The Best Players in New York Yankees History, Position by Position

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 11 min read

An all-time New York Yankees team built from club career leaders, awards and Hall of Famers. The criteria are stated, and the crowded spots at catcher, center field and second base are argued out.

The New York Yankees are the one franchise whose all-time team has a problem of surplus. Nearly every position has two or three Hall of Famers who would start for almost any other club, and the outfield alone contains four of the ten best hitters the sport has produced. Choosing the best Yankee at each position is less a matter of finding stars than of deciding which immortal to leave on the bench.

Here is the team this article settles on: Yogi Berra catching, Lou Gehrig at first, Tony Lazzeri at second, Alex Rodriguez at third, Derek Jeter at shortstop, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth in the outfield, and Aaron Judge as designated hitter. Whitey Ford leads a rotation, and Mariano Rivera closes. What follows explains the standards, makes the case for each pick and says where the evidence runs out.

How this team was chosen

Four rules guided every choice. The first is club production only. The figures cited are what a player did in a Yankees uniform, so Rickey Henderson (five seasons) and Reggie Jackson (five seasons) are judged on those years, not on their careers. The second is peak and length together, with a preference for the player who gave the club more seasons when the peaks are close. The third is verifiable honors: Most Valuable Player awards, Cy Young Awards, Hall of Fame election and the number of seasons on the roster, all of which the historical record shows. The fourth is one player per slot, with players placed where they played most.

The 2025 historical, the database behind every number here, covers seasons through 2025 and holds no wins above replacement, no defensive metrics for most of history and no adjustments for ballpark or era. A Yankee of the 1930s and a Yankee of the 2020s played different games, and this article does not pretend that a batting average or an earned run average means the same thing in each.

The franchise itself changes names: it was the Baltimore Orioles in 1901 and 1902, the New York Highlanders from 1903 to 1912 and the Yankees from 1913. The history of the New York Yankees walks through the eras, and the best New York Yankees seasons and every October run covers the championship teams.

The lineup at a glance

The table has a built-in trick. DiMaggio and Mantle were both center fielders, and Mantle, as the later and more powerful man, takes the position here while DiMaggio moves to left. That is a convenience of the all-time exercise, not a historical claim about where they could have played together.

Catcher: Yogi Berra over Bill Dickey

Berra played 18 seasons for the Yankees, hit 358 home runs, drove in 1,430 runs and won the MVP three times, in 1951, 1954 and 1955. He appeared on 14 World Series rosters, and the Yankees won ten of those Series. No other player in the club's history has that kind of presence in October.

The case for Bill Dickey is real. He played 17 seasons for the club, drove in 1,209 runs and hit .313, fifth among Yankees with at least 3,000 at-bats, behind Ruth, Gehrig, Earle Combs and DiMaggio. Berra's batting average was lower, .285 for his career, but he hit for more power, won three MVP awards where Dickey won none, and the difference in total production over the whole career is clear. Thurman Munson, the 1970 Rookie of the Year and the 1976 MVP, is a third candidate whose career ended with his death in 1979 and whose totals could not reach the other two.

A word about Berra's reputation. He is remembered as much for his quotations as for his play, and the quotations are often misattributed. The batting record is the dependable part.

First base: Lou Gehrig

Gehrig is the easiest call on the team. He played 17 seasons, 1923 to 1939, and finished with 493 home runs, 2,721 hits and 1,995 runs batted in, the highest RBI total in the franchise's history. His .340 batting average with the Yankees is second only to Ruth's among players with at least 3,000 at-bats. He won the MVP in 1927 and again in 1936, and he played 2,130 consecutive games before illness ended the streak in 1939.

Don Mattingly, with 2,153 hits in 14 seasons in the 1980s and 1990s and the 1985 MVP award, is the closest rival, and his career is one of the sport's best what-ifs, cut down by a back problem. But there is no honest way to put him ahead of Gehrig. First base is simply one of the strongest positions in baseball history because of this one man. Gehrig and Ruth also share the top of the club's lists: Gehrig leads in runs batted in and Ruth in home runs.

Second base: Lazzeri, with Gordon and Cano pressing

Second base is the position where the Yankees' list is thinnest, and the call is closer than the others. Tony Lazzeri played 12 seasons for the club, from 1926 to 1937. Adding up his year-by-year lines gives roughly 1,780 hits, 169 home runs and 1,154 RBI in those 12 seasons, and he hit .354 in 1929 and drove in 121 runs in 1930. He was on six World Series teams with the Yankees, and the club won five of them. He is in the Hall of Fame.

Joe Gordon has the strongest single-season claim. He won the 1942 MVP award, hitting .322 with 18 home runs and 103 RBI, and he played seven seasons for the club. Willie Randolph spent 13 years in New York, stole 251 bases and drew 1,005 walks, and Robinson Cano's .309 average is among the club's best for players with 3,000 at-bats. Each of the three has an argument. Lazzeri wins because his output was spread over 12 seasons in a lineup that won repeatedly, and because the historical record gives no way to separate defensive skill from the rest.

The fair caveat is that second basemen of Lazzeri's generation are hard to judge. The league's batting environment in the late 1920s favored hitters, and the park effects at the old Yankee Stadium are not in the database. A reader who prefers Gordon's peak or Randolph's patience is not making a mistake.

Third base: Alex Rodriguez

Rodriguez played 13 seasons for the Yankees, from 2004 to 2016, and hit 351 home runs for the club. He won the American League MVP in 2005 and 2007. His production with the Yankees is the main reason he edges out the other third basemen, who include Home Run Baker, a Hall of Famer who played six seasons for the club, and Graig Nettles, a long-serving Yankee third baseman who is not in the Hall of Fame.

The complication is character and the record around it. Rodriguez missed the entire 2014 season while serving a suspension for violating baseball's drug policy, a fact that belongs in any honest account of his career. A team picked on character rather than production would choose differently. This team follows production, and his is the most impressive at the position. His full career is covered in Alex Rodriguez: Talent, Contracts and Controversy.

The honest limit is that third base is a defensive position and the historical record cannot say how well any of these players fielded it. Rodriguez had played shortstop before joining the Yankees and moved to third base for them, so even his position carries an asterisk.

Shortstop: Derek Jeter

Jeter spent all 20 of his seasons with the Yankees, from 1995 to 2014, and he leads the franchise in hits with 3,465, which is more than Gehrig, Ruth or Mantle. He also leads in stolen bases with 358, is second in runs with 1,923, and hit .310 over his career. He won the Rookie of the Year award in 1996 and was a member of the five championship teams of 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009.

Phil Rizzuto, the 1950 MVP, played 13 seasons for the club and is the traditional rival, but his offensive totals cannot match Jeter's. The usual criticism of Jeter is that his defensive reputation exceeded his range, and that criticism is a defensive-metrics argument that the historical record cannot settle either way. On the batting record alone, he is the clear choice.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. What matters here is that no other shortstop in Yankees history comes close to his counting stats, and no Yankee at any position has more hits.

The outfield: DiMaggio, Mantle and Ruth

Right field: Babe Ruth. Ruth played 15 seasons for the Yankees, and his totals with the club are staggering: 659 home runs, 1,975 RBI, 1,959 runs scored, 1,852 walks and a .349 average. He won the MVP in 1923. He also pitched, which is part of the larger Ruth story but not part of this lineup. His average and home-run totals came in the 1920s and early 1930s, when almost no one else hit home runs at his rate, which is the point: he was far ahead of his own era, not merely of ours. Babe Ruth: career stats and legacy tells the full story.

Center field: Mickey Mantle. Mantle played 18 seasons, all with the Yankees. He hit 536 home runs, collected 2,415 hits, drew 1,733 walks and won the MVP in 1956, 1957 and 1962. His 1956 season was a Triple Crown, which is a matter of record. Injuries cut into his production, and many writers have argued that he might have been even better. Mickey Mantle: Power, Speed and the What-Ifs explores that theme.

Left field: Joe DiMaggio. DiMaggio's 13 seasons produced 361 home runs, 1,537 RBI and a .325 average, with MVP awards in 1939, 1941 and 1947. He missed time during his prime for military service, a loss that cuts into his career totals and into the case for his place in history. His 56-game hitting streak is the sport's most famous individual record and is covered in Joe DiMaggio: The 56-Game Hitting Streak and the Yankee Clipper.

Judge, with 368 home runs and MVP awards in 2022, 2024 and 2025, is the designated hitter here, and through the 2025 season he is the only current player on the team. His case is the shortest and the most current: he won the Rookie of the Year award in 2017, and through the 2025 season he had hit .294 with a .413 on-base percentage and a .615 slugging mark. This article does not predict what comes next.

The rotation: Ford, Ruffing, Pettitte, Gomez, Guidry

Ford is the ace because he leads the club in wins with 236, and his record with the club, 236-106, is a winning percentage of .690. In 1961 he went 25-4 and won the Cy Young Award, in the years when a single award covered both leagues. His 2.75 ERA is sixth on the club's list for pitchers with at least 1,000 innings, behind Rivera and four pitchers of the early decades.

Ruffing won 231 games for the Yankees and 273 overall. He had four consecutive seasons with 20 wins from 1936 to 1939 (20, 20, 21, 21), and he was one of the Yankees' dynasty pitchers of the late 1930s. Pettitte is the surprise third, but 219 wins and the club record for strikeouts at 2,020 have to count for something. Gomez has the Hall of Fame plaque and 13 seasons. Guidry's 1978 season, with 25 wins, three losses and a 1.74 ERA, is one of the best a Yankee starter has had.

The omissions hurt. Roger Clemens won the 2001 Cy Young Award, Gerrit Cole won it in 2023 and CC Sabathia, who struck out 1,700 batters in 11 seasons and is in the Hall of Fame, would start for most teams. Mel Stottlemyre pitched 40 shutouts. A pitcher with Stottlemyre's record would anchor a rotation on many clubs, and here he is an also-ran.

The bullpen: Mariano Rivera and a short list

Rivera is the only choice. His 652 saves, 1,115 games and 2.21 ERA are all club records, his career WHIP was 1.00, and he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2019 with all 425 votes, the first player to be unanimous. He won the World Series MVP in 1999, the ALCS MVP in 2003 and the Rolaids Relief Man Award five times. His postseason record is a separate subject that this article does not cover.

Behind him, Dave Righetti (224 saves), Aroldis Chapman (153) and Rich Gossage (151) fill out the saves list, and Sparky Lyle, who won the Cy Young Award in 1977, saved 141. Righetti, who was Rookie of the Year in 1981, is the person who shows how much the closer role changed: he began as a starter and finished as a reliever.

What the team shows about the franchise

The first thing the roster shows is how much of the Yankees' success depended on a handful of long careers. Four of the nine position players spent at least 17 seasons in pinstripes, and the club's Hall of Fame list names 30 players with four or more seasons. The second is the weight of two stretches. The lineup contains six players from the years 1921 to 1964, when the club won 29 pennants, and three from the stretch since 1995.

The third is the company the club keeps. Its division rivals, the Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays, each have their own histories to set beside this one. The Yankees' 27 World Series titles are the most of any franchise, a record explained further in the history of the World Series.

Common questions

Why is Babe Ruth listed as a right fielder and not a pitcher? Because his best years with the Yankees were as a hitter. His pitching career belongs mostly to his Boston years, which are not part of the Yankees' totals.

Why not Reggie Jackson or Rickey Henderson? They played five seasons each for the club, which is not enough to outweigh players with 13 to 20 seasons. Both are in the Hall of Fame, and both would improve most teams.

Can a modern player make the team? Judge does, as designated hitter, and Rodriguez and Jeter did their main work in the last 30 years. Cole's 2023 Cy Young Award and Rodriguez's two MVP awards show that the present is part of the picture.

What does historical miss? It has no wins above replacement, no Statcast and no defensive metrics for most of history, and it records stolen bases and not baserunning value. Any ranking built on the historical record is a ranking of counting stats, awards and longevity.

Where to go next

Start with the history of the New York Yankees and Yankee Stadium: the history, the dimensions and how the park plays. The current club is on the Yankees team page, the park is on the Yankee Stadium page, and news is gathered in the Yankees topic page.