Billy Wagner

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Billy Wagner

2020 Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Billy Wagner

Five facts about Billy Wagner:

Billy Wagner was named to seven All-Star teams in his career. He received Cy Young votes twice and MVP votes twice

Billy Wagner had 30 or more saves in a season nine times. His 422 career saves are the sixth-most in major-league history.

Wagner had a full-season ERA under 2.00 five times (including his 15.2 IP 2009 season). Wagner is one of only four pitchers in major-league history to have at least four seasons with 30 or more saves and an ERA below 2.00.

Wagner's lowest full-season ERA in a season in which he pitched at least 30 innings (which he did 13 times) was 2.85.

Among pitchers with at least 750 innings pitched in their career, Wagner ranks first in major-league history in strikeouts per nine innings (11.9). Among pitchers with at least 750 innings pitched, Wagner ranks second in ERA (2.31) and first in WHIP (0.998) since 1920.

The first two tables below present Billy Wagner'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
1995	HOU	23	1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
1996	HOU	24	37	4.2	3.1	1.7	1.0
1997	HOU	25	62	6.0	5.0	1.9	0.8
1998	HOU	26	58	5.9	4.8	2.0	1.0
1999	HOU	27	66	7.3	2.7	5.3	4.4
2000	HOU	28	28	2.5	4.2	-1.1	-1.7
2001	HOU	29	64	6.8	3.9	3.7	2.7
2002	HOU	30	70	5.9	3.4	3.2	2.3
2003	HOU	31	78	7.6	4.4	4.1	2.9
2004	PHI	32	45	3.6	1.4	2.6	2.1
2005	PHI	33	75	6.7	3.6	3.9	2.9
2006	NYN	34	70	7.3	4.0	4.1	3.0
2007	NYN	35	66	5.9	3.3	3.3	2.4
2008	NYN	36	45	3.5	2.9	1.1	0.5
+– 2009		37	17	0.8	0.6	0.3	0.2
	BOS		15	0.8	0.6	0.3	0.1
	NYN		2	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
2010	ATL	38	71	5.5	3.4	2.8	2.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			853	79.4	50.7	38.9	26.5
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			14	0.7	1.3	-0.4	-0.6
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			867	80.1	52.0	38.5	25.9

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1995	HOU	23	1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
1996	HOU	24	37	3.8	3.4	1.1	0.4
1997	HOU	25	62	6.1	4.9	2.1	1.0
1998	HOU	26	58	5.9	4.7	2.1	1.1
1999	HOU	27	66	6.5	3.5	3.9	2.9
2000	HOU	28	28	3.0	3.7	-0.1	-0.8
2001	HOU	29	64	6.1	4.7	2.4	1.3
2002	HOU	30	70	5.6	3.7	2.7	1.8
2003	HOU	31	78	7.4	4.6	3.7	2.6
2004	PHI	32	45	3.1	1.9	1.6	1.2
2005	PHI	33	75	6.3	4.0	3.1	2.1
2006	NYN	34	70	6.4	4.9	2.4	1.3
2007	NYN	35	66	5.0	4.2	1.6	0.7
2008	NYN	36	45	3.9	2.5	1.9	1.2
+– 2009		37	17	0.9	0.6	0.4	0.2
	BOS		15	0.8	0.6	0.4	0.2
	NYN		2	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
2010	ATL	38	71	5.4	3.5	2.6	1.8
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			853	75.3	54.8	31.2	18.9
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			14	0.8	1.2	-0.3	-0.5
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			867	76.1	56.0	30.9	18.4

This is Billy Wagner's fifth year on the Hall-of-Fame ballot. I have written articles about the Hall-of-Fame candidates every year in which Billy Wagner has been on the BBWAA ballot. Much of these earlier articles are somewhat obsolete due to changes to my Player won-lost records over time. But, for the sake of posterity, these old articles are linked at the end of my general article on Player won-lost records and the Hall of Fame.

Vote Prediction

Billy Wagner has appeared on four Hall-of-Fame ballots. His first three years, his vote total ranged from 45 to 47 (10.2% - 11.1%). Last year, his vote total increased from 47 (11.1%) to 71 (16.7%). Wagner was also named more often than any played except for Scott Rolen as a player who voters would have voted for but for the 10-player limit, according to Ryan Thibodeaux's wonderful Hall-of-Fame tracker.

All indications are that Wagner could be poised to see another surge in voting support this year. I'll be optimistic for Wagner and predict that his increase this year will double his increase from last year (which was 24 votes), which would push him up to about 27.9%.

Player Won-Lost Records and Billy Wagner

Relief pitchers are a somewhat difficult position to assess in relation to the Hall of Fame. By most pure sabermetric measures (e.g., WAR), the number of relief pitchers who deserve to be in the Hall of Fame is tiny - probably just one. But there are, instead, eight players in the Hall of Fame who are, I believe, generally thought of as relief pitchers. Of these eight pitchers, five of them held the career saves record at some point in their career and three of them won at least one Cy Young award. Only Goose Gossage failed to do either (Rollie Fingers did both).

Billy Wagner did neither of these things. His 422 career saves were the fifth-most in major-league history when he retired (they're sixth now) and Wagner's best finish in Cy Young voting was fourth place in 1999 (4-1, 39 saves, 1.57 ERA and 124 K in 74.2 IP).

The best statistical case for Billy Wagner - as measured by Player won-lost records - is to focus on eWins and to compare Wagner strictly to other relief pitchers. And it is a striking case. Here are the top 10 players in career eWins over positional average (eWOPA) earned exclusively as a relief pitcher.


Top 10 Relief Pitchers, ranked by career eWOPA, RP only
	Player	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
1	Mariano Rivera	112.7	67.2	42.3
2	Billy Wagner	75.1	54.8	18.1
3	Trevor Hoffman	91.2	71.1	17.6
4	Rich Gossage	109.4	89.4	17.0
5	Rollie Fingers	103.6	85.3	15.7
6	Joe Nathan	61.1	44.7	14.5
7	Jonathan Papelbon	59.0	43.6	13.6
8	Tom Henke	62.3	47.0	13.6
9	Kent Tekulve	81.6	65.9	13.4
10	Doug Jones	77.8	62.7	13.0

Generally speaking, relief aces tend to look better in pWins than in eWins. This is largely due to the nature of their use, especially in modern baseball where closers overwhelmingly enter games only when their team is leading. Like most closers, Billy Wagner earned more pWins than eWins, but the gap between the two is unusually low for Wagner. Hence, modifying the previous table to rank relief pitchers by pWOPA instead of eWOPA pushes Wagner down the list somewhat.


Top 10 Relief Pitchers, ranked by career pWOPA, RP only
	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA
1	Mariano Rivera	122.5	57.4	61.6
2	Trevor Hoffman	100.1	62.2	35.1
3	Lee Smith	108.9	75.8	29.8
4	Frankie Rodriguez	89.7	57.5	29.4
5	Joe Nathan	68.4	37.3	29.0
6	Rich Gossage	115.3	83.5	28.7
7	Jonathan Papelbon	66.4	36.2	28.2
8	Billy Wagner	79.3	50.6	26.5
9	Craig Kimbrel	56.7	28.5	26.4
10	John Franco	103.1	74.4	25.8

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine what these two tables say about Billy Wagner's Hall-of-Fame case.

Article last updated: January 1, 2020

2020 Hall of Fame Ballot Series

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