Mark McGwire

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Mark McGwire

2017 Hall of Fame Ballot: Today's Game Era Ballot, Mark McGwire

On Monday, October 3, 2016, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced the candidates for the first "Today's Game Era" ballot, the latest version of the Hall-of-Fame's Veterans' Committee. The ballot included five players. This is my fifth and final article looking at each of these players. This article looks at Mark McGwire.

The first table below presents Mark McGwire'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
Mark McGwire Basic Player Won-Lost Records
												Value Decomposition
1986	OAK	22	18	1.8	1.5	0.543	0.1	0.3	1.5	1.8	0.456	-0.2	-0.0
1987	OAK	23	151	17.1	13.5	0.559	1.0	2.2	17.7	12.8	0.580	1.6	2.9
1988	OAK	24	155	19.2	13.2	0.593	2.5	3.7	17.5	15.0	0.539	0.8	2.0
1989	OAK	25	143	16.0	12.7	0.557	0.9	1.9	15.7	13.0	0.547	0.6	1.6
1990	OAK	26	156	18.6	13.2	0.586	2.1	3.2	17.7	14.1	0.557	1.2	2.3
1991	OAK	27	154	13.6	13.0	0.511	-0.1	0.9	14.2	12.4	0.533	0.5	1.5
1992	OAK	28	139	18.1	12.5	0.590	2.2	3.3	18.2	12.4	0.595	2.3	3.5
1993	OAK	29	27	3.5	2.6	0.575	0.3	0.6	3.8	2.2	0.630	0.7	0.9
1994	OAK	30	47	4.8	3.5	0.574	0.4	0.8	4.7	3.7	0.559	0.3	0.7
1995	OAK	31	104	13.7	8.0	0.632	2.4	3.3	13.6	8.0	0.630	2.3	3.2
1996	OAK	32	130	16.6	10.0	0.624	2.8	3.9	16.7	9.9	0.627	2.9	4.0
+– 1997		33	156	18.2	15.3	0.543	0.4	1.7	19.6	13.9	0.585	1.8	3.1
	OAK		105	11.9	10.3	0.536	0.2	1.0	12.7	9.6	0.569	0.9	1.8
	SLN		51	6.2	5.0	0.557	0.2	0.7	6.9	4.3	0.618	0.9	1.4
1998	SLN	34	155	21.4	12.8	0.626	3.3	4.6	21.7	12.6	0.633	3.5	4.8
1999	SLN	35	153	17.6	13.0	0.575	1.5	2.7	18.5	12.1	0.604	2.4	3.6
2000	SLN	36	89	10.4	5.7	0.645	1.8	2.5	10.2	5.9	0.633	1.6	2.3
2001	SLN	37	97	9.4	8.0	0.539	0.2	0.9	9.2	8.2	0.529	0.0	0.8
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,874	219.8	158.6	0.581	21.7	36.6	220.4	158.0	0.583	22.3	37.2
			------	------	------				------	------
PostSeason (career)			42	2.7	4.1	0.402		-0.6	3.0	3.7	0.454		-0.2
			------	------	------	------		------	------	------	------		------
COMBINED			1,916	222.6	162.7	0.581		36.0	223.5	161.6	0.583		37.0

In an article I wrote looking at the Hall of Fame, I identified Willie Stargell as the player who is closest to an average Hall-of-Famer as measured by Player won-lost records. As such, I thought it might be useful to evaluate Mark McGwire's Hall-of-Fame credentials (setting aside the steroids) by comparing him to Willie Stargell.

The next table, then, compares Mark McGwire and Willie Stargell, as measured by Player won-lost records.

Age	Games	pWins	pLoss	pWOPA	pWORL	Games	pWins	pLoss	pWOPA	pWORL
	Mark McGwire						Willie Stargell
22	18	1.8	1.5	0.1	0.3	10	0.6	1.0	-0.2	-0.1
23	151	17.1	13.5	1.0	2.2	108	9.2	10.2	-0.9	-0.1
24	155	19.2	13.2	2.5	3.7	117	12.4	12.4	-0.5	0.5
25	143	16.0	12.7	0.9	1.9	144	18.7	16.3	0.5	1.9
26	156	18.6	13.2	2.1	3.2	140	20.7	14.0	2.8	4.1
27	154	13.6	13.0	-0.1	0.9	133	16.6	15.2	-0.0	1.3
28	139	18.1	12.5	2.2	3.3	127	16.4	16.1	-0.6	0.7
29	27	3.5	2.6	0.3	0.6	145	19.1	15.8	0.9	2.4
30	47	4.8	3.5	0.4	0.8	136	18.2	16.1	0.2	1.7
31	104	13.7	8.0	2.4	3.3	141	22.8	14.1	3.6	5.0
32	130	16.6	10.0	2.8	3.9	138	20.2	13.0	2.5	3.8
33	156	18.2	15.3	0.4	1.7	148	25.2	17.6	2.9	4.6
34	155	21.4	12.8	3.3	4.6	140	21.6	15.7	2.3	3.7
35	153	17.6	13.0	1.5	2.7	124	15.7	10.8	1.7	2.7
36	89	10.4	5.7	1.8	2.5	117	11.3	10.2	0.0	0.8
37	97	9.4	8.0	0.2	0.9	63	5.7	4.0	0.6	1.0
38						120	13.8	9.8	1.5	2.4
39						126	14.4	10.3	1.5	2.5
40						67	6.4	5.3	0.3	0.7
41						38	1.6	1.7	-0.1	0.1
42						74	2.3	2.6	-0.1	0.2
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER RECORDS	1,874	219.8	158.6	21.7	36.6	2,356	292.9	232.1	18.7	39.9

Willie Stargell had a longer career, lasting two full-time and three partial seasons longer than Mark McGwire. In addition, McGwire lost most of his age-29 and age-30 seasons to injuries. Hence, Stargell played 482 games more than McGwire - about three full seasons. In addition to a longer career, Stargell also had two seasons (1971 and 1973) better than McGwire's best season (1998).

Overall, in terms of career value, because of the additional games Stargell beat McGwire in pWORL, 39.9 to 36.6. But even with Stargell having the top two seasons, McGwire probably had more seasons that qualify as very-good-to-great, and beats Stargell in career pWOPA, 21.7 to 18.7.

Overall, given a choice, I would choose Stargell as having had a more valuable career than McGwire. But, as I said, Stargell was an average Hall-of-Famer and, as such, being (arguably) worse than Willie Stargell does not mean that one is not a deserving Hall-of-Famer.

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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