Rich Gossage

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Rich Gossage

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Rich Gossage

Rich Gossage was elected to the Hall of Fame in his 9th year of eligibility, 2008, with 85.8% of the vote.

Five highlights of Rich Gossage's career:

Rich "Goose" Gossage was named to nine All-Star teams in his career. He received Cy Young and MVP votes five times apiece.

Gossage led his league in saves three times. His career total in saves, 310, was fourth in major-league history at the time of his retirement.

More than 60% of Gossage's career saves, 193 of 310 (62.3%), involved him getting four or more outs. Gossage is second in major-league history in saves of more than one inning (Rollie Fingers had 201 such saves).

Gossage pitched 99 or more innings in relief in a season five times. He had 100 or more strikeouts in a season in relief five times. Gossage has the most seasons with 100+ strikeouts and no games started in major-league history (Dellin Betances tied him in 2018).

Gossage was one of only two relief pitchers (not counting Dennis Eckersley, who was a starting pitcher for 12 seasons and a relief pitcher for 12 seasons) to make the top 150 players from 1961 - 2010 in my second book, Baseball Player Won-Lost Records: 150 Players, 50 Years.

The first two tables below present Rich Gossage'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
1972	CHA	20	36	4.4	4.2	1.0	0.3
1973	CHA	21	21	1.8	3.9	-1.7	-2.1
1974	CHA	22	39	3.7	5.2	-0.9	-1.6
1975	CHA	23	62	12.0	6.9	6.7	4.9
1976	CHA	24	31	12.8	13.9	0.8	-0.9
1977	PIT	25	72	11.1	7.3	5.2	3.6
1978	NYA	26	63	10.2	8.4	3.3	1.6
1979	NYA	27	36	4.2	2.9	1.8	1.2
1980	NYA	28	64	9.0	4.5	5.5	4.3
1981	NYA	29	32	4.7	2.4	2.8	2.2
1982	NYA	30	56	8.7	4.8	4.8	3.6
1983	NYA	31	57	8.8	6.2	3.6	2.3
1984	SDN	32	62	9.4	5.9	4.7	3.3
1985	SDN	33	50	7.2	3.2	4.8	3.8
1986	SDN	34	45	6.7	6.6	1.2	0.0
1987	SDN	35	40	4.0	3.3	1.2	0.5
1988	CHN	36	46	3.0	3.7	-0.2	-0.7
+– 1989		37	42	1.5	2.0	-0.3	-0.6
	NYA		11	0.3	0.2	0.2	0.1
	SFN		31	1.2	1.9	-0.4	-0.7