Hal Newhouser

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Hal Newhouser

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Hal Newhouser

Hal Newhouser was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans' Committee in 1992.

Five highlights of Hal Newhouser's career:

Hal Newhouser was 18 years old when he made his major-league debut on September 29, 1939. He was the youngest player in the American League in both 1939 and 1940. The first American League player younger than Hal Newhouser was Vern Freiburger who debuted on September 6, 1941.

Hal Newhouser was named to seven All-Star teams. He started the 1947 All-Star game for the American League.

Newhouser was voted the American League MVP in 1944 and 1945. He finished second in AL MVP voting in 1946.

From 1944 - 1948, Newhouser led the American League four times in five seasons. The one season in which Newhouser did not lead the AL in wins, 1947, he led the AL in losses.

In addition to leading the AL in wins four times, Newhouser led the AL in strikeouts per nine innings four times, in fewest hits per nine innings three times, in ERA, strikeouts, and complete games twice each, and in games started, innings pitched, shutouts, and WHIP once each.

The first two tables below present Hal Newhouser'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
1939	DET	18	1	0.5	0.6	0.0	-0.1
1940	DET	19	28	8.0	9.6	-0.1	-1.3
1941	DET	20	33	10.2	12.2	-0.0	-1.5
1942	DET	21	39	11.0	11.7	1.3	-0.2
1943	DET	22	37	12.0	13.0	1.2	-0.4
1944	DET	23	47	21.4	13.9	10.7	8.5
1945	DET	24	40	22.0	14.8	10.5	8.3
1946	DET	25	37	22.0	14.4	11.0	8.7
1947	DET	26	40	18.8	16.9	4.9	2.8
1948	DET	27	39	19.7	15.0	7.7	5.5
1949	DET	28	38	17.8	15.0	5.6	3.6
1950	DET	29	35	14.6	15.0	2.2	0.4
1951	DET	30	17	6.3	5.9	1.4	0.6
1952	DET	31	26	8.7	9.0	1.3	0.2
1953	DET	32	7	1.2	2.1	-0.6	-0.8
1954	CLE	33	26	3.3	2.7	1.2	0.7
1955	CLE	34	2	0.1	0.1	0.0	0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			492	197.6	171.8	58.4	35.2
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			4	1.6	1.6	0.3	0.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			496	199.1	173.4	58.7	35.3

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1939	DET	18	1	0.5	0.6	0.0	-0.1
1940	DET	19	28	8.2	9.4	0.3	-0.9
1941	DET	20	33	10.5	12.0	0.7	-0.8
1942	DET	21	39	11.5	11.3	2.2	0.7
1943	DET	22	37	12.6	12.4	2.5	0.9
1944	DET	23	47	19.9	15.3	8.1	5.9
1945	DET	24	40	21.1	15.7	8.9	6.7
1946	DET	25	37	20.6	15.7	8.7	6.3
1947	DET	26	40	19.1	16.6	5.8	3.6
1948	DET	27	39	19.4	15.4	7.2	5.0
1949	DET	28	38	17.9	14.9	6.0	4.0
1950	DET	29	35	14.3	15.2	1.9	0.1
1951	DET	30	17	6.6	5.6	2.1	1.4
1952	DET	31	26	9.0	8.8	1.8	0.7
1953	DET	32	7	1.3	2.0	-0.4	-0.6
1954	CLE	33	26	3.3	2.7	1.2	0.7
1955	CLE	34	2	0.1	0.1	-0.0	-0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			492	195.7	173.6	56.8	33.6
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			4	1.6	1.5	0.4	0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			496	197.4	175.1	57.2	33.8

Hal Newhouser had an extraordinary 3-year peak from 1944 through 1946.

In 1944, Newhouser had a traditional won-lost record of 29-9 with a 2.22 ERA in 312.1 innings pitched. He led the American League in wins and strikeouts (187).

In 1945, Newhouser had a traditional record of 25-9 with a 1.81 ERA in 313.1 innings pitched. He led the American League in wins, ERA, games started (36), complete games (29), shutouts (8), innings, and strikeouts (212).

In 1946, Newhouser went 26-9 with a 1.94 ERA, leading the league in wins for the third straight season and in ERA for the second straight season. He added 29 complete games, 6 shutouts, and 275 strikeouts in 292.2 innings pitched.

As measured by Player won-lost records, Hal Newhouser earned more than 10.0 pWORL in each of these three seasons. Across all seasons for which I have complete play-by-play data (1928 - 2019), 90 players have earned at least 10.0 pWORL in a season a total of 155 times.

The next table shows every player who has had two or more consecutive seasons of at least 10.0 pWORL.

Player	Number	Seasons
	Consecutive Seasons of 10.0 or more pWORL
Ted Williams	4	1946 - 1949
Barry Bonds	4	2001 - 2004
Mickey Mantle	4	1954 - 1957
Mel Ott	3	1934 - 1936
Hal Newhouser	3	1944 - 1946
Willie Mays	3	1964 - 1966
Lefty Grove	3	1930 - 1932
Al Simmons	3	1929 - 1931
Jackie Robinson	2	1951 - 1952
Joe L. Morgan	2	1975 - 1976
Stan Musial	2	1943 - 1944
Babe Ruth	2	1931 - 1932
Joe L. Morgan	2	1972 - 1973
Babe Ruth	2	1928 - 1929
Joe DiMaggio	2	1941 - 1942
Robin Roberts	2	1952 - 1953
Roger Maris	2	1960 - 1961
Mickey Mantle	2	1960 - 1961
Willie Mays	2	1961 - 1962
Sandy Koufax	2	1965 - 1966
Denny McLain	2	1968 - 1969
Pedro J. Martinez	2	1999 - 2000
Lou Gehrig	2	1931 - 1932
Juan Marichal	2	1965 - 1966

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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