Johnny Bench

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Johnny Bench

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Johnny Bench

Johnny Bench was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, 1989, with 96.4% of the vote.

Five highlights of Johnny Bench's career:

Johnny Bench won the National League Rookie of the Year award in 1968. He won two MVP awards, in 1970 and 1972. Bench won ten Gold Gloves and was named to fourteen All-Star teams.

Bench led the National League in home runs twice (his MVP seasons) and RBI three times (his MVP seasons and 1974). For his career, he drove in 100 or more runs six times and hit 20 or more home runs eleven times.

Bench played in 45 postseason games in his career (winning the World Series in 1975 and 1976). In those games, Johnny Bench stole 6 bases and was caught stealing one time. In the same 45 postseason games, Reds opponents stole a total of 6 bases and were caught stealing by Bench 13 times.

Bench's 45 home runs in 1970 is the most in a season by any player who was primarily a catcher. His 148 RBI in the same season are the most RBI in a season by a catcher.

Johnny Bench hit the only grand slam allowed by Jim Palmer in his professional career, in a minor-league game on July 1, 1967.

The first two tables below present Johnny Bench'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
1967	CIN	19	26	1.9	2.6	-0.3	-0.5
1968	CIN	20	154	15.2	13.6	3.5	2.0
1969	CIN	21	148	15.4	11.3	5.9	4.5
1970	CIN	22	158	21.9	15.1	8.6	6.8
1971	CIN	23	149	16.0	15.4	2.4	0.8
1972	CIN	24	147	20.1	13.2	8.6	7.0
1973	CIN	25	152	19.8	14.1	7.5	5.8
1974	CIN	26	160	21.9	15.7	8.2	6.4
1975	CIN	27	142	17.9	13.6	5.9	4.4
1976	CIN	28	135	12.8	11.0	3.3	2.1
1977	CIN	29	142	16.8	12.5	5.8	4.4
1978	CIN	30	120	12.4	9.7	3.9	2.8
1979	CIN	31	130	15.6	11.9	5.2	3.9
1980	CIN	32	114	11.4	9.9	2.7	1.7
1981	CIN	33	52	6.2	4.3	2.2	1.7
1982	CIN	34	119	11.7	13.1	-0.7	-1.9
1983	CIN	35	110	10.2	10.1	0.7	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,158	247.2	196.8	73.3	51.5
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			45	6.1	4.0	2.7	2.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,203	253.3	200.8	76.0	53.6

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1967	CIN	19	26	1.8	2.7	-0.6	-0.8
1968	CIN	20	154	14.9	13.8	3.0	1.6
1969	CIN	21	148	15.1	11.6	5.2	3.9
1970	CIN	22	158	21.0	16.0	6.9	5.0
1971	CIN	23	149	16.6	14.8	3.6	2.0
1972	CIN	24	147	19.7	13.5	8.0	6.4
1973	CIN	25	152	18.6	15.4	4.9	3.2
1974	CIN	26	160	21.7	15.9	7.8	6.0
1975	CIN	27	142	18.2	13.3	6.5	5.0
1976	CIN	28	135	12.8	10.9	3.3	2.2
1977	CIN	29	142	16.3	13.0	4.9	3.4
1978	CIN	30	120	12.2	9.8	3.5	2.4
1979	CIN	31	130	15.4	12.1	4.8	3.5
1980	CIN	32	114	11.9	9.3	3.9	2.9
1981	CIN	33	52	5.8	4.7	1.3	0.8
1982	CIN	34	119	12.5	12.2	0.9	-0.2
1983	CIN	35	110	10.6	9.8	1.4	0.4
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,158	245.1	198.9	69.4	47.5
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			45	5.7	4.4	1.8	1.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,203	250.8	203.3	71.2	48.9

Johnny Bench is on most people's short list of candidates for the best catcher in major-league history.

The next two tables show the top 10 players in wins over positional average (pWOPA, eWOPA) since integration (1947) for players for whom at least one-third of their decisions were as a catcher.


	Top 10 Catchers (Ranked by career pWOPA, All Positions)
		pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Yogi Berra	245.5	182.0	65.7	88.0
2	Johnny Bench	247.2	196.8	51.5	73.3
3	Mike Piazza	213.7	173.6	45.2	64.6
4	Carlton Fisk	251.9	219.3	43.0	66.2
5	Roy Campanella	127.5	93.9	36.1	47.7
6	Jorge Posada	172.1	146.8	34.2	50.4
7	Gary Carter	242.7	215.2	31.2	53.3
8	Darrell Porter	162.9	139.1	28.8	43.9
9	Joe Torre	244.6	209.9	27.6	50.2
10	Thurman Munson	154.5	133.1	26.0	40.4


	Top 10 Catchers (Ranked by career eWOPA, All Positions)
		eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
1	Johnny Bench	245.1	198.9	47.5	69.4
2	Mike Piazza	214.3	173.0	46.8	66.3
3	Carlton Fisk	250.8	220.4	40.9	64.1
4	Yogi Berra	232.2	195.3	39.4	61.7
5	Gary Carter	245.8	212.1	38.0	60.0
6	Joe Torre	245.7	208.8	30.1	52.7
7	Gene Tenace	146.0	116.3	28.5	41.5
8	Jorge Posada	168.0	150.9	26.6	42.8
9	Roy Campanella	121.8	99.6	25.0	36.6
10	Bill Freehan	170.2	151.1	22.3	38.2

To what I'm sure is nobody's surprise, Johnny Bench is near the top of both tables.

Article last updated: September 28, 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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