Billy Williams

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Billy Williams

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Billy Williams

Billy Williams was elected to the Hall of Fame in his sixth year of eligibility, 1987, with 85.7% of the vote.

Five highlights of Billy Williams's career:

Billy Williams was named the National League Rookie of the Year in 1961. He was named to six All-Star teams and received MVP votes eight times, finishing second in National League MVP voting in 1970 and 1972.

Billy Williams batted .300 or better five times, winning a batting title in 1972. He scored 90 or more runs nine times and drove in 90 or more runs ten times.

Billy Williams led his league in total bases three times; in runs scored, hits, slugging percentage, OPS, and plate appearances once each; and in games played five times.

Billy Williams played in 1,117 consecutive games from 1963 through 1970, which was a National League record at the time. Williams’s record was broken by Steve Garvey, but his 1,117 consecutive games remains the sixth-longest consecutive games streak in major-league history.

Billy Williams and Ron Santo played in 2,015 games together, a record for teammates which has since been broken by Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, who played 2,029 games together. Both Santo and Williams played every inning of every game for the Chicago Cubs in 1965.

The first two tables below present Billy Williams'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
1959	CHN	21	17	0.5	1.0	-0.5	-0.6
1960	CHN	22	12	1.3	1.4	-0.1	-0.2
1961	CHN	23	146	16.2	18.3	-1.7	-3.5
1962	CHN	24	159	20.9	19.5	1.8	-0.2
1963	CHN	25	161	24.8	19.3	5.9	3.8
1964	CHN	26	162	23.0	19.6	3.9	1.7
1965	CHN	27	164	24.7	19.4	5.8	3.6
1966	CHN	28	162	19.4	20.1	-0.5	-2.4
1967	CHN	29	162	23.7	18.6	5.6	3.5
1968	CHN	30	163	26.2	18.7	7.9	5.7
1969	CHN	31	163	23.3	19.8	4.0	1.8
1970	CHN	32	161	25.7	18.8	7.4	5.1
1971	CHN	33	157	23.5	17.5	6.6	4.6
1972	CHN	34	150	23.7	16.8	7.5	5.5
1973	CHN	35	156	20.6	18.9	1.9	-0.0
1974	CHN	36	117	13.4	13.0	0.6	-0.7
1975	OAK	37	155	13.7	10.4	4.6	3.1
1976	OAK	38	118	7.8	7.2	1.4	0.5
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,485	332.4	278.2	62.1	31.2
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			3	0.1	0.4	-0.3	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,488	332.5	278.6	61.9	30.9

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1959	CHN	21	17	0.6	0.9	-0.3	-0.3
1960	CHN	22	12	1.4	1.3	0.2	0.0
1961	CHN	23	146	17.4	17.0	0.9	-0.9
1962	CHN	24	159	21.7	18.7	3.3	1.3
1963	CHN	25	161	25.0	19.0	6.5	4.3
1964	CHN	26	162	23.1	19.5	4.1	2.0
1965	CHN	27	164	24.9	19.2	6.3	4.1
1966	CHN	28	162	20.5	19.1	1.6	-0.3
1967	CHN	29	162	22.9	19.3	4.0	1.9
1968	CHN	30	163	24.8	20.1	5.1	2.9
1969	CHN	31	163	22.9	20.2	3.1	0.9
1970	CHN	32	161	25.1	19.4	6.2	3.9
1971	CHN	33	157	22.8	18.2	5.1	3.1
1972	CHN	34	150	23.4	17.1	6.7	4.7
1973	CHN	35	156	21.2	18.3	3.3	1.3
1974	CHN	36	117	14.3	12.1	2.4	1.2
1975	OAK	37	155	12.9	11.2	2.9	1.4
1976	OAK	38	118	7.5	7.6	0.7	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,485	332.4	278.2	62.2	31.3
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			3	0.1	0.4	-0.3	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,488	332.5	278.6	61.9	31.0

Billy Williams's career started with a bang - he was named National League Rookie of the Year in 1961. He made six All-Star teams, starting for the NL in left field in 1964 and in right field in 1973. He received MVP votes eight times, finishing second in MVP voting twice, in 1970 - when he led the NL in hits (205), total bases (373), and runs scored (137), while batting .322/.391/.586 - and 1972 - when he led the NL in total bases (348), batting average (.333), slugging percentage (.606), and OPS (1.005).

Williams also set a National League record (since broken) for consecutive games played, 1,117, from 1963 through 1970.

Put it all together, and you're left with one of the best left fielders in major-league history, or at least since MLB integration.

The next table shows the top 10 left fielders since 1947, ranked by eWins over positional average earned exclusively while playing left field (which was Williams's primary position for the vast majority of his career).

		Top 10 Left Fielders since 1947 (Ranked by eWins over Positional Average, RF only)
		eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	eWOPA
1	Barry Bonds	424.6	296.0	0.589	109.1
2	Ted Williams	236.1	167.2	0.585	55.6
3	Rickey Henderson	344.8	285.7	0.547	44.9
4	Carl Yastrzemski	279.9	234.4	0.544	28.7
5	Willie Stargell	178.0	141.2	0.558	25.1
6	Billy Williams	243.3	202.8	0.545	22.8
7	Ralph Kiner	187.8	153.9	0.550	21.8
8	Manny Ramirez	150.5	123.3	0.550	21.2
9	Matt Holliday	235.1	202.3	0.537	20.8
10	Tim Raines Sr.	267.1	234.1	0.533	18.8

Article last updated: October 14, 2020

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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