All-Time Sox vs. The Galaxy: Pitching

As the solar eclipse occurs mid-afternoon on Monday, August 21, 2017, Kang and Kodos descend upon New England in their flying saucer to play a sadistic game upon which the fate of the earth hangs in the balance. Rather than destroy us outright (which they easily have the firepower to do), they decide to make it sporting: they challenge us to a game of baseball. But they stack the deck, of course: through their alien technology, they can summon any ballplayer from any given year to play for their side. Their one concession is they'll leave us the entire Red Sox roster throughout history for our side. This battle for our very lives will be a 9-game series, necessitating a 5-man rotation and a deep bullpen and bench (we're playing with a DH, though, so no need to worry about pinch-hitting for pitchers or double-switches and the like). Who will you choose to oppose this evil and destructive force?

This thread is for starting rotation and bullpen construction... not only who makes the pitching staff, but where the starting pitchers slot, what the bullpen roles are, etc. Assembling the bullpen may not be as obvious as selecting the best 6 or 7 Red Sox closers of all time; this is a 9-game series, you'll need long men, middle men, setup men. Righties and lefties.

To say nothing of the stakes. Civilization itself as a decided underdog, a very decided underdog. Statistics and WAR may try to tell us who has objectively had the best season, but I also know chutzpah when I see it, and if the fate of the planet is in the balance, I'll take confirmed chutzpah. Bruce Hurst in 1986 could earn a spot based solely on what we know he can do in the postseason.

With this is mind, this is the pitching staff I will send to do battle against the Intergalacatic All-Stars, in order of rotation:

Starting Pitchers

Pedro Martinez, 2000 season. Cy Young's 1901 season was more gaudy relative to the competition, but I have to think that Pedro was facing better ballplayers. Plus he's Pedro. He gets Game 1.
Cy Young, 1901 season. He pitched 371 innings in 1901, so that certainly helps his counting stats.
Lefty Grove, 1936 season
Luis Tiant, 1974 season
Roger Clemens, 1990 season. As impressive as he was in 1986, he was better in 1987 and transcendent in 1990, although he was shut down for a while during that campaign.

Notes: Tiant does not belong in the top 5 Sox all-time statistical season for starting pitchers, but I know that guy is fucking nails. And I put him 4th because if the Intergalactic World Series goes to nine games, that means he's starting Game 9, which is exactly where I want him. More than anyone in that rotation. More than even Pedro. And with that in mind, maybe I choose Tiant's 1975 season, where he did more with less and gutted it out like few could do. 160+ pitches in successive World Series games, getting by on guile and guts, he is the hero we need.

Honorable Mentions:

Smokey Joe Wood, 1912
Dutch Leonard, 1914
Babe Ruth, 1916
Mel Parnell, 1949

Bullpen

Long men: Dick Radatz, 1964; Ellis Kinder, 1951
Setup men: Koji Uehara, 2013; Tom Burgmeier, 1980; Jonathan Papelbon, 2006; Bill Campbell, 1977
Closer: Craig Kimbrel, 2017

The only lefty is Burgmeier. I'd have liked another, but the only one that came to mind was Hideki Okajima's 2007 season, and as good as that was, it couldn't supplant the work done by the guys chosen ahead of him.

2013 Koji might be more unhittable than 2017 Kimbrel, but this is a real-world roster construction, and I think Uehara would thrive more in a setup role than Kimbrel.

Honorable Mentions:

Bob Stanley, 1978 (if I felt another long man was needed, he'd be the guy)
Hideki Okajima, 2007 (as mentioned)
Derek Lowe, 2000

Construct your own pitching staff here and argue your point. I went with a 12-man staff... should it be 11, even with the DH? Intangibles absolutely welcome. I'd love to find more lefties for our bullpen in particular.

A hitters/fielders roster to follow at some point over the next month.

Looking back on this in light of trying to assemble a complete 25-man roster, I think I'd try to go with an 11-man pitching staff instead of 12 to try to get Ortiz on the team. Hell, maybe even a 10-man staff to get Rice or Manny on there, too, although that's likely a misallocation of resources (my team already has 5 OFers, and neither Rice nor Manny were particularly good enough fielders/runners to justify the move from a utility perspective). But with a starting staff like the one I've proposed, how much of a bullpen am I going to need? Then again, the opposing team would be stacked with the greatest hitters of all time.

At a bare minimum, given the time since this was posted last year to reflect on my choices, I'd replace Bill Campbell with Foulke. The next step might be dropping that spot entirely to accommodate Ortiz on the roster.

That's an excellent suggestion. Maybe ditch Kinder and replace him with Miller, with the thinking that a pitching staff as talented as this one only needs one long reliever (Radatz) rather than two. Sure, a 9-game series is long, but given the horses we have, we can ride them into the ground if necessary, the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

Radatz, Miller, Uehara, Burgmeier, Papelbon, Foulke, and Kimbrel. Of course, we'd still need to get rid of one of these guys to get Ortiz on the roster, but I feel better about my matchups having two lefties in the pen instead of just one.