Ken Boyer

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Ken Boyer

2015 Veterans' Committee HOF Ballot: Ken Boyer

The Baseball Hall of Fame recently announced their 2015 Veterans' ballot. One player on the ballot is Ken Boyer.

The first table below presents Ken Boyer's career as measured by Player won-lost records.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWin Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWOPA	eWORL
Ken Boyer Basic Player Won-Lost Records
												Value Decomposition
1955	SLN	24	147	16.6	15.9	0.511	0.0	1.4	16.5	16.0	0.508	-0.1	1.3
1956	SLN	25	150	19.6	17.1	0.534	1.0	2.5	20.2	16.5	0.550	1.5	3.1
1957	SLN	26	142	15.1	14.9	0.504	-0.3	1.0	15.3	14.6	0.512	-0.0	1.2
1958	SLN	27	150	21.7	18.3	0.543	1.6	3.1	21.4	18.6	0.535	1.2	2.7
1959	SLN	28	149	21.2	17.1	0.553	1.5	3.0	21.7	16.6	0.567	2.0	3.6
1960	SLN	29	151	21.1	16.6	0.560	1.9	3.4	21.1	16.6	0.560	1.9	3.4
1961	SLN	30	153	21.6	17.5	0.552	1.9	3.6	22.0	17.0	0.564	2.3	4.1
1962	SLN	31	160	19.9	18.3	0.520	0.7	2.1	20.6	17.6	0.539	1.4	2.8
1963	SLN	32	159	21.2	18.4	0.535	1.2	2.7	20.8	18.7	0.526	0.8	2.3
1964	SLN	33	162	25.4	19.0	0.572	2.8	4.5	24.6	19.8	0.554	2.0	3.7
1965	SLN	34	144	18.3	16.5	0.526	0.5	1.8	17.7	17.0	0.510	-0.1	1.3
1966	NYN	35	136	15.9	16.2	0.495	-0.6	0.7	16.4	15.7	0.511	-0.1	1.2
+– 1967		36	113	11.6	11.6	0.500	-0.3	0.7	11.6	11.5	0.501	-0.3	0.8
	CHA		57	5.8	5.9	0.499	-0.2	0.4	5.8	5.9	0.497	-0.2	0.3
	NYN		56	5.7	5.7	0.501	-0.1	0.4	5.8	5.7	0.506	-0.1	0.4
+– 1968		37	93	8.4	8.0	0.513	-0.0	0.7	8.6	7.8	0.523	0.1	0.9
	CHA		10	0.2	1.2	0.167	-0.5	-0.4	0.3	1.0	0.249	-0.4	-0.3
	LAN		83	8.2	6.8	0.545	0.4	1.1	8.2	6.8	0.548	0.5	1.1
1969	LAN	38	25	1.1	1.5	0.415	-0.2	-0.1	1.1	1.4	0.435	-0.2	-0.0
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,034	258.6	226.9	0.533	11.6	31.2	259.8	225.8	0.535	12.7	32.3
			------	------	------				------	------
PostSeason (career)			7	1.3	0.7	0.653		0.4	1.1	0.9	0.555		0.2
			------	------	------	------		------	------	------	------		------
COMBINED			2,041	259.9	227.6	0.533		31.5	260.9	226.6	0.535		32.4

Ken Boyer was one of the best third basemen in baseball in the late 1950's and early 1960's. From 1958 - 1964, Boyer received MVP votes in all seven seasons, winning the National League MVP in 1964. He made six All-Star teams and won five Gold Gloves.

The next table shows the top 25 players in career (context-neutral, teammate-adjusted) eWins over positional average earned as a third baseman.

		Top 25 Career Third Basemen (measured by eWOPA at third base only)
		eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	eWOPA
1	Mike Schmidt	307.0	234.3	0.567	31.2
2	Eddie Mathews	294.8	229.8	0.562	27.7
3	Chipper Jones	259.7	209.3	0.554	21.7
4	Ron Santo	278.4	237.0	0.540	16.1
5	George Brett	223.4	189.7	0.541	15.8
6	Wade Boggs	276.7	244.3	0.531	15.8
7	Scott Rolen	249.3	213.9	0.538	14.9
8	Adrian Beltre	327.1	295.5	0.525	13.7
9	Alex Rodriguez	153.0	125.7	0.549	12.9
10	Ron Cey	243.1	210.5	0.536	12.0
11	Stan Hack	225.8	199.3	0.531	11.9
12	Ken Boyer	228.5	197.6	0.536	11.9
13	Sal Bando	228.2	199.9	0.533	11.6
14	Evan Longoria	180.1	155.7	0.536	11.4
15	David Wright	206.1	177.3	0.538	11.4
16	Harlond Clift	179.1	154.4	0.537	11.2
17	Pie Traynor	215.0	198.7	0.520	10.4
18	Matt D. Williams	208.6	183.5	0.532	10.4
19	Robin Ventura	216.3	195.8	0.525	9.9
20	Bob Elliott	181.9	157.0	0.537	9.6
21	Al Rosen	119.6	95.8	0.555	9.0
22	Graig Nettles	281.4	257.4	0.522	9.0
23	Eric Chavez	161.6	143.3	0.530	9.0
24	Josh Donaldson	104.5	85.2	0.551	9.0
25	Troy Glaus	157.5	139.1	0.531	8.8

Ranking among the top 15 third basemen of the past 70-some years is impressive, although the full-time third basemen around Boyer in the above table are generally not Hall-of-Famers or thought of as such.

As I mentioned above, Boyer won five Gold Gloves in his career. Boyer's fielding, as measured by Player won-lost records, does not rate all that great for his career, although he does rate as above average. Boyer's career fielding record is hampered somewhat by a few years of below-average defense later in his career. To attempt to control for this - one's career fielding record being pulled down by below-average, but not necessarily terrible, defense late in one's career - one alternative to comparing fielding records against a 0.500 baseline is to compare them to replacement level (this also theoretically allows for more meaningful comparisons across positions). The next table, then, shows the top 25 players in career third-base fielding wins over replacement level.

		Fielding Wins over Replacement Level, 3B
		eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	eWORL
1	Brooks Robinson	90.1	76.9	0.539	12.0
2	Adrian Beltre	83.3	76.0	0.523	9.2
3	Buddy Bell	71.3	63.7	0.528	8.5
4	Mike Schmidt	76.7	68.5	0.528	8.3
5	Pie Traynor	65.1	61.0	0.516	7.8
6	Aurelio Rodriguez	60.6	53.4	0.532	7.6
7	Robin Ventura	58.3	52.2	0.528	7.3
8	Willie Kamm	54.5	49.8	0.523	7.2
9	Gary Gaetti	71.1	66.9	0.515	7.0
10	Terry Pendleton	64.5	58.2	0.525	7.0
11	Scott Rolen	62.5	56.4	0.526	6.9
12	Tim Wallach	66.7	60.6	0.524	6.9
13	Ken Keltner	52.4	45.5	0.535	6.9
14	Graig Nettles	78.0	75.0	0.510	6.7
15	Matt D. Williams	54.1	48.6	0.527	6.3
16	Wade Boggs	65.5	62.7	0.511	6.2
17	George Kell	53.2	47.3	0.530	6.1
18	Ron Santo	70.7	67.9	0.510	5.9
19	Evan Longoria	42.6	37.1	0.534	5.5
20	Eric Chavez	41.7	36.9	0.531	5.5
21	Clete Boyer	48.0	43.5	0.525	5.4
22	Ossie Bluege	41.8	38.4	0.521	5.4
23	Stan Hack	62.1	61.0	0.504	5.1
24	Ken Boyer	56.0	52.6	0.516	5.1
25	Vinny Castilla	50.8	47.1	0.519	5.1

Comparing to replacement level in this way gets Ken Boyer onto the list of the top 25 defensive third baseman for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records, albeit barely (and 12 slots behind his younger brother).

Overall, Ken Boyer had an excellent and noteworthy career, although, as measured by Player won-lost records, perhaps just short of Hall-of-Fame worthy.

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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