By Paul Semendinger
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Twenty nine players have worn uniform number 48 as a Yankee.
This has been an oft-used number for a host of players: some rookies, a few middle relief pitchers, and often times for former stars who came to New York at the tail ends of their careers.
Of the rookies, the list includes:
Elvio Jimenez (a Least Among Them Yankee)
Cecil Perkins
John Ramos
Scott Seabol
Brandon Knight
and Phil Coke.
None of those players really made an impact with the Yankees, but one rookie did, albeit in another uniform number: Roy White who wore #48 as his first uniform number as a Yankee.
The list of former stars who wore #48 includes a host of fun names:
Sam McDowell
Mike Torrez (he also wore #24)
Dave Kingman
Rick Reuschel
Neil Allen
Kyle Farnsworth
Chris Carter
and Anthony Rizzo (just this past season).
And this is what makes this exercise so difficult.
Most of the rookies assigned #48 just didn’t have the careers many had hoped…
The Up-and-Comer who succeeded, Roy White, found his success in another number…
and the old veterans were, old veterans passing through or winding down. None had a huge impact.
Finding the best #48 is quite a challenge, but in and among all of these players there were a few stand out middle relief pitchers who did well for the Yankees:
Paul Quantrill (108 games pitched: 8 wins, 3 losses, 1 save, 0.6 WAR)
Boone Logan (256 games pitched, 19 wins, 7 losses, 2.9 WAR)
Andrew Miller (104 games, 9 wins, 3 losses, 45 saves, 4.7 WAR)
Tommy Kahnle (129 games, 6 wins, 3 losses, 1 save, 0.8 WAR)
In this race, it comes down to two pitchers and it seems to be a quantity vs quality argument. Does Boone Logan’s 256 games weigh more heavily than Andrew Miller’s dominance?
In this, I had to go with Miller’s dominance.
The greatest Yankee to ever wear uniform #48 was Andrew Miller.
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Most of the background research for this project came from Baseball-Reference.com.
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