Dan Quisenberry

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Dan Quisenberry

Dan Quisenberry as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records

This is an update of an article which I originally wrote six years ago.

Five highlights of Dan Quisenberry's career:

Dan Quisenberry was named to the All-Star team three times. He received Cy Young and MVP votes five times. He finished in the top 3 in Cy Young voting and top 11 in MVP voting in four consecutive seasons, 1982 - 1985.

Quisenberry led the American League in games pitched three times, in games finished four times, and in saves five times.

Quisenberry was namd the American League Rolaids Relief Man of the Year five times, in 1980 and four consecutive years from 1982 through 1985.

Dan Quisenberry had exceptional control. He issued only 92 unintentional walks in 1,043.1 career IP. He hit 7 batters in his career and threw only 4 wild pitches. He never threw more than one wild pitch in any season of his career.

Dan Quisenberry was one of six players placed on the 2014 Veterans' Committee Hall-of-Fame ballot, which prompted me to write the original version of this article.

The first two tables below present Dan Quisenberry'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
1979	KCA	26	32	2.2	2.5	0.1	-0.3
1980	KCA	27	75	11.9	5.8	7.3	5.8
1981	KCA	28	40	5.2	2.9	2.9	2.2
1982	KCA	29	72	10.5	6.6	5.1	3.6
1983	KCA	30	69	10.2	5.0	6.3	5.0
1984	KCA	31	72	9.8	4.7	6.1	4.8
1985	KCA	32	84	10.5	7.0	4.8	3.2
1986	KCA	33	62	4.6	3.3	1.9	1.2
1987	KCA	34	47	2.5	2.2	0.6	0.2
+– 1988		35	53	1.3	2.1	-0.5	-0.8
	KCA		20	0.6	1.0	-0.3	-0.5
	SLN		33	0.8	1.0	-0.1	-0.3
1989	SLN	36	63	1.8	1.5	0.5	0.2
1990	SFN	37	5	0.3	0.8	-0.4	-0.5
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			674	71.0	44.3	34.8	24.5
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			18	1.9	2.1	0.1	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			692	72.9	46.4	34.9	24.3

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1979	KCA	26	32	2.4	2.3	0.4	0.0
1980	KCA	27	75	9.8	7.8	3.3	1.7
1981	KCA	28	40	4.7	3.4	1.9	1.2
1982	KCA	29	72	9.6	7.5	3.4	1.9
1983	KCA	30	69	9.4	5.8	4.6	3.3
1984	KCA	31	72	8.6	6.0	3.7	2.4
1985	KCA	32	84	9.9	7.7	3.5	1.9
1986	KCA	33	62	4.6	3.3	1.9	1.2
1987	KCA	34	47	2.4	2.2	0.5	0.1
+– 1988		35	53	1.6	1.8	0.1	-0.2
	KCA		20	0.9	0.8	0.2	0.1
	SLN		33	0.8	1.0	-0.2	-0.3
1989	SLN	36	63	1.9	1.5	0.7	0.4
1990	SFN	37	5	0.4	0.7	-0.2	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			674	65.4	49.9	23.8	13.6
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			18	2.1	1.9	0.6	0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			692	67.5	51.8	24.4	13.8

Dan Quisenberry vs. Hall-of-Fame Relief Pitchers

When it comes time to evaluate players' statistical case for the Hall of Fame (or Hall of Merit), one probably needs to put relief pitchers into their own bucket and compare them only to their own kind. The next table compares Dan Quisenberry's career record, as measured by Player won-lost records, to that of relief pitchers who are already in the Hall of Fame.

Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
	Hall-of-Fame Relief Pitchers (and Dan Quisenberry) (ranked by career pWOPA)
Mariano Rivera	125.9	61.1	61.4	79.0
Trevor Hoffman	100.2	62.7	35.0	50.3
Lee Smith	110.2	78.8	28.6	45.5
Rich Gossage	130.4	102.2	25.5	45.3
Dan Quisenberry	71.0	44.3	24.5	34.8
Bruce Sutter	87.6	62.7	22.9	36.1
Hoyt Wilhelm	137.6	116.6	22.4	43.9
Rollie Fingers	120.3	97.7	21.5	40.0
Satchel Paige	29.4	29.0	1.3	6.1

The standard for showing up on the previous table is at least half of a player's wins coming as a relief pitcher. This picks up Satchel Paige but misses Dennis Eckersley (and John Smoltz).

Dan Quisenberry's career pWOPA fits nicely compared to Hall-of-Fame relief pitchers. On the other hand, Quisenberry had a very short career (only about 10 full seasons), so that his pWORL is lower than everybody in the above table except for Satchel Paige.

Top Seasons Ever by a Relief Pitcher

Dan Quisenberry's prime came at the heyday of the fireman model of relief pitcher. In 1980, Quisenberry pitched 128.1 innings, all in relief, finishing 68 of the Royals' 162 games. The 1981 season lost about one-third of the season to a strike, so Quisenberry only pitched a somewhat reasonable 62.1 innings. Then, from 1982 - 1985, Quisenberry pitched at least 129 innings, all in relief, four consecutive seasons, finishing 42% of all Royals games and earning a (traditional pitcher) win or a save in 55% of Royals wins over those four seasons.

The next table shows the top 30 seasons, ranked by pWins over replacement level, for players who earned at least half of their Player wins as a relief pitcher, for all seasons for which I have calculated Player won-lost records.

	Player	Season	Team	pWins	pLosses	pWin Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL
1	John Hiller	1973	DET	12.2	5.1	0.703	6.8	8.4
2	Willie Hernandez	1984	DET	9.8	3.1	0.759	6.4	7.5
3	John Smoltz	2002	ATL	10.3	4.0	0.718	6.0	7.4
4	Dan Quisenberry	1980	KCA	11.9	5.8	0.672	5.8	7.3
5	Keith Foulke	2000	CHA	9.1	2.9	0.760	6.0	7.1
6	Wilcy Moore	1927	NYA	13.9	9.1	0.602	5.3	7.1
7	Jim Kern	1979	TEX	12.4	6.6	0.651	5.4	7.1
8	Mariano Rivera	1996	NYA	9.6	3.6	0.728	5.8	7.0
9	Blake Treinen	2018	OAK	9.3	3.5	0.726	5.5	6.8
10	Edwin O. Diaz	2018	SEA	9.1	3.3	0.735	5.6	6.8
11	Mariano Rivera	2004	NYA	9.4	3.6	0.723	5.5	6.7
12	Eric Gagne	2002	LAN	9.2	3.5	0.723	5.4	6.7
13	Mark W. Davis	1989	SDN	10.7	5.1	0.676	5.3	6.7
14	Rich Gossage	1975	CHA	12.0	6.9	0.637	4.9	6.7
15	Zach Britton	2016	BAL	7.8	1.8	0.811	5.7	6.6
16	Eric Gagne	2003	LAN	8.4	2.6	0.760	5.5	6.6
17	John Wetteland	1993	MON	10.1	4.7	0.682	5.2	6.5
18	Stu Miller	1965	BAL	9.8	4.5	0.686	5.2	6.5
19	Doug Jones	1988	CLE	9.6	4.1	0.702	5.3	6.5
20	Kenley Jansen	2017	LAN	7.8	2.1	0.786	5.5	6.5
21	Bruce Sutter	1977	CHN	10.0	4.8	0.676	5.0	6.3
22	Dan Quisenberry	1983	KCA	10.2	5.0	0.673	5.0	6.3
23	Frankie Rodriguez	2006	ANA	8.8	3.5	0.718	5.1	6.3
24	Roberto M. Hernandez	1999	TBA	9.2	4.0	0.699	5.0	6.3
25	Dick Radatz	1964	BOS	12.8	8.4	0.605	4.3	6.2
26	Trevor Hoffman	1996	SDN	9.7	4.7	0.676	4.9	6.2
27	Jeff Montgomery	1993	KCA	9.6	4.5	0.680	4.9	6.2
28	Billy Koch	2002	OAK	10.6	5.7	0.648	4.5	6.1
29	Ted Abernathy	1967	CIN	10.4	5.6	0.649	4.6	6.1
30	Dan Quisenberry	1984	KCA	9.8	4.7	0.675	4.8	6.1

Three of the top 30 seasons ever by a relief pitcher: that's pretty damn impressive! In fact, Quiz is the only player to show up three times on that list.

Hall-of-Famer? Probably not. But at his best: damn, he was impressive.

Article last updated: February 7, 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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