Height is a curious thing. Sure, all else being equal, it’s better to be taller if you’re a baseball player, but particularly for position players, this maxim ceases to apply after a certain point. More body mass means it’s harder to have precise control over your movement. Longer levers usually lead to more strikeouts. It’s harder to readjust your swing when it gets out of sync. There’s a reason why the list of baseball’s tallest players of all time isn’t quite a collection of greats. There are real drawbacks to being extremely tall.
It’s important, then, when extremely tall players do grace our team, that we recognize their rarity and celebrate their presence. And what better time for Yankees fans than now, when the newly promoted and impossibly large Spencer Jones has joined an outfield that already contained (barely) the gargantuan Aaron Judge?
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On May 9th, during a 4-3 loss against the Brewers, the Yankees deployed an outfield for the ages – the duo of Judge and Jones in right and center, flanked by the 6-foot-3 Cody Bellinger in left, with a combined height of 19 feet and 5 inches. Seeing that, I thought to myself, this must be the tallest Yankees outfield ever. Turns out I was selling them short. According to the incomparable Sarah Langs, it was the first time any team had multiple position players listed at 6-foot-7 or higher in MLB history, let alone play them simultaneously. I assume that seals the deal for Judge-Jones-Bellinger to go down as the tallest outfield of all time, unless there was an outfield of three Frank Howard clones during the 60s that I’m not aware of.
While the question of the tallest outfield in Yankees history was settled, that got me thinking; what about the second-tallest one?
This was a question that not even Sarah Langs had publicly answered – though I imagine if I asked her directly she would have an answer for me in mere minutes. In fact, I tried Googling variations on “tallest Yankees outfield” and the only thing of substance I could find was this Reddit thread asking the same question but for all of MLB. So, I took matters into my own hands.
My methodology was intricately planned and foolproof (read: pretty haphazard and lacking rigor); try to come up with tall Yankees outfielders, check their teammates for any other tall outfielders, and search through game logs where they shared the field. Here’s what I found.
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(Probably) 2nd Place: Joey Gallo (LF, 6-foot-4), Judge (CF, 6-foot-7), Stanton (RF, 6-foot-5)
Occasion: August 23, 2021, Yankees @ Braves
Combined height: 19 feet, 4 inches
As I embarked on this task, my first line of inquiry was, “Did Judge have any other tall teammates in the outfield?”. Two names immediately came to mind; Giancarlo Stanton, our second favorite beeftank, and Joey Gallo, who serves as a high-end comp for Spencer Jones. I thought finding a game where all three players shared an outfield would be an easy task. Oh, how I was mistaken.
My foray into the Yankees’ 2021 game logs quickly turned into a seemingly unending slog. Even within the relatively rare occasions where Stanton took up a glove, the stars didn’t quite line up. When Gallo and Stanton were patrolling the grass, Judge would often be DHing, leaving Brett Gardner to handle center field. When Judge and Stanton were in center and right, Tyler Wade would spoil things by standing in left instead of Gallo. Eventually, though, I hit the jackpot with this August game against the Braves. With a combined height just one inch shorter than the presumed all-time record, I’m quite comfortable declaring this outfield to be the runner-up. (Postscript: the folks at esteemed podcast Effectively Wild came to the same conclusion, so now I’m even more confident!)
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However, something about both outfields featuring Aaron Judge didn’t quite sit right with me. It felt too easy, too obvious – of course playing the Tallest Dude would lead to having the Tallest Outfield. So I got curious; what was the tallest Yankees outfield, non-Judge division?
As far as I know, after Judge and Jones, these three players are tied for third place on the tallest Yankees outfielder rankings: Darryl Strawberry, Dave Winfield, and Dave Kingman, all listed at 6f-oot-6. Assuming that these three were my best bet to find a suitably tall outfield, I began my search by trying to find out whether they had any tall colleagues.
I started with Kingman, as his eight-game stint for the 1977 Yankees meant that I only had to pore over a limited sample of game logs. However, it turned out that Kingman was ineligible for this exercise in the first place – he never took the field during his time with the Yanks, appearing exclusively as a DH or pinch hitter. It makes sense, given Kingman’s notoriously porous glove.
Undeterred, I turned my eyes toward Winfield. Here, I quickly noticed that his outfield-mates were quite lacking in height. During the Hall of Famer’s 1981-1988 Yankees tenure, only three other Bronx outfielders reached even 6-foot-3 – Gary Roenicke, Hal Morris, and Jay Buhner. I knew that today’s MLB players were on average bigger than their predecessors, but this was still jarring to me – a 6-foot-3 outfielder would be relatively unremarkable in today’s game, but in the eighties they would have been notably tall! For my purposes, this meant that I had to abandon Winfield – just one Tall Dude does not a Tall Outfield make.
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That left me with Strawberry. As the troubled slugger was largely limited to DH and bench bat duties by the time he arrived in the Bronx, it was relatively easy for me to zero in on the games where he was stationed in the outfield. Not before long, I had my answer.
Tallest Yankees Outfield, non-Aaron Judge division: Paul O’Neill (LF, 6-foot-4), Bernie Williams (CF, 6-foot-2), Darryl Strawberry (RF, 6-foot-6)
Occasion: A bunch of times from 1995-1999
Combined height: 19 feet
Full disclosure: I’d completely forgotten that Paulie was so tall. In retrospect, I should have zeroed in on Strawberry and O’Neill on those dynasty teams at the start, but then again, I guess that would have made for a brief and uneventful article. Also, some of you might look at Bernie and go, “But he’s not that tall!”. However, aside from O’Neill, I could find only three outfielders whose Yankees careers coincided with Straw’s who were taller than Bernie; Rubén Rivera, Clay Bellinger, and Mark Whiten. Of the three, only Rivera saw time in center, and perusing the game logs, I could not find a game where Rivera, O’Neill, and Strawberry were all in the outfield. So, to the best of my knowledge, Paulie-Bernie-Straw is the tallest Yankees outfield that does not include Aaron Judge.
If nothing else, I hope this gave you the opportunity to Remember Some Guys. And if you think I’m overlooking any tall Yankees – a distinct possibility – please sound off in the comments!
