Trip through Red Sox all-time leaderboards is full of surprises

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Baseball-reference is a great time waster even in the best of times, but it's particularly essential now.

With no baseball to look forward to anytime soon, our only choice is to look back, and that's where baseball-reference is invaluable.

The site presents no shortage of rabbit holes, and today we're embarking on a seemingly straightforward exercise — examining the all-time Red Sox leaderboards — that actually delivered a number of surprises.

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For instance, you'd never guess which '90s hitter cracked the top 10 in both batting average and slugging percentage, or what shocking category sees Carlton Fisk place 10th, or just how many times Babe Ruth appears in the pitching register.

Anyway, here are 10 revelations from the pitching and hitting leaderboards.

1. Carlton Fisk — 70.12 steal percentage (10th)

Fisk spent the first 11 years of his Hall of Fame career in Boston, and he makes exactly two appearances on the offensive leaderboards. He was hit by 59 pitches, tied with Don Baylor for fifth, which makes sense, given his pugnacious, hard-nosed style.

What's shocking, though, were his wheels. Fisk led the American League in triples as a rookie in 1972, and then he stole 61 bases in 87 tries during his Red Sox career. That success rate places him one spot ahead of former teammate Jerry Remy (68.53), and two ahead of future 30-30 club member Ellis Burks (68.35).

It even ranks favorably with noted running catchers like Pudge Rodriguez (66.4 percent), Jason Kendall (68 percent) and John Wathan (74.5 percent).

Fisk took his game to another level with the White Sox, stealing 17 bases in 19 tries in 1982, and even going 7 for 9 at age 42 in 1990. Who knew!

2. Reggie Jefferson — .316 average (7th), .505 slugging percentage (9th)

Talk about an overlooked pure hitter. Jefferson arrived in 1995 on a team that already featured Mo Vaughn and Jose Canseco in the first base/DH mix, and found playing time anyway.

One of the only reasons to tune in during an otherwise forgettable 1996 season was to see if Jefferson could qualify for the batting title. He fell short, and thus his .347 average doesn't make the list (he would've finished third behind Alex Rodriguez and Frank Thomas), but he placed eighth a year later at .319.

A former switch hitter, Jefferson transitioned to full-time left-handed hitter a year before joining the Red Sox and served as a straight platoon player vs. right-handed pitching, which he pummeled to the tune of a .328 average and .905 OPS.

A doubles machine who wore out the Monster, Jefferson actually outslugged Hall of Famer Jim Rice during his Red Sox career.

3. Bob Stanley — 115 wins (8th), 132 saves (2nd)

Talk about someone who would've thrived in the opener era. The Steamer went 15-2 in 50 appearances in 1978, throwing more than 140 innings despite making only three starts.

We think of Stanley as a reliever, and that's where he made the majority of his 637 appearances over a 13-year career. But he had a couple of memorable runs as a starter, tossing nine complete games during an All-Star 1979, and then going 4-15 during a disastrous return to the rotation in 1987.

Stanley reached double digits in wins four times in the 1970s as a reliever, and as late as 1988 the sinkerballer threw over 100 innings of relief. He's one of just seven pitchers in history to win at least 100 games without making 100 starts.

4. Pedro Martinez — 77 HBP (3rd)

This sneaky great stat tells us a lot about the best pitcher most of us will ever see. Martinez doesn't crack the team's top 10 for starts, and he barely makes the top 20 in innings and batters faced, but during an era when hitters reigned, you'd better believe he wanted them to know who owned the inside of the plate.

Martinez arrived in Boston in 1998 sensitive to his reputation as a head hunter after finding himself in the middle of one too many brawls, but in reality, he didn't mind hitters feeling just a little bit of fear in the box.

Some of them — like Tampa's Gerald Williams — took exception and charged the mound. But that was an acceptable tradeoff for the way Martinez otherwise dominated. And because his control and command were so pinpoint, every time he hit someone, he meant it.

What a bad man.

5. Babe Ruth — 2.19 ERA (5th), 105 CG (8th), 17 shutouts (10th)

Speaking of which, had the Red Sox never traded Ruth, he might've made the Hall of Fame as a pitcher, which should really settle the Greatest Player of All-Time debate forever.

Ruth's three primary seasons as a starter in Boston are superb even for the time. From 1915 to 1917, the left-hander went 65-33 with a 2.02 ERA. In 1916, he threw 323.2 innings without allowing a home run, a feat matched by only other two pitchers since 1900.

And he was even better in the World Series, going 3-0 with a 0.87 ERA, two complete games, and one shutout.

6. Roger Moret — .695 winning percentage (2nd)

Martinez tops the list at an absurd .760.

But coming in right behind him is the skinny 6-4, 170-pound left-hander known primarily for surrendering Joe Morgan's decisive hit in Game 3 of the 1975 World Series, as well as the mental problems that later curtailed his career.

The mercurial Moret could never quite nail down a full-time spot in the rotation, but he made the most of his appearances, going 13-2 in 1973 and 14-3 in 1975. Those two seasons were enough to land him ahead of Smoky Joe Wood, Ruth, Curt Schilling, and Roger Clemens, among many, many others, on this list.

7. Marty Barrett — 102 sacrifices (10th)

It shows how much baseball has changed during the sabermetric revolution that Barrett would be the only player in the top 10 to appear in a game after 1951. Barrett is what we once called the "prototypical No. 2 hitter," which meant he hit behind runners, exhibited negligible power, and put the ball in play.

It also shows just how much the game needed to evolve. Today, the two-hole is the home of sluggers and MVPs like Mike Trout and Christian Yelich. Were he active today, Barrett and his lifetime .337 OBP would bat ninth.

Still, he executed what was asked of him, and that included league-leading sacrifice totals in 1986 (18), 1987 (22), and 1988 (20). To illustrate just how much of an anachronism he was, consider this: since Barrett retired in 1991, John Valentin owns the most sacrifices in a Red Sox uniform, with a grand total of 36.

8. Mike Fornieles — 158 games finished (6th)

It's strange, when you think about it, that "games finished" is even a default category on B-R at all. What does it tell us that saves and complete games don't? In the case of Fornieles, quite a bit, because it illustrated his value during the early '60s.

In 1960, he was named the first winner of the Sporting News Fireman of the Year award, making a then-league-record 70 appearances and finishing 48 games, winning 10 and saving 13 for a terrible 65-win team. He end up finishing 28 losses.

Decades before Livan and El Duque Hernandez showed how crafty Cuban pitchers could be, Fornieles arrived from the island nation with an assortment of pitches that he mixed to great effect.

9. Johnny Pesky — .401 OBP (7th)

Pesky served as an ambassador for so long after retirement, and his career was so dominated by one play — holding the ball while Enos Slaughter raced home with the decisive run of the 1946 World Series — that it's easy to discount his talent.

He led the American League in hits in each of his first three seasons — a feat not even matched by the great Ichiro Suzuki — and twice walked over 100 times, too. Four of the names ahead of him are Hall of Famers (Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Wade Boggs, Tris Speaker), one would be there if he could've kept clean (Manny Ramirez), and the other was a three-time All-Star and two-time batting champ (Pete Runnels).

That's impressive company.

10. Chris Sale — 6.754 H/9 (1st)

We know that Sale is dominant in an era of three true outcomes, only one of which is a hit. But what makes him leading this list at least mildly surprising is whom he's ahead of. Closer Dick Radatz ranks second, and was the definition of unhittable during his prime, like when he limited opponents to a .186 average in 157 innings in 1964.

That Sale allows hits even less frequently than The Monster tells us something, and we'll see if he's the same pitcher when he returns from Tommy John.

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