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Which three former players on your favorite team do you wish spent their entire careers there?

playmaker8267

By playmaker8267
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playmaker8267

playmaker8267

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Great hypothetical here. What former players (we're limiting it to three so you have to make some choices) who made an appearance (prospects you traded away before their ML debuts don't count) do you wish stayed with your team their whole career? They don't have to be players who started their career with your team, they just had to get into a game with your team at one point or another. Gleyber Torres doesn't count for the Cubs, John Smoltz doesn't count for the Tigers, Phillies fans can't pick Carlos Carrasco, etc. You get the player's actual production and actual years they played. So if you're a Marlins fan (insert joke here) and you pick Mike Piazza, you get all of his 2,127 hits from 1992-2007. If you're a Cardinals fan who picks Carlos Beltran, you get his 1998-2017 numbers no matter what.

Mine for the Red Sox..

1.) Yoenis Cespedes: Recency bias will be and should be a thing in this exercise. Adding Tom Seaver to the Red Sox for 20 years would be fine, but I wouldn't reap the benefits of that. I wouldn't have seen it. What I would've seen is a much more competitive lineup in 2017 with Cespedes in the heart of the order. Maybe we could've gotten past Houston last year with Yo protecting Hanley. Maybe not.

2.) Billy Wagner: When Wagner's stint with the Mets ended in 2009, he ended up in Boston for half a season. He was dominant. With Wagner in tow in 2003, there's a good chance that Red Sox team wins it all.

3.) John Smoltz: Another member of the 2009 team. He would've come in handy a couple of times from 1988-2009.

 

A few for other teams I'd heavily consider:

Ken Griffey Jr. and Manny Ramirez for the White Sox: How's that for an outfield for nearly 2 decades?

Hideki Matsui and Manny Ramirez for the Rays: Both guys played for the majority of the time the franchise has existed. Maybe the Rays win it all in 2008 with a Ramirez-Crawford-Matsui outfield.

Zack Greinke for the Angels: Greinke would be helpful for the Angels now, and certainly would've been for that push they made late last decade.

Rickey Henderson for (insert team here): Padres, Mets, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels, Mariners, and Blue Jays all had Rickey for 3 years or fewer. Any of those teams could take Rickey and add 22 years of base thievery to their franchise.

Lou Brock for the Cubs: Hall of Famer.

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mission27

mission27

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Hmmm interesting.  I'll start with guys who STARTED their careers with the Yankees then left, that I wish hadn't... 

  1. Andy Pettitte - If we had him in 2004 and 2005 we probably win the World Series both years imo.  
  2. Robbie Cano - Loved the guy, should've stayed with the Yankees, Jay Z ****ed us.  Now look where he is.  Trader.
  3. Hideki Matsui - He wasnt that good anymore when he left but still one of my favorite all time players was kind of a bummer. 

If we expand to all players who were Yankees at one point...

  1. ARod - Obviously.  We were lucky to have him as long as we did but imagine if he'd come up as a Yankee and spent 20 years there?  He may not have fallen in with the steroid crowd either which could've made his life easier.  This assumes neither him nor Jeter gets traded and one of them just moves off shortstop around 96/97.
  2. Carlos Beltran - Don't even need his whole career, if we'd just signed him after 04 I'd have been happy.  Those 05-08 teams with Beltran would've been off the charts.  Instead we got ****ty washed up 2015 Beltran.  Ugh.
  3. Randy Johnson - Sort of cheating since he was never REALLY Unit with us but it basically means we win the 2001 WS easily and probably a few others.  Plus he was smug and very tall.
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TENINCH

TENINCH

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For the Twins

1. David Ortiz - Probably could have won a couple World Series with him and Santana

2. Jim Thome - Great guy and a lot of fun to watch him bat

3. Jack Morris. - Morris in the 80's paired with Frank Viola would have put Twins in the race every year.

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crab1106

crab1106

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11 minutes ago, mission27 said:

Hmmm interesting.  I'll start with guys who STARTED their careers with the Yankees then left, that I wish hadn't... 

  1. Andy Pettitte - If we had him in 2004 and 2005 we probably win the World Series both years imo.  
  2. Robbie Cano - Loved the guy, should've stayed with the Yankees, Jay Z ****ed us.  Now look where he is.  Trader.
  3. Hideki Matsui - He wasnt that good anymore when he left but still one of my favorite all time players was kind of a bummer. 

If we expand to all players who were Yankees at one point...

  1. ARod - Obviously.  We were lucky to have him as long as we did but imagine if he'd come up as a Yankee and spent 20 years there?  He may not have fallen in with the steroid crowd either which could've made his life easier.  This assumes neither him nor Jeter gets traded and one of them just moves off shortstop around 96/97.
  2. Carlos Beltran - Don't even need his whole career, if we'd just signed him after 04 I'd have been happy.  Those 05-08 teams with Beltran would've been off the charts.  Instead we got ****ty washed up 2015 Beltran.  Ugh.
  3. Randy Johnson - Sort of cheating since he was never REALLY Unit with us but it basically means we win the 2001 WS easily and probably a few others.  Plus he was smug and very tall.

For me it's Cano, Ichiro and Big Unit. Others are CC, Arod, Beltran, Giancarlo.

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BillsGuy82

BillsGuy82

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1. Doc Halladay - Without a doubt the Greatest Jays pitcher of all time. Glad he went on to win a WS with Phillies even though we bumbled that trade.

2. Carlos Delgado - One of my favorite positional players for us. Always wondered if he would sniff HoF type numbers if he stayed in Toronto

3. Roberto Alomar - Obvious choice for most Jays fans. One of the all time great 2B who spear headed our team in our glory Years 

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ramssuperbowl99

ramssuperbowl99

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8 hours ago, bkobow05 said:

CC, Prince and Greinke, I guess? We don't have much of a history of great players lol. I mean, Bill Hall is top 25 all-time for us in fWAR for heaven's sake.

Taking it in a different direction because all of those guys left for the money, I'll say:

1. Jeremy Jeffress - Mostly because he's not only been more effective for us over his career, but because he also had tons of personal issues when he got traded to either Toronto or Texas. His agent did a podcast and basically said they viewed Milwaukee as the only place JJ would be successful. So this is a win-win.

2. Jonathan Lucroy - This should have come with a pretty big extension, that now would look like a very bad deal. But he was so good and the tension that existed at the end was tough given that he was a franchise player for us during the rebuild.

3. Geoff Jenkins or Rickie Weeks - Each guy was a replacement player for one season with another team for basically no money instead of just hanging it up.

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MWil23

MWil23

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Jim Thome: He's one of my favorite all time players. Junior high me was so upset when I couldn't get #25 just like Thome.

Manny Ramirez: I cannot express how upset I was when he left for Boston.

Omar Vizquel: Nostalgia, the unreal defense, the underrated stick

Justin Masterson (Have to mention a friend and former HS teammate or you should get a lifetime ban to be honest)

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mse326

mse326

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Not looking at years. I'm basically just doing best players to only play a few years at most with the Phillies.

1. Pedro Martinez
2. Jimmie Foxx
3. Joe Morgan

If years taken into account

1. Joe Morgan
2. Jerry Koosman
3. Ferguson Jenkins

That, I think, would make us the dominant team from the mid 70's to early 80's. So we'd get more than 1 ring. Could add another 2 or 3.

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