Jason Giambi

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Jason Giambi

2020 Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Jason Giambi

Five facts about Jason Giambi:

Jason Giambi received MVP votes in seven seasons with three top-5 finishes including winning the 2000 AL MVP award.

Giambi walked at least 100 times in a season seven times. He scored 100 or more runs four times. He had 100 or more RBI seven times. Giambi batted over .300 four times, had an on-base percentage of .400 or better seven times and had a slugging percentage over .600 twice.

Giambi led his league in walks four times, in on-base percentage three times, and in doubles, slugging percentage, and OPS once apiece (all in 2001).

From 2000 through 2002, Giambi finished first, second, and fifth in MVP voting. In those three seasons, he batted a combined .330/.462/.634 (OPS of 1.096) with per-season averages of 37 doubles, 41 home runs, 125 walks, 112 runs scored, and 126 RBI.

On July 29, 2013, Jason Giambi became the oldest player in major-league history to hit a walk-off home run. He broke his own record less than two months later when he hit the last of his ten career walk-off home runs on September 24, 2013, at the age of 42. Giambi was the oldest active player in major-league baseball in his final season, 2014, at the age of 43.

The first two tables below present Jason Giambi's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1995	OAK	24	54	4.8	4.8	0.3	-0.2
1996	OAK	25	140	14.6	15.0	0.5	-1.0
1997	OAK	26	142	15.3	14.4	1.7	0.1
1998	OAK	27	153	15.6	15.3	0.4	-1.2
1999	OAK	28	158	18.5	14.4	4.7	3.0
2000	OAK	29	152	20.1	11.8	8.9	7.2
2001	OAK	30	154	21.5	12.7	9.5	7.7
2002	NYA	31	155	20.3	12.5	8.8	6.9
2003	NYA	32	156	18.0	12.2	6.6	4.9
2004	NYA	33	80	7.0	6.5	0.8	0.1
2005	NYA	34	139	14.0	9.6	5.0	3.8
2006	NYA	35	139	16.9	11.2	6.6	4.9
2007	NYA	36	83	6.1	5.3	1.2	0.5
2008	NYA	37	145	15.3	13.0	3.0	1.5
+– 2009		38	102	8.8	8.5	0.6	-0.3
	COL		19	1.4	0.8	0.7	0.6
	OAK		83	7.4	7.7	-0.1	-0.9
2010	COL	39	87	5.5	5.2	0.6	0.0
2011	COL	40	64	4.4	3.5	1.1	0.7
2012	COL	41	60	2.5	2.4	0.3	-0.0
2013	CLE	42	71	5.2	4.6	1.3	0.6
2014	CLE	43	26	0.8	1.2	-0.3	-0.4
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,260	235.0	184.0	61.6	39.0
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			45	3.7	3.8	0.1	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,305	238.8	187.8	61.7	38.7

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1995	OAK	24	54	5.1	4.5	0.9	0.4
1996	OAK	25	140	15.0	14.6	1.3	-0.2
1997	OAK	26	142	15.3	14.4	1.8	0.3
1998	OAK	27	153	16.6	14.3	2.5	1.0
1999	OAK	28	158	18.1	14.7	3.8	2.2
2000	OAK	29	152	19.5	12.4	7.6	6.0
2001	OAK	30	154	20.8	13.4	8.2	6.4
2002	NYA	31	155	19.4	13.5	6.8	4.9
2003	NYA	32	156	17.4	12.8	5.3	3.6
2004	NYA	33	80	6.5	7.0	-0.3	-1.0
2005	NYA	34	139	13.9	9.7	4.8	3.5
2006	NYA	35	139	16.4	11.7	5.6	4.0
2007	NYA	36	83	6.0	5.3	1.0	0.3
2008	NYA	37	145	15.3	13.0	3.1	1.6
+– 2009		38	102	8.8	8.4	0.8	-0.2
	COL		19	1.4	0.8	0.8	0.6
	OAK		83	7.4	7.6	0.0	-0.8
2010	COL	39	87	5.3	5.4	0.3	-0.3
2011	COL	40	64	4.7	3.3	1.8	1.3
2012	COL	41	60	2.2	2.7	-0.2	-0.5
2013	CLE	42	71	4.7	5.1	0.3	-0.3
2014	CLE	43	26	0.8	1.1	-0.2	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,260	231.8	187.3	55.2	32.7
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			45	4.3	3.2	1.3	0.9
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,305	236.1	190.5	56.5	33.6

This is Jason Giambi's first year on the Hall-of-Fame ballot.

Vote Prediction

Jason Giambi is one of three players debuting on this ballot who I could conceivably see getting more than a handful of courtesy votes. Giambi was a five-time All-Star who had three consecutive top-5 MVP finishes in 2000, 2001, and 2002, winning the award in 2000. His career numbers are respectable, although he failed to hit any traditional Hall-of-Fame markers - he had 2,010 hits, 440 home runs, 1,441 RBI. His case is, instead, a peak case - the three top-5 MVP seasons, six consecutive 100-RBI seasons, a string of on-base percentages of .422, .476, .477, .435, .412, and .440 (with an injury-plagued 80-game .342 between the last two).

Giambi also admitted using performance-enhancing drugs.

It's hard to get a good feel for who Hall-of-Fame voters might view Giambi as comparable to. The man he replaced at first base for the Oakland A's peaked at 23.7% of the vote. But McGwire also hit more than 100 home runs more than Giambi.

Baseball-Reference lists Carlos Delgado as Giambi's most similar batter. Delgado received 3.8% of the vote in his only year on the ballot. But that was on a much more crowded ballot than this year's.

Based on my similarity scores, the player most similar to Giambi was just elected to the Hall of Fame last year, Edgar Martinez. But Carlos Delgado is number two.

Delgado is probably not a bad comparison. Delgado hit 473 home runs with 2,038 hits, and 1,512 RBI, all slightly more than Giambi. But Delgado was only a two-time All-Star and he only finished top-5 in MVP voting twice, with a high finish of second. Maybe the crowded ballot for Delgado matches up with the PED taint for Giambi? Let's go with 3.5%, just missing the 5% needed to stay on the ballot a second year.

Player Won-Lost Records and Jason Giambi

Jason Giambi was voted American League MVP in 2000. He then followed that up with a second-place MVP finish in 2001 and a fifth-place finish in 2002. Over the four seasons following that, Giambi made two All-Star teams and received MVP votes three times. Giambi struggled with injuries and age over the last few years of the decade, but even with that, Giambi was one of the best players in the first decade of the 2000s, as measured by Player won-lost records.


		pWins over Positional Average Top 10 Players, 2000 - 2009						pWins over Replacement Level Top 10 Players, 2000 - 2009
	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL		Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Barry Bonds	154.4	90.7	57.9	70.0	1	Alex Rodriguez	217.6	164.1	56.1	74.7
2	Albert Pujols	200.8	132.3	56.3	72.5	2	Albert Pujols	200.8	132.3	56.3	72.5
3	Alex Rodriguez	217.6	164.1	56.1	74.7	3	Barry Bonds	154.4	90.7	57.9	70.0
4	Derek Jeter	204.4	172.6	40.5	58.7	4	Derek Jeter	204.4	172.6	40.5	58.7
5	Jim Edmonds	165.4	122.3	39.3	53.3	5	Manny Ramirez	192.4	147.7	37.8	55.2
6	Manny Ramirez	192.4	147.7	37.8	55.2	6	Jim Edmonds	165.4	122.3	39.3	53.3
7	Jason Giambi	147.9	103.3	37.3	51.1	7	Vladimir Guerrero Sr.	207.8	165.0	33.0	51.9
8	Mariano Rivera	72.6	34.6	35.9	46.1	8	Chipper Jones	184.2	142.5	35.7	51.6
9	Chipper Jones	184.2	142.5	35.7	51.6	9	Lance Berkman	197.8	151.2	34.6	51.5
10	Johan Santana	107.0	74.6	35.4	47.9	10	Jason Giambi	147.9	103.3	37.3	51.1

Article last updated: December 1, 2019

2020 Hall of Fame Ballot Series

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