Tough one Len.  Assuming only position players are eligible, it would be hard to crack a top five of Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, DiMaggio and Berra.  Jeter (at the end of his career) will be close to those and will in all likelihood be in the top 5 (statistically) all time Yankees in Batting Average, Hits, Runs, and Stolen Bases.  He may be the only Yankee to amass 3000 hits solely as a Yankee.  Baseball-Reference has a listing of the Yankee leaders in all of the offensive categories.  The problem is, even with Jeter’s greatness, who would you knock off that list?  Their numbers are so good it would be a near impossibility.

As for pitchers, my Top five (in no particular order) would be Whitey Ford, Red Ruffing, Mariano Rivera, Rich Gossage and Ron Guidry (with Mel Stottlemyre knocking on the door).

As for Chase Wright, all of the Home Runs were absolute mistake pitches.  Middle up out to Manny, Up and out to Drew, Down and In to Lowell and, Up and out to Varitek.  Those were BP pitch location and every batter was able to extend his hands and take a hefty hack.  Part of that I think is that Nieves was back there instead of Posada.  I think Jorge may have saved that inning (at least partially).  Part of that is on Torre/Guidry for not slowing the inning down or calling for Wright to hit Drew or Lowell after the 1st or 2nd HR.  The hit batsman would have a) allowed Wright to throw to first to buy some time to get his heart rate down, and b) got the warning that woud prevent Matsuzaka (or any other Red Sox pitcher) from throwing pitches at batters. (A-Rod and Jeter were hit as usual).   Â