A few thoughts about the 2013 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox

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A few thoughts about your (and mine) newly crowned 2013 World Series Champions, the Boston Red Sox.

Hearing “Three Little Birds” being sung at Fenway by the entire stadium was awesome.

Big Papi will be the first DH elected to the Hall of Fame. It may not happen the first vote, but at this point, he’d need to get caught doing something very naughty indeed to not be included.

Jon Lester finally took that ace mantle and owned it. A big story next year will be if he can keep it up - Josh Beckett flamed out after being unhittable in 2007.

Speaking of 2007 (and 2004), I was intrigued by people saying that 2007 was the best team of the three championship winners this century.

(Pausing to let that sink in).

The general storyline seems to be that the 2004 team was good, 2007 was better, and the 2013 squad lags somewhere behind. Poking through baseball-reference.com, I sketched out a comparison of the three teams.

2004 98-64, 2nd in AL East Previous season: 95-67, second in AL East

Hitting Eight of the starters hit at least .264. Seven of them had OPS over .800. Six had at least 70 RBI. Two - David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez - had more than 40 home runs.

The Big 3: Name G HR RBI AVG OPS Ramirez 152 43 130 .308 1.009 Ortiz 150 41 139 .301 .983 Damon 150 20 94 .304 .85

Pitching Four starters threw at least 180 innings. A fifth (Bronson Arroyo) was within 11/3 inning. Everyone in the rotation - led by Curt Schilling’s 21-6 - had at least 10 wins. Derek Lowe was the only starting pitcher with a regular season WHIP over 1.4.

The Big 3: Name W-L K ERA WHIP SV Schilling 21-6 203 3.26 1.063 0 Martinez 16-9 227 3.90 1.171 0 Foulke 5-3 79 2.17 0.940 32

2007 96-66, 1st in AL East Previous season: 86-76, third in AL East

Hitting Seven of the starters hit at least .268 Five had OPS over .800 Three had at least 70 RBI. One - David Ortiz - had more than 30 homers (35). Jacoby Ellsbury made his debut.

The Big 3: Name G HR RBI AVG OPS Ortiz 149 35 117 .332 1.066 Lowell 154 21 120 .324 .879 Ramirez 133 20 88 .296 .881

Pitching Three pitchers threw at least 189 innings. The same three - Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett and Tim Wakefield - each had at least 15 wins. Schilling only had 17 starts. Jon Lester made his debut, going 4-0.

2013 97-65, 1st in AL East Previous season: 69-93, last in AL East

Hitting Six of the starters hit at least .273 Five had OPS over .800 Three had more than 70 RBI. One - David Ortiz - had more than 23 homers (30).

The Big 3: Name G HR RBI AVG OPS Ortiz 137 30 103 .309 .959 Pedroia 160 9 84 .301 .787 Ellsbury 134 9 53 .281 .781

Pitching Only two pitchers threw at least 189 innings - Jon Lester and John Lackey. Ryan Dempster led the team in starts with 36. Four of the top five starters had at least 10 wins (Dempster). Koji Uehara was insanely good. The Big 3: Name W-L K ERA WHIP SV Lester 15-8 177 3.75 1.294 0 Buchholz 12-1 96 1.74 1.025 0 Uehara 4-1 75 1.09 0.565 21

This is just a very rough sketch - I’m sure number experts can tear this apart. But I thought it made it interesting.

People seem to forget how ridiculously good the 2004 team was. The two 40 homer mashers led an AMAZING offense.

2007 was great - and there was a shadow of the 2013 redemption team by finishing third in 2006 - but I don’t think it stacks up quite as well.

The difference in 2007 was Josh Beckett - he was filthy in the postseason. Better than Lester this season (although not by much.

It’s hard to compare 2013 to those other two. The makeup of the teams is very different - the talent levels on this team aren’t as high, but the chemistry is far better than 2007, I think (he says from his comfy seat on the couch without being near the team all year).

2004 will always have the top spot in a modern-day Red Sox fan’s heart. But this team has made it a much closer vote than anyone expected.