10 stars to remember when playing Immaculate Grid

Baseball fans are dealing with a lot of new things in 2023.

We’ve seen the new rules and have also been introduced to the incredibly addicting, Immaculate Grid.

For anyone unaware of what Immaculate Grid is, here’s a rundown.

Every day at Midnight Eastern Time, a new grid will go up at immaculategrid.com. That will be the grid for the day. The grids have nine squares with three teams or achievements across the top, and three teams or achievements down the side. Essentially, it functions like a Super Bowl squares pool. Your job is to match a player up to the two things a given box is asking for. For example, if it’s looking for someone who played with the San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates, Barry Bonds works.

Of course, not every square is that easy. And even if it seems easy, Immaculate Grid players frequently can find themselves staring at the grid for several minutes, trying to come up with an MLB player who works for a given square. Today, we’re here to look at some of those guys. And if you’re wondering why we went with one well-traveled star over another, we wanted to be sure that all 30 teams are covered.

Every player we’re going to list played for at least eight teams. So, while stars like Steve Carlton and Dave Winfield logged a lot of frequent flyer miles, they don’t quite qualify. We’re also looking for players who knock off at least some of the achievements that frequently come up on Immaculate Grid. With that, we won’t be seeing the likes of Edwin Jackson and Octavio Dotel. That said, those are all good players to keep in mind.

Before we get to our list, let’s go over three things.

One, the teams listed under a player’s name are identified by the franchise’s current name. We realize that some of the listed Washington Nationals actually played with the Montreal Expos, the Cleveland Guardians played for the Indians, etc. On Immaculate Grid, players who played for a franchise are eligible for any other name the franchise went by (ie: Expos players can be used as Nationals). So, for the sake of continuity, we’re going to follow Immaculate Grid’s model and use the current name.

Two, If we don’t identify a team with an achievement, it’s a career achievement and is valid for any team he played for. For example, Greg Maddux is a career 300-game winner. That works for any of his four teams — the Chicago Cubs, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. But his 20-win seasons came only with the Braves and Cubs. The Dodgers and Padres would not work there.

Three, if Bonds is listed as a Giants player with a 50-home run season, we’re not going to mention him as a Giant with 40 or 30-home run seasons. The 50-homer season covers those. We would, however, identify him as a Pirates player with a 30-home run season, since his high in Pittsburgh was 34.

Without further ado, here are our 10 Immaculate Grid All-Stars.

1. Bartolo Colón

Teams:

1. Cleveland Guardians
2. Washington Nationals
3. Chicago White Sox
4. Los Angeles Angels
5. Boston Red Sox
6. New York Yankees
7. Oakland Athletics
8. New York Mets
9. Atlanta Braves
10. Minnesota Twins
11. Texas Rangers

Notable Achievements:

• All-Star (Guardians, Angels, Athletics, Mets)
• 20-game winner (Angels)
• Cy Young Award winner (Angels)
• 247 career wins

2. Kenny Lofton

Teams:

1. Houston Astros
2. Cleveland Guardians
3. Atlanta Braves
4. Chicago White Sox
5. San Francisco Giants
6. Pittsburgh Pirates
7. Chicago Cubs
8. New York Yankees
9. Philadelphia Phillies
10. Los Angeles Dodgers
11. Texas Rangers

Notable Achievements:

• All-Star (Guardians, Braves)
• Hit .300 (Guardians, Braves, Dodgers)
• 200-hit season (Guardians)
• 70-steal season (Guardians)
• 30-steal season (Dodgers)
• Gold Glove winner (Guardians)
• 2,428 career hits
• 622 career steals

3. Goose Gossage

Teams:

1. Chicago White Sox
2. Pittsburgh Pirates
3. New York Yankees
4. San Diego Padres
5. Chicago Cubs
6. San Francisco Giants
7. Texas Rangers
8. Oakland Athletics
9. Seattle Mariners

Notable Achievements:

• All-Star (White Sox, Pirates, Yankees, Padres)
• 30-save season (Yankees)
• 310 career saves
• World Series Champion (Yankees)
• Hall of Fame

4. Rickey Henderson

Teams:

1. Oakland Athletics
2. New York Yankees
3. Toronto Blue Jays
4. San Diego Padres
5. Los Angeles Angels
6. New York Mets
7. Seattle Mariners
8. Boston Red Sox
9. Los Angeles Dodgers

Notable Achievements:

• All-Star (A’s, Yankees)
• Hit .300 (A’s, Yankees)
• 100-stolen base season (A’s)
• 90-stolen base season (Yankees)
• 30-stolen base season (Padres, Mets)
• American League MVP (A’s)
• Gold Glove
• Silver Slugger (A’s, Yankees)
• 3,055 hits
• Career leader in stolen bases (1,406)
• Career leader in runs scored (2,295)
• 2,190 walks drawn
• World Series Champion (A’s, Blue Jays)
• Hall of Fame

5. Gaylord Perry

Teams:

1. San Francisco Giants
2. Cleveland Guardians
3. Texas Rangers
4. San Diego Padres
5. New York Yankees
6. Atlanta Braves
7. Seattle Mariners
8. Kansas City Royals

Notable Achievements:

• All-Star (Giants, Guardians, Padres)
• 20-game winner (Giants, Guardians, Padres)
• 200-strikeout seasons (Giants, Guardians)
• Cy Young Award winner (Guardians, Padres)
• 314 career wins
• 3,534 career strikeouts
• Hall of Fame

6. Gary Sheffield

Teams:

1. Milwaukee Brewers
2. San Diego Padres
3. Miami Marlins
4. Los Angeles Dodgers
5. Atlanta Braves
6. New York Yankees
7. Detroit Tigers
8. New York Mets

Notable Achievements:

• All-Star (Padres, Marlins, Dodgers, Braves, Yankees)
• Hit .300 (Padres, Braves, Marlins, Dodgers)
• 40-home run season (Dodgers, Marlins)
• 30-home run season (Braves, Yankees, Padres)
• 100 RBI season (Braves, Yankees, Marlins, Dodgers, Padres)
• Batting title (Padres)
• 509 career home runs
• Silver Slugger (Braves, Yankees, Marlins, Padres)
• 2,689 career hits

7. Lee Smith

Teams:

1. Chicago Cubs
2. Boston Red Sox
3. St. Louis Cardinals
4. New York Yankees
5. Baltimore Orioles
6. Los Angeles Angels
7. Cincinnati Reds
8. Washington Nationals

Notable Achievements:

• All-Star (Cubs, Cardinals, Angels)
• 40-save season (Cardinals)
• 30-save season (Angels, Cubs, Orioles)
• 478 career saves
• Hall of Fame

8. Reggie Sanders

Teams:

1. Cincinnati Reds
2. San Diego Padres
3. Atlanta Braves
4. Arizona Diamondbacks
5. San Francisco Giants
6. Pittsburgh Pirates
7. St. Louis Cardinals
8. Kansas City Royals

Notable Achievements:

• All-Star (Reds)
• Hit .300 (1995)
• 30-home run season (Diamondbacks, Pirates)
• 30-stolen base season (Reds, Padres)
• 305 career home runs
• 304 career stolen bases
• World Series Champion (Diamondbacks)

9. Jamie Moyer

Teams:

1. Chicago Cubs
2. Texas Rangers
3. St. Louis Cardinals
4. Baltimore Orioles
5. Boston Red Sox
6. Seattle Mariners
7. Philadelphia Phillies
8. Colorado Rockies

Notable Achievements:

• All-Star (Mariners)
• 20-game winner (Mariners)
• 269 career wins
• World Series Champion (Phillies)

10. Nelson Cruz

Note: Cruz was released by the Padres on July 11. His information is correct through the 2023 All-Star Break.

Teams:

1. Milwaukee Brewers
2. Texas Rangers
3. Baltimore Orioles
4. Seattle Mariners
5. Minnesota Twins
6. Tampa Bay Rays
7. Washington Nationals
8. San Diego Padres

Notable Achievements:

• All-Star (Rangers, Orioles, Mariners, Twins)
• Hit .300 (Twins, Mariners)
• 40-home run season (Mariners, Twins, Orioles)
• 30-home run season (Rangers)
• 100-RBI season (Mariners, Orioles, Twins)
• Silver Slugger (Mariners, Twins)
• 464 career home runs