Man, this guy has been around!

I wrote this a couple weeks ago and thought it would be a good start to share here.

I woke up this morning wondering which active major league baseball player has had the best teammates over the course of his career. I know, I need to stop drinking before bed.

Clearly it has to be a player in his 40s who has played for multiple teams. I started my research with Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson and Jamie Moyer. Both have played with some exceptional teammates and even a handful of Hall of Fame players, but there are significant holes in their all-time teammate roster.

Then it dawned on me, there was only one guy who could deliver a teammate line-up that couldn't be topped. In fact, every player on his "all teammate" starting line-up and five man pitching rotation is either in the hall of fame or on the way. Of course, this man is the venerable (if not ancient) Julio Franco.

Without further adeiu, the "All-Franco" Team is:

C Ivan Rodriguez
1B Pete Rose
2B Jeff Kent
SS Omar Vizquel
3B Mike Schmidt
OF Sammy Sosa
OF Manny Ramirez
OF Gary Sheffield
DH Eddie Murray

SP Steve Carlton
SP Nolan Ryan
SP Greg Maddux
SP Phil Niekro
SP Tom Glavine

CL John Smoltz

The bench is almost equally loaded:

C Sandy Alomar
1B Raphael Palmeiro, Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Carlos Delgado, Fred McGriff
SS Jose Reyes, Rafael Furcal
3B Wade Boggs, Chipper Jones, David Wright
OF Carlos Beltran, Juan Gonzalez, Andruw Jones
DH Jose Canseco, Harold Baines
SP Pedro Martinez, Bartolo Colon, Bert Blyleven
CL Rich "Goose" Gossage, Billy Wagner

In all, there are 4 of the 27 men in the 3,000 hit club; 5 of the 21 men in the 500 HR club - with another 7 over 400 HRs; 4 of the 20 men in the 300 win club - with Glavine knocking on the door at 298; 5 of the 14 men in the 3,000 strikeout club - plus Pedro at 2,998 and Smoltz nearly at 2,900. This list includes the all-time record holder in hits, strikeouts, no-hitters, at-bats and games played.

I challenge you to find another active player with a better roster of teammates over his MLB career.