Rafael Furcal

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Rafael Furcal

2020 Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Rafael Furcal

Five facts about Rafael Furcal:

Rafael Furcal was named the National League Rookie of the Year in 2000. That season, Furcal batted .295/.394/.382 with 40 stolen bases and 87 runs scored in 542 plate appearances.

Furcal was named to three All-Star teams and received MVP votes twice.

Furcal scored 100 or more runs four (consecutive) seasons from 2003 - 2006.

Furcal led the National League in triples (10) and stolen base percentage (25 of 27) in 2003. He led the NL in putouts, assists, and double plays by a shortstop in 2006 and led the NL in putouts and assists a second time each.

Rafael Furcal completed the 12th unassisted triple play in major-league history on August 10, 2003.

The first two tables below present Rafael Furcal'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
2000	ATL	22	131	16.9	14.5	4.3	2.8
2001	ATL	23	79	10.5	10.0	1.9	0.8
2002	ATL	24	154	20.8	18.6	4.7	2.8
2003	ATL	25	156	22.2	18.5	6.3	4.3
2004	ATL	26	142	17.6	17.2	2.6	0.9
2005	ATL	27	154	21.0	18.2	5.1	3.3
2006	LAN	28	159	21.9	20.7	3.8	1.8
2007	LAN	29	138	17.3	18.4	1.0	-0.6
2008	LAN	30	36	5.6	4.2	2.0	1.5
2009	LAN	31	150	19.4	17.6	4.1	2.4
2010	LAN	32	97	13.5	11.9	3.1	1.9
+– 2011		33	87	11.0	10.4	2.0	0.9
	LAN		37	4.2	4.7	0.0	-0.4
	SLN		50	6.9	5.7	1.9	1.3
2012	SLN	34	121	14.8	15.5	1.3	-0.2
2013	-	35	-	-	-	-	-
2014	MIA	36	9	0.8	1.1	-0.2	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,613	213.4	196.9	42.1	22.3
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			59	7.6	7.8	0.8	0.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			1,672	221.0	204.6	42.9	22.4

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
2000	ATL	22	131	16.5	14.9	3.6	2.1
2001	ATL	23	79	9.9	10.6	0.7	-0.3
2002	ATL	24	154	19.3	20.1	1.8	-0.1
2003	ATL	25	156	21.0	19.8	3.9	1.8
2004	ATL	26	142	17.7	17.1	2.9	1.1
2005	ATL	27	154	20.3	18.9	3.9	2.1
2006	LAN	28	159	21.1	21.5	2.1	0.1
2007	LAN	29	138	17.1	18.5	0.7	-0.9
2008	LAN	30	36	5.4	4.4	1.6	1.2
2009	LAN	31	150	18.3	18.6	2.1	0.3
2010	LAN	32	97	13.6	11.8	3.3	2.1
+– 2011		33	87	10.4	11.0	0.7	-0.4
	LAN		37	4.0	4.8	-0.4	-0.8
	SLN		50	6.4	6.1	1.0	0.4
2012	SLN	34	121	15.0	15.3	1.6	0.1
2013	-	35	-	-	-	-	-
2014	MIA	36	9	0.7	1.2	-0.3	-0.4
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,613	206.4	203.8	28.6	8.8
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			59	7.7	7.7	0.9	0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			1,672	214.1	211.6	29.5	9.0

This is Rafael Furcal's first year on the Hall-of-Fame ballot.

Vote Prediction

It is an honor for Rafael Furcal simply to appear on a Hall-of-Fame ballot.

Player Won-Lost Records and Rafael Furcal

Rafael Furcal had a very nice career. Not a Hall-of-Fame career, certainly, but he did a lot of things very well. As measured by Player won-lost records, he was a pretty good hitter for a shorstop over the course of his career and an above-average fielder.

The one aspect of the game in which Furcal probably most excelled, though, was baserunning. Furcal led his league in triples once (with 10 in 2003) and also had seasons with 11, 9, 8, and 7 triples. He stole 20 or more bases in each of his first eight seasons with seasons of 47, 40, and 37 steals. For his career, he stole 314 bases and was caught stealing only 94 times, a success rate of 77.0%.

The next table, then, shows the top 25 baserunners since 2000, as measured by baserunning eWins over non-pitcher average.


Context-Neutral Baserunning
	Player	eWins	eLoss	eWOPA
1	Jimmy Rollins	23.3	16.9	5.9
2	Johnny Damon	17.5	11.8	5.6
3	Rajai Davis	15.7	10.2	5.4
4	Billy Hamilton	11.5	6.1	5.2
5	Ichiro Suzuki	25.2	20.1	5.0
6	Juan Pierre	26.0	20.6	4.8
7	Jacoby Ellsbury	14.7	9.8	4.8
8	Carl Crawford	18.5	13.8	4.5
9	Jose B. Reyes	23.7	18.7	4.4
10	Coco Crisp	15.4	11.1	4.2
11	Carlos Beltran	17.6	13.2	4.1
12	Ian Kinsler	17.5	13.8	3.6
13	Dee Gordon	14.0	10.2	3.5
14	Chase Utley	14.0	10.2	3.5
15	Brett Gardner	14.0	10.5	3.5
16	Shane Victorino	11.8	8.1	3.5
17	Elvis Andrus	17.2	13.8	3.4
18	Jarrod Dyson	9.0	5.7	3.3
19	Mike Trout	11.9	8.6	3.2
20	Alexis Rios	13.3	10.0	3.2
21	Brian Roberts	14.2	11.1	3.1
22	Michael Bourn	13.9	10.7	2.9
23	Dave R. Roberts	10.0	7.0	2.9
24	Rafael Furcal	16.9	13.6	2.9
25	Will Venable	7.7	4.7	2.8

Positional Average excludes pitcher offense

Of course, the ultimate value of baserunning is the extent to which it helps one score runs - and, the extent to which those runs scored translate into team wins. Well, Rafael Furcal was pretty damn good at scoring runs. He scored over 100 runs four times, including a whopping 130 runs in 156 games in 2003. He also added seasons of 95, 92, and two 87-run seasons. For his career, he scored 1,063 runs in 1,614 games, a rate of 107 runs per 162 games.

And putting Furcal's baserunning in context - i.e., looking at pWins, which tie to team wins, instead of eWins (expected wins), Furcal's baserunning looks even more impressive.


Context-Dependent Baserunning
	Player	pWins	pLoss	pWOPA
1	Jimmy Rollins	24.3	15.9	7.8
2	Rafael Furcal	18.1	12.3	5.4
3	Rajai Davis	15.7	10.3	5.4
4	Chase Utley	14.9	9.3	5.3
5	Juan Pierre	26.2	20.4	5.3
6	Johnny Damon	17.2	12.1	5.1
7	Ichiro Suzuki	25.3	20.1	5.0
8	Billy Hamilton	11.4	6.3	4.9
9	Mike Trout	12.7	7.9	4.8
10	Brett Gardner	14.6	9.8	4.7
11	Ian Kinsler	18.1	13.3	4.7
12	Derek Jeter	18.5	14.0	4.4
13	Elvis Andrus	17.7	13.4	4.3
14	Coco Crisp	15.4	11.1	4.3
15	Jose B. Reyes	23.5	18.9	4.1
16	Jacoby Ellsbury	14.2	10.4	3.8
17	Shane Victorino	11.8	8.0	3.6
18	Jarrod Dyson	9.1	5.5	3.5
19	Carl Crawford	17.9	14.4	3.4
20	Alcides Escobar	10.3	7.0	3.2
21	Michael Bourn	14.1	10.6	3.2
22	Lorenzo Cain	9.8	6.6	3.1
23	Will Venable	7.7	4.6	3.0
24	Nate McLouth	7.7	4.6	2.9
25	Luis A. Castillo	16.2	12.9	2.9

Positional Average excludes pitcher offense

Article last updated: November 28, 2019

2020 Hall of Fame Ballot Series

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