Carl Yastrzemski

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Carl Yastrzemski

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Carl Yastrzemski

Carl Yastrzemski was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, 1989, with 94.6% of the vote.

Five highlights of Carl Yastrzemski's career:

Carl Yastrzemski was named to eighteen All-Star teams in his career. He received MVP votes fourteen times and won seven Gold Gloves.

Yastrzemski is second in major-league history in plate appearances (13,992). He is fifth in major-league history in times on base (5,304), sixth in major-league history in walks (1,845), ninth in major-league history in doubles (646) and hits (3,419), tenth in total bases (5,539), 14th in RBI (1,844), and 19th in runs scored (1,816).

Yaz finished one first-place vote short of unanimously winning the 1967 American League MVP. That season, Carl Yastrzemeski won the Triple Crown, batting .326 with 44 home runs and 121 RBI. He also led the American League in on-base percentage (.418), slugging percentage (.622), OPS (1.040), hits (189), total bases (360), and runs scored (112).

Yastrzemski led the American League in batting average three times, in 1963 (.321), 1967 (.326), and 1968 (.301). Yastrzemski’s .301 batting average in 1968 is the lowest league-leading batting average in major-league history.

Carl Yastrzemski only appeared in the postseason twice, in 1967 and 1975. In 17 postseason games, Yastrzemski batted .369/.447/.600 with 4 home runs, 11 RBI, and 15 runs scored in 76 plate apperances.

The first two tables below present Carl Yastrzemski'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
1961	BOS	21	148	17.6	18.1	-0.1	-2.0
1962	BOS	22	160	21.7	20.5	1.7	-0.4
1963	BOS	23	151	23.5	18.8	5.2	3.1
1964	BOS	24	151	20.3	18.3	2.9	1.0
1965	BOS	25	133	17.6	18.0	-0.0	-1.8
1966	BOS	26	160	23.9	20.1	4.5	2.4
1967	BOS	27	161	27.7	17.8	10.5	8.3
1968	BOS	28	157	26.0	16.8	9.9	7.7
1969	BOS	29	162	23.5	18.1	5.9	3.8
1970	BOS	30	161	23.3	16.1	7.5	5.6
1971	BOS	31	148	23.0	17.9	5.8	3.8
1972	BOS	32	125	18.1	13.9	4.4	2.8
1973	BOS	33	152	18.0	14.2	4.5	2.9
1974	BOS	34	148	17.6	17.4	0.8	-0.9
1975	BOS	35	149	15.9	13.6	2.6	1.2
1976	BOS	36	155	18.3	16.8	2.2	0.5
1977	BOS	37	150	21.7	18.4	4.4	2.4
1978	BOS	38	144	18.5	14.8	4.7	3.1
1979	BOS	39	147	17.3	13.8	4.6	2.9
1980	BOS	40	105	10.3	10.2	0.8	-0.3
1981	BOS	41	91	8.9	7.8	1.8	0.8
1982	BOS	42	131	10.2	9.6	1.4	0.2
1983	BOS	43	119	7.9	9.1	-0.5	-1.6
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			3,308	430.9	360.2	85.7	45.5
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			17	3.0	2.2	0.9	0.7
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			3,325	433.9	362.4	86.6	46.2

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1961	BOS	21	148	17.3	18.5	-0.7	-2.6
1962	BOS	22	160	21.5	20.7	1.2	-0.9
1963	BOS	23	151	23.8	18.6	5.7	3.7
1964	BOS	24	151	20.7	17.9	3.7	1.8
1965	BOS	25	133	18.1	17.4	2.4	0.6
1966	BOS	26	160	24.3	19.7	5.3	3.2
1967	BOS	27	161	28.1	17.4	11.2	9.0
1968	BOS	28	157	25.7	17.0	9.4	7.3
1969	BOS	29	162	23.1	18.5	5.2	3.1
1970	BOS	30	161	23.7	15.8	8.1	6.1
1971	BOS	31	148	21.8	19.1	3.3	1.3
1972	BOS	32	125	16.8	15.2	1.7	0.2
1973	BOS	33	152	17.7	14.5	3.9	2.3
1974	BOS	34	148	18.7	16.4	2.9	1.2
1975	BOS	35	149	15.1	14.3	1.0	-0.4
1976	BOS	36	155	18.7	16.4	3.0	1.3
1977	BOS	37	150	21.7	18.4	4.5	2.5
1978	BOS	38	144	17.3	15.9	2.3	0.6
1979	BOS	39	147	16.1	15.0	2.0	0.4
1980	BOS	40	105	10.6	9.8	1.5	0.4
1981	BOS	41	91	8.4	8.3	0.8	-0.2
1982	BOS	42	131	10.5	9.3	2.0	0.8
1983	BOS	43	119	8.3	8.6	0.4	-0.7
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			3,308	428.2	362.9	81.0	40.9
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			17	3.1	2.1	1.1	0.8
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			3,325	431.3	365.1	82.1	41.7

Carl Yastrzemski played for 23 seasons, playing in a majority of his team's games in each of those seasons. For his career, Yastrzemski appeared in 3,308 games and had 13,992 plate appearances. Both of these figures are second in major-league history. He is also in the top 10 in major-league history in career hits (3,419), total bases (5,539), and doubles (646) and in the top 20 in career runs scored (1,816) and RBI (1,844).

Hence, a large part of the value of Carl Yastrzemski's career comes from the sheer total of his career player wins. The next table shows the top 10 players in career pWins among players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records.

		Top 10 Players (sorted by career pWins)
		pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA
1	Hank Aaron	496.7	369.1	98.5	142.5
2	Barry Bonds	466.8	310.6	136.5	174.4
3	Willie Mays	465.3	329.8	116.5	156.6
4	Pete Rose Sr.	439.3	394.7	23.6	64.5
5	Carl Yastrzemski	430.9	360.2	45.5	85.7
6	Rickey Henderson	428.4	350.3	62.5	100.5
7	Stan Musial	424.1	311.3	88.2	126.2
8	Mel Ott	419.7	295.2	103.6	140.8
9	Babe Ruth	410.9	236.0	161.2	195.2
10	Frank Robinson	398.0	302.5	70.9	106.8

But Carl Yastrzemski didn't merely show up for a long time. At his best, he was truly excellent. His 1967 season was legendary. He won a Triple Crown, .326/44/121, while also leading the American League in OBP (.418), SLG (.622), hits (189), total bases (360), and runs scored (112), leading the Boston Red Sox to a surprise American League pennant. He followed that up with three seasons nearly as good.

In 1968, Yastrzemski was the only player in the American League to bat better than .300 (.301). He also led the American League in on-base percentage and OPS. In 1969, his rate stats fell off somewhat (.255/.362/.507), but he still managed to hit 40 home runs and drive in 111 runs while scoring 96. In 1970, Yastrzemski led the American League in both OBP (.452) and SLG (.592) as well as total bases (335) and runs scored (125).

The next table shows the top 10 players in eWins over either positional average or replacement level from 1967 through 1970.

		eWins over Positional Average Top 10 Players						eWins over Replacement Level Top 10 Players
	Player	eWins	eLoss	eWOPA	eWORL		Player	eWins	eLoss	eWOPA	eWORL
1	Bob Gibson	76.1	55.4	25.7	33.3	1	Carl Yastrzemski	100.6	68.8	25.4	33.8
2	Carl Yastrzemski	100.6	68.8	25.4	33.8	2	Bob Gibson	76.1	55.4	25.7	33.3
3	Willie McCovey	81.4	53.4	22.0	28.8	3	Willie McCovey	81.4	53.4	22.0	28.8
4	Jimmy Wynn	94.9	71.3	18.9	27.2	4	Jimmy Wynn	94.9	71.3	18.9	27.2
5	Hank Aaron	98.2	74.2	18.2	26.8	5	Hank Aaron	98.2	74.2	18.2	26.8
6	Harmon Killebrew	78.2	55.7	18.1	24.8	6	Fergie Jenkins	83.2	71.1	17.7	26.7
7	Fergie Jenkins	83.2	71.1	17.7	26.7	7	Harmon Killebrew	78.2	55.7	18.1	24.8
8	Gaylord Perry	78.6	69.0	15.6	24.5	8	Gaylord Perry	78.6	69.0	15.6	24.5
9	Roberto Clemente	83.5	63.0	15.4	22.8	9	Ron Santo	89.6	72.1	15.3	23.4
10	Ron Santo	89.6	72.1	15.3	23.4	10	Tony Perez	86.4	68.4	15.2	22.9

Article last updated: September 29, 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.

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