Orel Hershiser

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Orel Hershiser

2019 Today's Game Era Hall of Fame Ballot: Orel Hershiser

On Monday, November 5, 2018, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced the candidates for the 2019 "Today's Game Era" ballot, the latest version of the Hall-of-Fame's Veterans' Committee. The ballot included six players (plus two managers who had significant, but not Hall-of-Fame caliber, playing careers). This article looks at the only starting pitcher among these players: Orel Hershiser.

The first table below presents Orel Hershiser'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
Orel Hershiser Basic Player Won-Lost Records
												Value Decomposition
1983	LAN	24	8	0.5	0.3	0.620	0.1	0.1	0.4	0.4	0.453	-0.0	0.0
1984	LAN	25	45	10.8	8.1	0.572	1.7	2.5	10.1	8.8	0.533	0.9	1.8
1985	LAN	26	37	13.8	10.3	0.574	2.2	3.3	13.6	10.5	0.564	2.0	3.1
1986	LAN	27	37	15.5	15.1	0.506	0.7	2.1	16.0	14.7	0.521	1.2	2.5
1987	LAN	28	40	16.6	15.2	0.522	1.4	2.8	17.0	14.7	0.536	1.8	3.3
1988	LAN	29	36	20.3	13.4	0.602	4.0	5.5	18.3	15.4	0.544	2.1	3.5
1989	LAN	30	35	14.6	14.3	0.505	0.7	1.9	16.1	12.9	0.555	2.1	3.4
1990	LAN	31	4	1.3	1.7	0.445	-0.1	0.0	1.5	1.5	0.497	0.0	0.2
1991	LAN	32	21	7.1	4.3	0.622	1.6	2.1	6.6	4.8	0.577	1.1	1.6
1992	LAN	33	35	12.4	12.9	0.490	0.2	1.4	12.5	12.7	0.496	0.4	1.6
1993	LAN	34	33	13.7	13.5	0.505	0.7	1.9	14.4	12.8	0.528	1.3	2.5
1994	LAN	35	21	7.8	9.0	0.463	-0.3	0.6	7.3	9.5	0.434	-0.8	0.1
1995	CLE	36	26	9.8	8.3	0.544	0.8	1.8	9.7	8.4	0.536	0.7	1.6
1996	CLE	37	33	14.0	10.5	0.570	1.7	3.1	13.3	11.2	0.542	1.0	2.4
1997	CLE	38	32	11.0	10.7	0.507	0.2	1.4	10.5	11.1	0.486	-0.3	1.0
1998	SFN	39	34	12.7	12.6	0.503	0.5	1.7	11.9	13.4	0.472	-0.3	0.9
1999	NYN	40	32	11.6	12.6	0.478	-0.0	1.1	11.5	12.6	0.477	-0.1	1.1
2000	LAN	41	10	1.4	3.7	0.270	-1.1	-0.9	1.6	3.5	0.322	-0.9	-0.6
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			519	195.0	176.5	0.525	15.0	32.5	192.4	179.1	0.518	12.4	29.9
			------	------	------				------	------
PostSeason (career)			22	7.7	6.2	0.553		1.6	8.2	6.7	0.551		1.7
			------	------	------	------		------	------	------	------		------
COMBINED			541	202.7	182.7	0.525		34.1	200.6	185.8	0.518		31.6

The next table shows the 10 players most similar to Orel Hershiser in career value, as measured by Player won-lost records.

Player	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL	Batting	Baserunning	Pitching	Fielding
		Most Similar Players to Orel Hershiser in Value Ages 0 through 100 (seasons normalized to 162 games) (missing player games extrapolated)
						Wins over Baseline
Orel Hershiser	519	195.0	176.5	15.0	32.5	-3.2	-0.2	7.0	0.3
Don Drysdale	547	219.9	204.6	14.8	33.1	-3.8	-0.1	6.9	1.0
Rick Reuschel	579	219.9	205.8	14.2	32.2	-6.0	-0.2	7.5	0.6
David Cone	451	184.5	153.7	18.1	35.1	-2.3	-0.1	7.8	0.5
Dwight Gooden	434	184.0	156.0	19.4	35.1	-3.1	-0.1	5.9	0.5
Mark Buehrle	518	195.5	175.4	10.8	30.7	-1.1	-0.0	7.0	0.8
Luis Tiant	573	225.8	194.9	18.6	37.8	-2.9	-0.1	8.0	0.3
Curt Simmons	609	207.4	197.4	11.0	29.0	-5.7	-0.0	7.5	0.6
David Wells	660	206.9	179.7	14.8	35.5	-1.1	-0.1	7.0	0.3
George Uhle	575	168.3	149.5	14.1	27.5	-1.1	-0.1	3.6	0.6
Dizzy Trout	535	169.2	153.8	12.5	27.5	-2.1	0.1	7.0	0.4

The list includes two Hall-of-Famers - Drysdale and Newhouser - and two additional players who have been voted into the Hall of Merit - Cone and Reuschel. On the other hand, none of the other six players seem likely to be elected to either Hall any time soon - although Luis Tiant has a decent number of supporters at the Hall of Merit.

Clearly, in terms of career value, Hershiser is, at best, a borderline Hall-of-Fame candidate.

At his best, however, Hershiser clearly had Hall-of-Fame talent. His peak season was 1988 and what a peak it was. In the regular season, Hershiser went 23-8 with a 2.26 ERA in a league-leading 267 inning pitched. Hershiser also led the league in complete games (15) and shutouts (8) and finished the regular-season with a major-league record 59 consecutive scoreless innings. He followed that up by going 3-0 with a 1.05 ERA in 42.2 postseason innings. For all of that, Hershiser was named the National League Cy Young award winner and the MVP of both the National League Championship Series and World Series.

The next table shows the top 10 players in regular-season pWins over either positional average or replacement level in 1988.

		pWins over Positional Average Top 10 Players						pWins over Replacement Level Top 10 Players
	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL		Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Darryl Strawberry	26.2	16.3	4.0	5.6	1	Darryl Strawberry	26.2	16.3	4.0	5.6
2	Orel Hershiser	20.3	13.4	4.0	5.5	2	Orel Hershiser	20.3	13.4	4.0	5.5
3	Jose Canseco	25.6	16.8	3.7	5.4	3	Jose Canseco	25.6	16.8	3.7	5.4
4	Alan Trammell	21.0	14.8	3.6	5.0	4	Alan Trammell	21.0	14.8	3.6	5.0
5	Danny Jackson	18.3	13.2	3.1	4.5	5	Mike Greenwell	26.5	19.3	3.1	4.9
6	Mike Greenwell	26.5	19.3	3.1	4.9	6	Roger Clemens	18.0	11.9	3.1	4.5
7	Roger Clemens	18.0	11.9	3.1	4.5	7	Danny Jackson	18.3	13.2	3.1	4.5
8	Greg Maddux	17.4	12.5	3.0	4.3	8	Frank Viola	17.6	11.6	3.0	4.4
9	Frank Viola	17.6	11.6	3.0	4.4	9	Kirby Puckett	24.8	19.0	2.7	4.4
10	Eric Davis	20.7	14.0	2.9	4.2	10	Ozzie Smith	22.6	17.8	2.8	4.3

Player won-lost records agree with Cy Young voters but disagree with MVP voters who placed Hershiser 6th in the 1988 NL MVP voting. He should have won that one, too.

The final table, then, shows the top postseason performers of 1988 as ranked by pWORL.

		1988 Postseason: Total
		pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Orel Hershiser	2.5	1.7	0.5	0.7
2	Kirk Gibson	1.8	0.7	0.5	0.6
3	Mickey Hatcher	1.8	0.7	0.5	0.6
4	Steve Sax	1.6	1.1	0.3	0.4
5	Mike A. Marshall	1.7	1.1	0.3	0.4
6	Mike Davis	0.7	0.1	0.3	0.3
7	Ron Hassey	0.7	0.2	0.3	0.3
8	Carney Lansford	1.2	0.8	0.2	0.3
9	Dave Henderson	1.2	0.8	0.2	0.3
10	Gene Nelson	0.6	0.2	0.2	0.3

Orel Hershiser was the best player in the 1988 regular season and he was the best player in the 1988 postseason.

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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