Bobby Doerr

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
Home List of Articles

Bobby Doerr

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Bobby Doerr

Bobby Doerr was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans' Committee in 1986.

Five highlights of Bobby Doerr's career:

Bobby Doerr was named to nine All-Star teams. He was the starting second baseman for the American League five times.

Doerr received MVP votes eight times with two top-10 finishes. His best finish in MVP voting was in 1946 when he finished third. That season. Doerr batted .271/.346/.453 with 34 doubles, 18 home runs, 95 runs scored, and 116 RBI.

Doerr led the American League in triples and slugging percentage once each. He led AL second basemen in double plays five times, in putouts and fielding percentage four times each, and in assists three times. His 1,507 career double plays turned are the fifth-most by a second baseman in major-league history.

Doerr hit for the cycle twice in his career - May 17, 1944 and May 13, 1947 - the only player in Boston Red Sox history with more than one cycle.

Bobby Doerr was the second youngest player in the major leagues when he debuted in 1937 (at the age of 19 years, 13 days). He was the oldest living former player and the last surviving major-league player from the 1930s when he died 80 years later at the age of 99.

The first two tables below present Bobby Doerr'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
1937	BOS	19	55	3.8	4.8	-0.5	-0.9
1938	BOS	20	145	17.6	16.1	3.4	1.7
1939	BOS	21	127	18.0	15.4	4.6	2.8
1940	BOS	22	151	19.8	17.8	4.2	2.3
1941	BOS	23	132	16.6	16.5	2.2	0.5
1942	BOS	24	144	21.9	17.2	7.1	5.0
1943	BOS	25	155	21.3	19.0	4.6	2.6
1944	BOS	26	125	20.0	15.0	7.1	5.4
1945	-	27	-	-	-	-	-
1946	BOS	28	151	26.0	17.5	11.0	8.8
1947	BOS	29	146	22.7	18.5	6.8	4.8
1948	BOS	30	140	22.1	15.1	9.1	7.2
1949	BOS	31	139	20.4	18.0	4.5	2.5
1950	BOS	32	149	18.7	15.8	4.9	3.1
1951	BOS	33	106	14.0	10.7	4.7	3.4
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,865	263.0	217.5	73.8	49.0
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			6	0.8	0.8	0.1	0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			1,871	263.8	218.3	73.9	49.0

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1937	BOS	19	55	4.0	4.6	-0.1	-0.6
1938	BOS	20	145	16.8	16.8	1.9	0.2
1939	BOS	21	127	17.2	16.1	3.0	1.3
1940	BOS	22	151	19.4	18.2	3.3	1.4
1941	BOS	23	132	16.6	16.5	2.2	0.5
1942	BOS	24	144	21.2	17.9	5.7	3.6
1943	BOS	25	155	21.9	18.5	5.8	3.7
1944	BOS	26	125	20.2	14.8	7.5	5.7
1945	-	27	-	-	-	-	-
1946	BOS	28	151	23.6	20.0	6.2	3.9
1947	BOS	29	146	21.6	19.6	4.6	2.6
1948	BOS	30	140	20.5	16.7	6.0	4.1
1949	BOS	31	139	20.3	18.1	4.4	2.4
1950	BOS	32	149	18.2	16.4	3.8	2.0
1951	BOS	33	106	13.4	11.3	3.5	2.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,865	254.8	225.6	57.9	33.1
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			6	1.0	0.6	0.4	0.4
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			1,871	255.8	226.3	58.4	33.5

Bobby Doerr's Hall-of-Fame Case

Bobby Doerr was not elected to the Hall of Fame until 1986, 35 years after he played his final game. Obviously, his Hall-of-Fame case was (and is) somewhat subtle. In my opinion, however, Doerr is a deserving Hall-of-Famer based on the two tables which close this article.

The first of these tables shows the top 10 second basemen of the 1940s measured by eWins over positional average (eWOPA) at second base only.

		Top 10 Second Basemen of the 1940s
		eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
1	Bobby Doerr	184.0	161.3	25.4
2	Joe Gordon	154.2	132.3	24.1
3	Lonny Frey	89.7	78.9	12.1
4	Snuffy Stirnweiss	90.3	80.8	11.1
5	Eddie Stanky	106.8	97.4	11.0
6	Jackie Robinson	40.6	32.4	8.6
7	Billy Herman	79.7	76.9	4.1
8	George Myatt	30.0	27.1	3.5
9	Charlie Gehringer	32.2	30.3	2.4
10	Cass Michaels	40.5	39.2	1.8

The 1940s were a somewhat strange decade because most of the decade's best players have a hole in their career in the middle of the decade, because of World War II. This includes Bobby Doerr, although he only missed one full season (as well as the final month of the 1944 season).

The second table, then, extends across all of history - or, at least all of the history for which I have calculated Player won-lost records. It also recognizes that Bobby Doerr's career looks better in context (pWins) than when context is neutralized (eWins). This table shows the top 10 players in pWORL for whom at least half of their player wins were earned at second base.


	Top Second Basemen, since 1916 (Ranked by pWORL across all positions)
		pWins	pLoss	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Joe L. Morgan	371.9	293.9	84.9	117.6
2	Rogers Hornsby	336.2	261.7	75.8	106.8
3	Frankie Frisch	329.0	279.4	51.6	82.9
4	Lou Whitaker	303.8	262.6	51.2	78.5
5	Charlie Gehringer	312.0	268.8	46.5	76.7
6	Bobby Doerr	263.0	217.5	49.0	73.8
7	Jackie Robinson	195.9	141.4	51.5	69.0
8	Craig Biggio	357.7	325.7	34.0	67.3
9	Robinson Cano	284.0	248.1	41.3	66.9
10	Roberto Alomar	312.3	283.2	36.4	65.4

It may be a subtle case. But, in my opinion, it is not a weak case.

Article last updated: October 20, 2020

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.

Home List of Articles