in relief to win Game 6, but Grimm went to the well once too often. Borowy couldn't retire a batter as the Tigers scored five runs in the top of the first.

5. Whitey Herzog, Cardinals, 1985: The Royals were already on their way to an 11-0 blowout, but Herzog never should have brought in mercurial right-hander Joaquin Andujar in relief. Andujar exploded twice at home-plate umpire Don Denkinger, leading to him and Herzog getting ejected in an embarrassing meltdown.

Managerial strokes of genius
1. Walter Alston, Dodgers, 1965: Sandy Koufax or Don Drysdale? Alston chose Koufax on two days' rest over the more rested Drysdale and Koufax pitched a three-hit shutout.

2. Tom Kelly, Twins, 1991: He left Morris in for a 10th inning. It worked out.

3. Alston, Dodgers, 1955: Leading 2-0 in the sixth, he inserted Sandy Amoros into left field and moved Jim Gilliam to second base. In that inning, Amoros made a terrific running catch of Berra's fly ball with two runners on and turned it into a double play.

4. Bucky Harris, Senators, 1924: Fearful of hot-hitting Billy Terry, who platooned at first base for the Giants, Harris started right-hander Curly Ogden (putting Terry in the starting lineup), but removed Ogden after two batters for left-hander George Mogridge. Terry went 0-for-2 against Mogridge before John McGraw finally removed him for a pinch-hitter, meaning he was out of the game as the Senators later went to right-handers in a 12-inning game.

5. Rogers Hornsby, Cardinals, 1926: Pete Alexander wasn't expecting to pitch in Game 7 after throwing a complete-game win in Game 6, but Hornsby brought him in with the Cardinals leading 3-2 and the bases loaded in the seventh. He struck out Tony Lazzeri and went the rest of the way for the save.

The roll call: Ten greatest Game 7s

10. 1962: New York Yankees 1, at San Francisco Giants 0. The Giants had runners at second and third with two outs (Roger Maris had made a terrific play in right on Willie Mays’ double to hold Felipe Alou at third). Willie McCovey smoked a line drive ... but at second baseman Bobby Richardson. Ralph Terry had the shutout and Charlie Brown later screamed, "Why couldn’t McCovey have hit the ball just three feet higher?"

9. 1975: Cincinnati Reds 4, at Boston Red Sox 3. Not remembered like the Game 6 classic, but a terrific game in its own right. The Red Sox took a 3-0 lead in the third inning when Don Gullett walked in two runs with the bases loaded. Boston would keep getting runners on, but couldn’t increase its lead; the Sox stranded nine runners and went 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position. Tony Perez hit a two-run homer over the Green Monster off Bill Lee’s slow curveball in the sixth, Pete Rose’s two-out single off Roger Moret in the seventh tied it and then Ken Griffey Sr. walked leading off the ninth against rookie Jim Burton and scored on Joe Morgan’s two-out blooper to center.

8. 1997: At Florida Marlins 3, Cleveland Indians 2 (11 innings). Jose Mesa was trying to close out Cleveland’s first World Series title since 1997, but the Marlins tied it on Craig Counsell’s sacrifice fly in the ninth. In the 11th, following Tony Fernandez’s error, Edgar Renteria singled in the winning run with two outs.

7. 1955: Brooklyn Dodgers 2, at New York Yankees 0. The Dodgers finally beat the Yankees and won their only World Series title in Brooklyn as Johnny Podres scattered eight hits. Gil Hodges drove in both runs for Brooklyn, but the game’s key play came in the sixth when left fielder Sandy Amoros -- who had just entered for defense -- made a running catch of Yogi Berra’ fly ball with two runners on and doubled Gil McDougald off first base.

6. 1912: At Boston Red Sox 3, New York Giants 2 (10 innings). The Giants scored once in the top of the 10th but Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson couldn’t hold off the Red Sox. Center fielder Fred Snodgrass dropped a fly ball to begin the inning, Tris Speaker’s RBI single tied it and then Larry Gardner’s sac fly scored Steve Yerkes with the winning run.

5. 1946: At St. Louis Cardinals 4, Boston Red Sox 3. St. Louis led 3-1 in the eighth but Dom DiMaggio's two-run double tied it. With two outs in the bottom of the inning, Harry Walker doubled to score Enos Slaughter ahead of the relay throw from shortstop Johnny Pesky (who might have hesitated slightly), the play becoming known as "Slaughter's Mad Dash."

4. 1924: At Washington Senators 4, Pittsburgh Pirates 3 (12 innings). Long the laughingstock of the American League, the Senators had finally reached the World Series in the twilight of the great Walter Johnson's career. But he had lost Games 1 and 5. The Giants led 3-1 in the eighth when Bucky Harris tied it with a two-out, two-run single. Johnson then entered in the ninth and pitched four scoreless innings. The Senators finally pushed across the winning run when Earl McNeely's grounder took a bad hop over the glove of third baseman Fred Lindstrom.

3. 2001: At Arizona Diamondbacks 3, New York Yankees 2. Curt Schilling versus Roger Clemens. Randy Johnson on in relief. And then two runs in the bottom off the ninth off the supposedly untouchable Mariano Rivera.

2. 1991: At Minnesota Twins 1, Atlanta Braves 0 (10 innings). This game featured much more than Jack Morris’ brilliant 10-inning shutout. John Smoltz dueled Morris into the eighth. The Braves loaded the bases in the eighth (with Lonnie Smith famously not scoring on a double after getting deked by Chuck Knoblauch). The Twins got the first two runners on in the ninth and failed to score. Finally, Dan Gladden doubled in the 10th, hustling into second when the ball bounded high off the Metrodome turf, and would score on Gene Larkin’s hit. A tension-filled classic to cap off maybe the most exciting World Series ever played.

1. 1960: At Pittsburgh Pirates 10, New York Yankees 9. In my book, the most exciting baseball game ever played. The Yankees led 7-4 in the bottom of the eighth, but the Pirates scored five runs. The Yankees tied in the top of the ninth. Bill Mazeroski won it with the only walk-off home run in Game 7 history. (Click here for an in-depth look at this game.)

It might be difficult for tonight's game to crack that top-10 list, but the way this World Series gone, I wouldn't bet against it.

Thanks to ESPN Stats & Information for their help on this piece.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

The Jorge Posada situation is interesting on many levels, but to me it's clear what's going on: Much like the Ken Griffey Jr. situation last season in Seattle, a franchise icon is struggling and appears at the end of his career. The organization doesn't want to look bad by releasing a beloved player, so it attempts to turn public opinion against the player. (Remember the whole "Griffey falling asleep in the clubhouse" story from last year?)

Now, my take is this: the Yankees have paid Posada more than $100 million in his career. He's been a valuable (and underrated) player to the franchise and has been well-compensated for providing such production. What, exactly, do they owe him? They gave him an over-market and over-long four-year contract as he was entering his age-36 season, not the wisest investment to begin with. They've been lucky to get the years out of him that they did, including a terrific 2009 when he helped them win the World Series.

The club wants to call up top prospect Jesus Montero. He can DH, he can spell Russell Martin behind the plate once or twice or week (allowing Alex Rodriguez or another position a player a day off in the field) and the Yankees would be a better ballclub for it. Just tell that to the fans and release Posada. The fans will understand. I'm pretty sure they care more about winning than sentiment.

And for those who believe this would look bad to other major leaguers, who may then be reluctant to sign with the Yankees, I say: Really? You think a future free agent would turn down more money from the Yankees because they once released Jorge Posada? Please.

* * * *

I've always felt Posada has been vastly underappreciated during this 15-year run of Yankee greatness. Switch-hitting catchers with power and plate discipline don't grow on trees. I recently ranked Posada the eighth-greatest Yankee of all time ... ahead of Mariano Rivera. Pretty much everyone disagrees with that, but employing one of the best catchers of all time is more valuable in my opinion than employing the greatest closer ever.

Where does Posada rank all time? Let's run some numbers. If you're not familiar with WAR, it stands for wins above a replacement level player for that position. OPS+ is a players on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, adjusted for home park and era, and scaled to where 100 is a league average hitter. Anyway, here are the top 10 catches via WAR from Baseball-Reference.com, plus Posada and Roy Campanella.



Posada spent his first year in the minor league as a second baseman. But 20 errors in 64 games at Oneonta necessitated a position change and he moved to catcher. He was never a top prospect coming through the minors; although he displayed good patience and moderate power, he hit just .258 in six minor league seasons, including three years at Triple-A learning the catching craft.

As a rookie in 1997, Joe Girardi earned the majority of the playing time. Posada turned 26 that year and hit .250. Nobody was predicting he'd turn into a star at that point.

Because of that late start, Posada falls just short of the top-10 catchers on the career WAR value list above. But what about peak value? I like to look at a player's best eight consecutive seasons as another way to assess his value, more of a "Did he dominate when he was at his best?" kind of question. Obviously, not every player has his best eight seasons consecutively, but it's just another to break down a player's career.

1. Johnny Bench (1968-1975), 49.2 WAR (43.4 offense, 5.8 defense)
2. Gary Carter (1978-1985), 49.2 WAR (38.5, 10.7)
3. Mike Piazza (1993-2000), 48.4 WAR (50.6, -2.2)
4. Yogi Berra (1950-1957), 41.9 WAR (40.3, 1.6)
5. Mickey Cochrane (1928-1935), 40.9 WAR (41.0, -0.1)
6. Ivan Rodriguez (1997-2004), 40.2 WAR (32.8, 7.4)
7. Ted Simmons (1973-1980), 38.0 WAR (39.4, -1.4)
8. Jorge Posada (2000-2007), 37.1 WAR (37.8, -0.7)
9. Bill Dickey (1932-1939), 36.1 WAR (35.7, 0.4)
10. Roy Campanella (1948-1955), 34.4 WAR (33.0, 1.4)
11. Carlton Fisk (1972-1979), 33.8 WAR (31.4, 2.4)
12. Gabby Hartnett (1930-1937), 28.5 WAR (27.4, 1.1)

Anyway, not a bad career for an error-prone minor league second baseman. Even though he has a solid case as one of the 10-12 most valuable catchers ever, it seems to fall a little short of Hall of Fame standards in my book, even with extra credit for World Series rings.

Posada wasn't in the lineup Wednesday night (Derek Jeter got a night at DH) and I get the feeling we won't be seeing him much there in the coming weeks. I suppose if he's forced out he'll end up leaving the majors like he came in -- very quietly.

(For more Yankees coverage, check out our SweetSpot blog affiliate, It's About the Money, Stupid.)

We're back with the much-anticipated final installment of my 50 greatest Yankees of all time. Here's ESPNNewYork's top 50 and photo gallery and here are the first two parts of my series, Nos. 50 through 31 and 30 through 16. The panel's ranking is in parenthesis.

15. Don Mattingly, 1B (11)
One of the prettiest swings you'll ever see. He was really only a great player for six seasons, before his back started to go, and just kind of hung around for six years after that. Is he more beloved than Jeter among Yankees fans?

14. Andy Pettitte, P (16)
Is he a Hall of Famer? The quick argument against him is that he finished in the top 10 in his league in ERA just three times. Bert Blyleven, who took 14 years to get inducted, finished in the top 10 on 10 occasions, including seven times in the top five. Jack Morris, similar to Pettitte in many regards, finished in the top 10 fives times and has struggled to get over the Hall of Fame hump. I think Pettitte faces the same obstacles, with 240 wins but a mediocre career ERA. Certainly, his 19 career postseason wins (more than any other pitcher) will give him a chance for election.

13. Thurman Munson, C (12)
When did the Yankees institute their no facial hair policy? One of the iconic baseball images of my youth was Munson's mustache and bushy sideburns. He looked tough and gritty and pugnacious, and by all accounts that's exactly what he was. Would he have made the Hall of Fame if he hadn't died? I'm not so sure. His bat had pretty much dried up his final seasons, with a .373 slugging percentage in 1978 and .374 in 1979. He never did walk much, so his on-base percentage was tied to his batting average. He was still a long ways from 2,000 hits and unlikely to make any more All-Star teams (he made seven).

12. Bernie Williams, OF (19)
Yankee most valuable players, according to Baseball-Reference's WAR (wins above replacement) statistic:

1995: Bernie Williams, 6.0
1996: Mariano Rivera, 5.4; Bernie Williams, 4.8
1997: Andy Pettitte, 7.6; David Cone, 6.7; Bernie Williams, 6.4
1998: Derek Jeter, 7.8; Bernie Williams, 6.1
1999: Derek Jeter, 8.0; Bernie Williams, 5.0
2000: Jorge Posada, 5.7; Bernie Williams, 5.0
2001: Mike Mussina, 6.5; Roger Clemens, 5.4; Bernie Williams, 4.0
2002: Jason Giambi, 7.3; Alfonso Soriano, 4.7; Bernie Williams, 4.4

Williams wasn’t usually the best player on the team, but during his eight-year peak (he topped .300 each season), he was always one of the three most valuable on the team. The advanced fielding metrics actually rate him as a poor center fielder, although he looked smooth out there to me, other than his weak throwing arm (he won four Gold Gloves). He performed well in the postseason (.275/.371/.480) and delivered as many critical playoff hits as Derek Jeter, just without as much fanfare or adoration from the media.

11. Red Ruffing, P (9)
Ruffing began his career with the Red Sox and went 39-96 with their awful teams of the 1920s. Traded to the Yankees for backup outfielder Cedric Durst and $50,000 in 1930, Ruffing apparently changed his motion slightly, became a Hall of Famer by going 231-124 with the Yankees and winning 20 games each season from 1936-39, when the Yankees won four straight World Series. He relied primarily on his fastball and a slider that the "Neyer/James Guide to Pitching" reports that "there's an abundance of evidence suggesting that he was among the first to throw a good one."

10. Bill Dickey, C (10)
One of the best-hitting catchers of all time, Dickey fashioned a .313/.382/.486 career line, impressive even for the high-octane offense of the 1930s. Later, he helped mentor Yogi Berra, who always gave credit to Dickey for helping him develop his catching skills.

9. Mariano Rivera, P (5)
He might have been pretty good if he had ever developed a second pitch.

8. Jorge Posada, C (21)
Posada ahead of Rivera? It's a close call, but I'll take the great-hitting catcher with solid defense (Posada was never great at blocking pitches but his arm was average or slightly above for most of his career) over the legendary closer. Their career value is similar: 52.9 WAR for Rivera, 46.0 for Posada. But generally speaking, the closer position is overrated; Rivera's most valuable season was actually 1996, when he served as John Wetteland's setup guy and pitched 107 innings. It's perhaps instructive that the season Posada missed with injury (2008) was the one season the Yankees didn't make the playoffs since the two joined the club.

7. Whitey Ford, P (8)
Ford went 236-106 with the Yankees, but won 20 games just twice -- 25 in 1961 and 24 in 1963. That was primarily because Casey Stengel never believed in Ford's durability (he was 5-foot-10), so didn't work him hard. His career high in starts under Stengel was 33 and he topped 230 innings just once. After Stengel was fired following the 1960 season, Ford averaged 37 starts and 260 innings over the next five seasons. His World Series record was excellent as well -- 10-8 with a 2.71 ERA in 22 starts.

6. Joe DiMaggio, OF (3)
DiMaggio played 13 seasons in the majors, appeared in 10 World Series and won nine of them. Perhaps no player in baseball history has ever been so identified as a "winner" as DiMaggio. So why rank DiMaggio only sixth? I'll admit: Something about him just rubs me the wrong way. He frequently held out, battled injuries and he had a lot of great teammates who chipped in with the winning. Of course, he was a devastating hitter who was severely penalized by the huge dimensions in left-center at Yankee Stadium when he played (he hit 213 home runs on the road in his career, 148 at home). His fielding was probably more average than great and nobody stole bases in his day (he had 30 career steals).

5. Derek Jeter, SS (7)
An amazingly consistent and durable player (his only injury came in 2003), Jeter is less than 300 runs away from passing Babe Ruth for the most runs scored in Yankees history. B-R actually ranks Jeter as the most valuable offensive player in the American League in 1999 and 2006, and that's why I gave him the nod over DiMaggio: A great-hitting shortstop who has played nearly every game for 16-plus seasons is more difficult to find than a great center fielder.

4. Yogi Berra, C (6)
Behind the "Yogisms" caricature, it's easy to forget how great he was: A three-time MVP who during his 1950-56 peak caught an average of 142 games per season, hitting .295/.364/.502 with 27 homers and 108 RBIs per season. Yogi's power was underrated: he finished in the top 10 in the AL in homers every season from 1949 through 1957. Casey Stengel loved to fiddle with his lineups, platoon and move players around, but the one constant he had was Yogi behind the plate.

3. Lou Gehrig, 1B (2)
It's often portrayed that Yankee scout Paul Krichell "discovered" Gehrig, a testament to the Yankees digging in haystacks to find their Hall of Famers. Sounds good, but it's not accurate. Gehrig was quite well known by the time the Yankees signed him. As a high school senior, Gehrig hit a grand slam at Wrigley Field, as his School of Commerce team defeated Lane Tech of Chicago. "Gherrig, a 17-year-old boy, who played first base for the easterners and who came here touted as the 'Babe' Ruth of the high schools of New York, lived up to his reputation by driving the ball over the right field wall of Cubs park for a home run with the bases filled," intoned one paper. His exploits at Columbia were well covered by the New York papers. A 1937 AP report says Gehrig was to make $37,000, tops in the majors. The story also indicates the Yankees would have by far the highest payroll, around $368,000 for the "hired hands." Of course, that salary barely pushed Gehrig above his own manager's $35,000 salary.

2. Mickey Mantle, OF (4)
You often read or hear things like, "Just imagine how good Mickey Mantle would have been if he hadn’t hurt his knee or drank so much." That might be true, but it also undersells Mantle's dominance. He won three MVP awards and finished second in the voting three other times. Baseball-Reference has Mantle as the AL's best player six times (and its best offensive player nine times). Since 1950, according to B-R, 13 AL players have compiled 10 or more WAR in one season. Mantle's 1956 season ranks No. 1, his 1957 season No. 2 and his 1961 season (when Roger Maris won the MVP award) No. 4. You can make an argument that his 1956 Triple Crown season is the greatest season ever. He hit .353/.464/.705, played a good center field, ran the bases and hit .444 with runners in scoring position. With 52 home runs, he hit 20 more than any other AL hitter, was one of six to drive in 100 runs (he drove in 130) and one of three to score 100 (132).

1. Babe Ruth, OF (1)
Babe Ruth won only one MVP award in his career, but that of course is misleading. For much of his career there was either (A) no award given, or (B) he was ineligible (for a short time, previous winners couldn't win again). So how many would he have won? And by that, I don’t mean how many years was he the best player in the American League (12, according to Baseball-Reference, including once as a pitcher), but how many times would he have likely been voted the winner, keeping in mind voters (by today's standards, at least) are usually reluctant to give it to the same player year after year and players on pennant winners have an advantage. Ruth probably would have won in 1916 (as a pitcher with the Red Sox), 1920, 1921, 1923 (the year he actually won), 1926 and 1928. I have him finishing second in 1919 (to Eddie Cicotte, who won 29 games for the pennant-winning White Sox), 1924 (to Walter Johnson, who led the Senators to the pennant) and 1927 (to Gehrig).

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter at @dschoenfield. Follow the SweetSpot blog at @espn_sweet_spot.

The fantastic finish to Joe LaPointe's column about our greatest living Yankee:

Late in his playing career, in 1958, the cartoon character Yogi Bear made its debut. Today, Berra has become baseball's grandfather figure, often quoted by politicians and essayists seeking the wisdom of the common man.

But to Lindsay Berra, one of Berra's 11 grandchildren, he is, officially, "my grandpa,” a man who follows many sports devotedly in person and on television and talks with her about many subjects, serious and light.

Lindsay Berra, who writes for ESPN the Magazine, said Yogi sometimes says he threw away his address book because "everyone in it is dead.” She also recalled Yogi's reaction when she told him she reported an article about a handsome tennis player.

"You should date him,” Yogi told her. "Gramps,” Lindsay said, "He dates a swimsuit model.”

"You got swimsuits,” Yogi said.

I met Lindsay Berra some years ago, and I've still got her e-mail address kicking around somewhere. The one thing I've always wanted to ask her, but haven't because I'm sure someone asks her every day: What's it like to have Yogi as your Gramps? I suppose that one can become used to almost anything, but Grandpa Yogi? I don't know that I could ever get used to that.

Anyway, you should read the whole piece. And for much, much more, there's my friend Allen Barra's wonderful new biography.