Barry Zito

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Barry Zito

2021 Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Barry Zito

Five facts about Barry Zito:

Barry Zito was named to three All-Star teams. He received MVP votes twice and Cy Young votes once.

The one season in which Zito received Cy Young votes was 2002, when he won the award. That season, Zito had a traditional won-lost record of 23-5 with a 2.75 ERA in 229.1 innings pitched. Zito led the American League in wins and games started (35) that season.

Zito started 34 or 35 games six consecutive seasons from 2001 through 2006. He led the league in games started four times during that stretch. He followed that stretch with four seasons in which he started 33 games three times and 32 games once.

Zito pitched in the playoffs six times. In his career, he earned a traditional won-lost record of 6-3 with a 2.83 ERA in 10 career playoff games (all starts) over 60.1 innings pitched. Zito's last career postseason appearance was his only World Series appearance. Zito started and won Game 1 of the 2012 World Series, allowing 1 run in 5.2 IP (6 hits, 1 walk, 3 K's).

After an injury-plagued 2011 season in which Zito was only able to pitch 53.2 innings, he bounced back in 2012 to win 15 games and pitch 184.1 innings. For this, Zito was awarded the 2012 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award, which "is selected by the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity to honor the Major League Baseball Player who best exemplifies the spirit and character of Lou Gehrig, both on and off the field", and the 2012 Hutch Award, which is "given annually to an active Major League Baseball player who best exemplifies the fighting spirit and competitive desire of Fred Hutchinson."

The first two tables below present Barry Zito'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
2000	OAK	22	14	4.9	4.3	1.3	0.6
2001	OAK	23	35	13.8	10.3	5.4	3.7
2002	OAK	24	35	16.1	10.6	7.7	5.8
2003	OAK	25	35	13.5	14.0	1.6	-0.3
2004	OAK	26	34	12.2	13.0	1.2	-0.6
2005	OAK	27	35	13.4	14.4	1.2	-0.8
2006	OAK	28	34	14.3	13.4	3.1	1.2
2007	SFN	29	34	12.2	15.3	-0.4	-2.2
2008	SFN	30	32	12.3	15.3	-0.3	-2.0
2009	SFN	31	34	12.0	13.1	1.5	-0.1
2010	SFN	32	34	11.3	12.8	0.8	-0.7
2011	SFN	33	13	3.1	5.7	-1.8	-2.4
2012	SFN	34	32	11.5	12.5	1.3	-0.3
2013	SFN	35	30	7.6	11.4	-1.9	-3.1
2014	-	36	-	-	-	-	-
2015	OAK	37	3	0.3	0.4	-0.1	-0.1
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			434	158.5	166.6	20.5	-1.2
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			10	4.9	3.8	1.8	1.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			444	163.4	170.4	22.3	-0.0

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
2000	OAK	22	14	5.5	3.7	2.5	1.9
2001	OAK	23	35	13.1	11.0	4.1	2.4
2002	OAK	24	35	14.9	11.8	5.2	3.3
2003	OAK	25	35	14.8	12.7	4.3	2.4
2004	OAK	26	34	12.9	12.3	2.3	0.6
2005	OAK	27	35	14.3	13.6	3.0	1.1
2006	OAK	28	34	13.7	13.9	2.0	0.1
2007	SFN	29	34	13.0	14.5	1.4	-0.4
2008	SFN	30	32	12.8	14.8	1.1	-0.7
2009	SFN	31	34	12.0	13.1	1.4	-0.2
2010	SFN	32	34	11.3	12.8	0.8	-0.7
2011	SFN	33	13	3.5	5.3	-0.9	-1.5
2012	SFN	34	32	10.8	13.1	0.3	-1.3
2013	SFN	35	30	7.7	11.3	-1.7	-2.9
2014	-	36	-	-	-	-	-
2015	OAK	37	3	0.2	0.5	-0.2	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			434	160.6	164.5	25.5	3.8
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			10	4.7	4.0	1.4	0.8
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			444	165.3	168.5	26.9	4.5

This is Barry Zito's first year on the Hall-of-Fame ballot.

Vote Prediction

It is simply an honor for Barry Zito to appear on a Hall-of-Fame ballot. That said, I could see Zito perhaps getting a token vote or two. He won a Cy Young award, pitched for six playoff teams, including one World Series winner. I'll be generous and predict that Zito gets five votes, not enough to stick around for a second ballot, but a respectable tip of the cap for a very good, if not quite Hall-of-Fame worthy career.

Player Won-Lost Records and Barry Zito

Zito spent his prime as part of one of the best starting pitching trios in baseball with the Oakland A's. Two of the three appear on this year's Hall-of-Fame ballot, both debuting this year. Interestingly, both Zito and Hudson won a World Series across the bay from Oakland with the San Francisco Giants. The third member of the trio, Mark Mulder, also pitched for a World Series winning team after leaving Oakland, although Mulder did not pitch at all in the 2006 postseason.

The next table compares the career records of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito, as measured by Player won-lost records. The last row of the table shows their records from 2000 - 2004, the five seasons when they were teammates in Oakland.

Season	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL
	Tim Hudson				Mark Mulder				Barry Zito
1999	24	9.0	6.2	4.0
2000	33	13.6	10.9	4.5	27	9.3	10.0	0.8	14	4.9	4.3	1.3
2001	36	14.6	11.1	5.6	34	14.7	10.1	6.7	35	13.8	10.3	5.4
2002	34	14.0	10.6	5.4	30	13.1	10.2	4.8	35	16.1	10.6	7.7
2003	34	15.4	9.5	7.9	26	12.4	9.6	4.5	35	13.5	14.0	1.6
2004	27	11.2	8.6	4.1	33	13.2	12.2	3.0	34	12.2	13.0	1.2
2005	29	13.1	12.5	3.2	32	13.4	10.6	5.2	35	13.4	14.4	1.2
2006	35	13.0	13.9	1.9	17	6.2	7.7	-0.3	34	14.3	13.4	3.1
2007	34	13.7	10.9	5.4	3	0.8	2.4	-1.4	34	12.2	15.3	-0.4
2008	23	9.0	7.4	3.3	3	0.0	0.2	-0.1	32	12.3	15.3	-0.3
2009	7	2.3	2.3	0.4					34	12.0	13.1	1.5
2010	35	15.4	12.9	5.2					34	11.3	12.8	0.8
2011	33	13.9	12.1	4.4					13	3.1	5.7	-1.8
2012	29	12.4	9.6	5.0					32	11.5	12.5	1.3
2013	21	8.6	7.8	2.4					30	7.6	11.4	-1.9
2014	31	11.7	12.1	2.0
2015	24	7.0	8.9	-0.2					3	0.3	0.4	-0.1
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER RECORDS	489	197.8	167.5	64.5	205	83.0	72.9	23.3	434	158.5	166.6	20.5
2000 - 2004	164	68.7	50.7	27.5	150	62.6	52.0	19.8	153	60.5	52.2	17.2

Hudson was the only one who added much value outside of Oakland. But all three of them had careers worth remembering fondly.

Article last updated: December 10, 2020

2021 Hall of Fame Ballot Series

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