Bob Gibson

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Bob Gibson

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Bob Gibson

Bob Gibson was elected to the Hall of Fame in his 1st year of eligibility, 1981, with 84.0% of the vote.

The first table below presents Bob Gibson's career as measured by Player won-lost records.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWin Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWOPA	eWORL
Bob Gibson Basic Player Won-Lost Records
												Value Decomposition
1959	SLN	23	21	4.9	4.7	0.510	0.2	0.7	4.7	5.0	0.484	-0.0	0.4
1960	SLN	24	40	4.6	6.5	0.414	-0.8	-0.3	5.2	6.0	0.464	-0.3	0.3
1961	SLN	25	40	14.9	13.0	0.535	1.4	2.6	14.6	13.3	0.524	1.1	2.3
1962	SLN	26	43	17.3	13.7	0.558	2.3	3.7	17.4	13.6	0.562	2.5	3.8
1963	SLN	27	41	17.5	14.2	0.552	2.2	3.7	16.7	15.0	0.526	1.4	2.8
1964	SLN	28	40	19.9	16.1	0.553	2.5	4.3	19.0	17.0	0.529	1.6	3.5
1965	SLN	29	42	20.2	17.2	0.540	2.2	3.8	19.4	18.1	0.517	1.4	3.0
1966	SLN	30	46	19.5	15.1	0.563	2.8	4.2	18.5	16.2	0.533	1.7	3.2
1967	SLN	31	27	11.9	9.7	0.552	1.5	2.4	11.7	9.8	0.543	1.3	2.2
1968	SLN	32	35	21.9	14.2	0.607	4.5	5.9	21.4	14.7	0.593	4.0	5.4
1969	SLN	33	37	22.2	16.7	0.571	3.6	5.3	22.1	16.8	0.568	3.4	5.2
1970	SLN	34	40	21.7	13.6	0.615	4.9	6.3	21.2	14.1	0.600	4.3	5.8
1971	SLN	35	31	17.5	15.1	0.537	1.7	3.1	17.5	15.1	0.537	1.7	3.1
1972	SLN	36	34	20.0	14.0	0.588	3.7	5.1	19.6	14.4	0.576	3.3	4.7
1973	SLN	37	25	11.0	10.9	0.502	0.5	1.3	11.8	10.0	0.541	1.3	2.2
1974	SLN	38	33	13.1	14.2	0.480	-0.2	0.9	13.0	14.3	0.476	-0.3	0.8
1975	SLN	39	22	5.8	8.7	0.400	-1.3	-0.6	6.3	8.1	0.439	-0.7	-0.1
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			597	263.9	217.6	0.548	31.7	52.5	260.0	221.5	0.540	27.8	48.5
			------	------	------				------	------
PostSeason (career)			9	5.4	3.5	0.607		1.5	5.4	3.6	0.598		1.4
			------	------	------	------		------	------	------	------		------
COMBINED			606	269.4	221.1	0.548		54.0	265.3	225.1	0.540		50.0

Bob Gibson won two Cy Young Awards in three seasons, in 1968 and 1970. Gibson's 1968 season was his most famous thanks to his 1.12 ERA in 304.2 innings pitched. Of course, 1968 was the most pitcher-friendly season since the Deadball Era. As measured by Player won-lost records, Gibson was actually better in his second Cy Young season, 1970, when his ERA was exactly two runs higher than in 1968 in 10 fewer innings. And, in fact, controlling for context, as measured by eWins over replacement level (eWORL), Gibson's 1968 season was only his third-best season, bested by both 1969 and 1970.

This is something of a surprise. How could Bob Gibson's 1969 - ERA of 2.18 in 314 IP - and 1970 - 3.12 ERA, 294 IP - be more valuable than a 1.12 ERA in 304.2 innings pitched? Answers: context and the fielding behind him. On its pitcher pages, Baseball-Reference presents a statistic called FIP, which stands for Fielding-Independent Pitching. FIP is scaled to match ERA but is based only on factors entirely within the control of the pitcher - strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed. Bob Gibson led the National League in FIP in all three of these seasons with values of 1.77 (268 K, 62 walks, 11 HR), 2.30 (269 K, 95 W, 12 HR), and 2.29 (274 K, 88 W, 13 HR). All three of these are scaled to line up with league ERA in these three seasons, which were 2.99, 3.59, and 4.05, respectively. So, Gibson's 1968 FIP (1.77) was 41 percent below league ERA, but his 1970 FIP (2.29) was 43 percent below league ERA.

Gibson's 1968 ERA was below his FIP in part because he allowed an extremely low batting average on balls in play that season (.234) - for which he gets some credit, but only some: he shares that credit with the Cardinals' fielders, who were very good that season - and in part because 22 percent of the runs Gibson allowed in 1968 (11 of 49) were unearned. In contrast, fewer than 10 percent of Gibson's runs allowed in 1969 and 1970 were unearned.

Put it all together, and what you get is an outstanding three-year run of excellence by Bob Gibson.

The next table shows the top three-consecutive-season totals in eWins over replacement level over seasons for which I have calculated Player won-lost records (since 1928).

	Player	Seasons	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
Best Three Consecutive Seasons, eWORL
1	Barry Bonds	2001 - 2003	74.6	40.1	14.9	19.7
2	Barry Bonds	2000 - 2002	76.9	44.2	14.0	19.0
3	Barry Bonds	2002 - 2004	69.3	36.7	14.1	18.4
4	Arky Vaughan	1934 - 1936	76.4	53.6	12.3	17.9
5	Mickey Mantle	1955 - 1957	73.2	42.9	13.1	17.8
6	Mel Ott	1934 - 1936	80.8	52.8	11.9	17.7
7	Mickey Mantle	1956 - 1958	73.2	43.3	12.9	17.6
8	Ted Williams	1946 - 1948	80.2	49.9	12.2	17.4
9	Babe Ruth	1930 - 1932	72.5	43.0	11.9	16.9
10	Joe L. Morgan	1972 - 1974	74.1	52.5	11.6	16.7

A few comments on this table. First, as to Bob Gibson, he is the only pitcher on the list.

Overall, the top 10 3-consecutive-season eWORL spots are held by six players. Barry Bonds holds the top three spots split across five consecutive seasons. Mickey Mantle appears twice covering a four-year span.

And then there's the third player who appears more than once in the list. Ted Williams's two appearances on the list might be the most impressive feature of the list. His two three-year totals do not overlap at all: 1940 - 1942 and 1946 - 1948. And in between those years: Ted Williams spent three years serving his country during World War II.

All articles are written so that they pull data directly from the most recent version of the Player won-lost database. Hence, any numbers cited within these articles should automatically incorporate the most recent update to Player won-lost records. In some cases, however, the accompanying text may have been written based on previous versions of Player won-lost records. I apologize if this results in non-sensical text in any cases.

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