The New York Yankees are considered the crown jewel in American sports. There is no franchise more popular, worth more as a team, and with as many fans as the New York Yankees. The interlocking NY is seen everywhere from the iconic Yankee hat to flags and car decals. Yankees fans are out and about for better or for worse.
The reason the Yankees are so popular is because of their success. They have been the team to beat across multiple eras and boast the best players in the history of the game along the way. They have numerous records, both regular season and World Series. They own the most championships in North American sports.
With more than 1,500 players to choose from, including 44 Hall of Famers, who would make the ideal Yankees starting lineup and rotation?
First Base
Lou Gehrig
1923-1939
There are multiple different directions to go with first base. Don Mattingly deserves his flowers for carrying the Yankees through the hard years of the 1980s and early 1990s. Mark Teixeira was one of the best free agent signings this team has ever seen. Tino Martinez was as clutch as they come during their 90s dynasty. None were even close to Lou Gehrig.
Gehrig might be the best first baseman in the history of baseball. The stories of his career are still told to this day. How he took the job from Wally Pipp who needed a day off then played more than 2,100 games in a row. His retirement speech after it was revealed he had Parkinson's Disease, which is now known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is still played at games on July 4th. His life became one of the greatest movies of all time, the Pride of the Yankees.
As much as the stories stand the test of time, his impact on the field was just as great. He led the league in home runs three times, RBIs five times, on-base percentage five times, total bases four times, doubles twice, and triples once. He did everything one could expect from a player.
Gehrig finished his career with 493 home runs and 1995 RBIs. Obviously, his career ended prematurely, and he would have easily broke the 500-home run barrier if his career continued. To this day, he's third in career home runs on the Yankees, and despite good competition, he's still the best first baseman in team history.
Second Base
Willie Randolph
1977-1988
Second base, like with many other franchises in the league, is the Yankees’ weakest position. There are 20 second basemen in the Hall of Fame, and only one is a Yankee. It’s Tony Lazzeri who was inducted more than 50 years after his career ended. The conversation is between Lazzeri and Willie Randolph, who held down second base for more than a decade.
Randolph started his career at an opportune time. He won the World Series in his first two complete seasons with the team (1977 and 1978). Randolph would be an ideal ninth-spot hitter, hitting for average but also getting on base. He was also a stupendous defender, which isn’t the conversation here but definitely helps his case as the best second baseman in team history.
Randolph would be a legend for any team that he played for, but he is buried a little because he played for the Yankees and his prime was during the most tumultuous time in Yankees history, known as the “Bronx Zoo.”
Still, this was a fantastic player who would fit in any lineup in any era. He was the typical second baseman, hitting for a decent average and finding his stroke for a few seasons in his prime.
Third Base
Alex Rodriguez
2004-2016
Yankees fans likely won’t be happy with this one, but there really isn’t any third baseman that deserves this honor than Alex Rodriguez. He’s a lightning rod for how his service with the Yankees ended, the drama he always seems to attract, and the playoff series that didn’t always go the way they should have, but Rodriguez is one of the most talented players to wear a Yankees uniform.
ARod was traded to the Yankees in what was a wild turn of events. He was supposed to be traded from the Texas Rangers to the Boston Red Sox, but the MLB Player’s Association blocked the trade because of reports Rodriguez was going to renegotiate his contract. In the deal, the Red Sox would have sent Manny Ramirez and Jon Lester to the Rangers. It’s possible the Red Sox never win a championship if the deal goes through.
Instead, a few weeks later, Aaron Boone gets hurt playing basketball, and Rodriguez is traded to the New York Yankees. The trade forced him to move to third base from his previous shortstop position.
With the Yankees, Rodriguez hit 351 home runs and finished 11th all-time with 1,096 RBIs. He was just three RBIs behind Don Mattingly for 10th place. He was legitimately one of the most feared hitters in baseball. In 2009, he had a ridiculous .500 on-base percentage in the postseason on his way to the Yankees’ most recent World Series win. Add to that six home runs and 18 RBIs, and one can see how he became a legend despite his reputation.
Shortstop
Derek Jeter
1995-2014
Derek Jeter is the most popular Yankees player maybe since Mickey Mantle for a reason. While many say he’s overrated (mostly from jealous opposing fanbases), he has the accolades to back up his claim as the best shortstop of this era. Jeter started his year with a bang, winning AL Rookie of the Year in 1996 and leading the Yankees to the World Series that year. He won a championship in his first season, and he was off to the races.
He’s a 14-time All-Star, a five-time Gold Glove winner, a five-time Silver Slugger winner, and of course, a five-time World Series Champion. He even won the World Series MVP during their 2000 championship campaign. That win made him the first player in baseball history to win the All-Star Game MVP and the World Series MVP in the same year.
Jeter is sixth all-time in hits. Not on the Yankees, in the entire history of baseball. Jeter has 3,465 hits over his 20-year career. He was remarkably healthy and even more consistent. This is just in the regular season. He added 200 playoff hits, which is the all-time record by a lot. Second on that list is Jeter’s former teammate Bernie Williams, who has 128. Of course, the playoffs expanded only a few decades ago, and it used to just be the World Series, but Jeter is beating out thousands of other players for tops in that stat.
This is one of the greats in baseball history. His clutch hitting when it mattered cannot be discounted. He was coined Mr. November for hitting a walk-off home run against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first November game in baseball history.
Catcher
Yogi Berra
1946-1963
The New York Yankees have a long history of great catchers. Jorge Posada has a lot of catcher records for his long history in pinstripes. We really considered naming Thurmon Munson, who was iconic for the Yankees in the 1970s, and his death is what sent the team in a tailspin. However, it’s impossible to make this anyone besides Yogi Berra.
The three-time MVP was the best postseason player of his era. He dominated when it mattered, and he is now the most decorated player in the history of sports. Tom Brady might have seven Super Bowls, but he’s not close to Yogi Berra. Michael Jordan claims to be the GOAT because of his six NBA Finals wins, but he’s no Yogi. Mark Messier lifted the Stanley Cup six times, but he’s not in the same conversation as Berra.
Berra won the World Series as the starting catcher 10 times. Catchers nowadays can’t even play 10 seasons without their knees buckling. This guy plays at the highest level with the best time for the longest time.
On top of everything, Berra added another three World Series rings as a member of the coaching staff. He ran out of room in his jewelry case a long time ago. This is one of the quintessential players at his position. Berra deserves his flowers.
Right Field
Aaron Judge
2016-Present
Outfield is where this conversation gets incredibly hard. Some of the players who didn’t make the list include Joe DiMaggio, Roger Maris, Rickey Henderson, Dave Winfield, Paul O’Neill, and many, many others. It was really hard to leave people off the list, but we couldn’t leave Aaron Judge off the list. Playoff production is hard to ignore, but Judge’s regular season dominance is impossible to keep off this list.
Judge is the most dominant hitter today. There are other hitters who do different things than Judge, but he’s the one crushing balls with consistency. He’s broken 50 home runs three times already, and as of this writing, he’s on pace to crush 50 home runs in 2025. He’s the best hitter in the American League, and he’s holding onto the Yankees legacy as their current captain.
He’s about to be a seven-time All-Star, will likely win his third MVP in 2025, and is about to be a five-time Silver Slugger award winner. The sky is the limit for how far he can take this. Even though we’re not seeing the same values deep into careers that we did during the Steroid Era, we can still have productive superstars late in careers.
Albert Pujols hit 24 home runs as a 42-year-old. Judge still has a few years of his prime, and if he stays healthy, he has a clear run towards 500 home runs. Honestly, if he stays at his current pace, he could hit 600 home runs.
Center Field
Mickey Mantle
1951-1968
If there is any player who came close to Willie Mays as the best all-around player of all time, it’s Mickey Mantle. When scouts talk about a “five-tool player,” Mantle is the template. He did everything great. Not well, everything he did was as great as it could possibly be.
Mantle was a 20-time All-Star, one of only four players in the history of the sport to break that threshold. He was a three-time MVP, including winning the Triple Crown in 1956. He won the World Series seven times, spanning from 1951 to 1962. He ended up in the championship series 12 times, putting himself in position to put another ring on his finger.
Mantle might be the most clutch hitter in the history of the sport. Some players talk about ice water running through their veins, but Mantle lived for those moments. He holds World Series records for the most home runs (18), RBIs (40), extra-base hits (26), runs (42), walks (43), and total bases (123), and he has the highest World Series on-base and slugging percentages. These records may never be broken.
This was also a really good center fielder. He only won one Gold Glove, but he finished his career with a .984 fielding percentage at the position. Mantle did everything for the Yankees, and he’s probably be the team’s star even with the talent around him.
Left Field
Reggie Jackson
1977-1981
This is the controversial one. Reggie Jackson over Joe DiMaggio is the hardest decision possible on any list. Jackson probably doesn’t crack the list for most, but he was undoubtedly the best player in baseball when he was on the Yankees. It was the shortest stint of anyone on this list, but it was an impactful five years with two World Series wins.
Jackson finished with 144 home runs, 461 RBIs, and a .526 slugging percentage, the best of his career. He hit a league-leading 41 home runs in 1980. His regular seasons were good. His postseasons were great. He had five home runs in the 1978 postseason in just 36 at-bats. That’s basically a home run every seven at-bats when it matters the most.
Jackson’s 1.317 OPS in 1979, which included a .417 batting average and 29 total bases. That wasn’t even the year he won the World Series MVP. It was the year he earned the Mr. October moniker in 1978.
We went with Jackson over DiMaggio because of the insane impact he had in those two postseasons. DiMaggio was great, winning the MVP three times, but he never had one postseason that Jackson had in those two.
Designated Hitter
Babe Ruth
1919-1934
Babe Ruth is the greatest hitter in history. He had to hit the ball a mile just to hit a home run, and he still did it 714 times. The original two-way superstar, Ruth led the league in every hitting category throughout his career. He led the league in home runs 12 times and RBIs six times. When looking at his Baseball Reference page, most of the stats are in bold, showing him as the league leader.
Many still consider Ruth the greatest player in the history of the game. He played in an era when there wasn’t much hitting and pitchers played the entire game. Ruth dominated at a level that seemed impossible. Ruth was so popular and important to the game that he’s likely the reason baseball is still considered America’s Pastime. He brought people to the ballpark at a ridiculous level, and it kept its popularity for close to a century.
Ruth is part of the culture of baseball. There might be no other figure as important to a sport as Ruth is to baseball. He remains one of the most popular players to collect memorabilia-wise, and it’s because of how great he was. Whether he played in the outfield or was a designated hitter, Ruth would be the number three hitter in any lineup of any era ever.
The 60 home runs he hit in 1927 stood as the record until 1961. It’s still the third-most home runs ever hit in the American League. We’re coming up on 100 years since that record, with amazing advancements in health, strength, speed, and human biology. Yet, that record has only been matched in the AL twice. Both times, it was done by Yankees.
Starting Pitcher
Whitey Ford
1950-1967
There are so many great pitchers who went through the Yankees' starting lineup. We can go back in time and go with Red Ruffing or Lefty Gomez. They both had incredible careers playing for the Yankees’ Murderers’ Row. Andy Pettitte had a long history of greatness in the 90s and 2000s, including five World Series victories. Mike Mussina, Catfish Hunter, and CC Sabathia were all Hall of Famers thanks at least in part to their Yankees career.
It’s Whitey Ford. He’s the best Yankees starting pitcher in team history. He had the highest combined WAR. He won 236 games, the most of any Yankees pitcher ever.
Ford won six World Series titles, winning World Series MVP in 1961. Yes, he won the MVP of the World Series in the year that Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were in their home run war. He finished his career with a 2.71 World Series ERA in 22 starts. He walked just 34 batters and struck out 94. It is insane dominance from the mound.
Ford isn’t the legend that some of the names on this list are, but he’s the best pitcher the Yankees ever had. Maybe there are a few single seasons from the likes of Roger Clemens, Ron Guidry, Gerrit Cole, or even the season Max Fried is putting together right now, but there is nobody who can put together the value when it matters that Ford did.
Closer
Mariano Rivera
1995-2013
Mariano Rivera is the greatest closer in the history of the sport. It’s not particularly close. Rivera famously had one pitch: the cutter. Nobody could hit it. For 20 years, nobody could hit his one pitch. Imagine with all the tape study, million-dollar coaches, dozens of at-bats, and everything that players have at their disposal, they couldn’t figure out one pitch.
Rivera was so good, he was in the top 10 in MVP voting twice. In 2004 and 2005, Rivera finished in the top three in Cy Young voting and ninth in MVP voting. He’s a closer who pitches for one inning on most nights, and twice in a row voters believed he was the ninth most important player in baseball.
The Yankees won five World Series with Rivera in the bullpen. He allowed zero runs during the 1998 and 1999 runs to the championship. That’s 18 appearances with zero runs allowed. That’s insanity.
People who didn’t watch Rivera try to downplay his contributions or watch a video from 2001 or 2004 and act like he wasn’t the greatest to ever do it, but he was the greatest to ever do it. Not only was he dominant, but he did it for two decades. We see the Eric Gagnes, Jonathan Paplebons, and Emmanuel Clases try to act like they can take the crown. It’s not going anywhere. Rivera is the best of the best, and nobody is close.