Edgar Martinez

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Edgar Martinez

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Edgar Martinez

Edgar Martinez was elected to the Hall of Fame in his 10th year of eligibility, 2019, with 85.4% of the vote.

Five highlights of Edgar Martinez's career:

Edgar Martinez was named Designated Hitter of the Year by MLB five times. In 2004, the award was renamed the Edgar Martinez Award.

Martinez was named to seven All-Star teams and received MVP votes five times.

Martinez won two batting titles, in 1992 (.343) and 1995 (.356). He led the American League in on-base percentage three times, in doubles twice, and in runs scored and RBI once apiece. For his career, Martinez batted .312/.418/.515. Baseball-Reference.com lists Martinez's on-base percentage as the 21st best in major-league history and his OPS of .933 is ranked 33rd in major-league history.

Edgar Martinez has played in every postseason game in Seattle Mariners history.

Edgar Martinez was the second player to have his uniform number (11) retired by the Seattle Mariners on August 12, 2017.

The first two tables below present Edgar Martinez'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
1987	SEA	24	13	1.0	1.0	0.1	-0.0
1988	SEA	25	14	0.8	0.8	0.0	-0.1
1989	SEA	26	65	4.9	4.2	1.1	0.7
1990	SEA	27	144	16.7	15.7	2.6	1.1
1991	SEA	28	150	20.4	16.6	5.5	3.7
1992	SEA	29	135	18.0	15.5	4.0	2.3
1993	SEA	30	42	3.3	3.5	0.2	-0.2
1994	SEA	31	89	9.2	9.0	1.1	0.1
1995	SEA	32	145	16.5	9.3	8.3	6.6
1996	SEA	33	139	16.5	10.4	7.3	5.5
1997	SEA	34	155	14.1	11.2	3.9	2.2
1998	SEA	35	154	15.1	11.8	4.4	2.6
1999	SEA	36	142	13.2	9.5	4.7	3.1
2000	SEA	37	153	15.6	11.1	5.7	3.8
2001	SEA	38	132	14.5	8.4	7.2	5.6
2002	SEA	39	97	9.0	6.5	3.2	2.2
2003	SEA	40	145	14.4	12.1	3.5	1.7
2004	SEA	41	141	8.7	12.5	-2.8	-4.2
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,055	211.7	169.2	60.0	36.7
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			34	3.3	3.1	0.4	-0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,089	215.0	172.3	60.5	36.7

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1987	SEA	24	13	1.1	0.9	0.3	0.2
1988	SEA	25	14	0.8	0.8	0.1	-0.0
1989	SEA	26	65	4.3	4.9	-0.1	-0.6
1990	SEA	27	144	17.1	15.3	3.4	1.8
1991	SEA	28	150	20.4	16.7	5.4	3.7
1992	SEA	29	135	19.0	14.6	5.8	4.1
1993	SEA	30	42	3.4	3.4	0.4	-0.0
1994	SEA	31	89	9.9	8.2	2.6	1.7
1995	SEA	32	145	15.8	10.0	7.0	5.2
1996	SEA	33	139	16.0	10.9	6.2	4.4
1997	SEA	34	155	14.8	10.5	5.4	3.7
1998	SEA	35	154	15.3	11.5	5.1	3.3
1999	SEA	36	142	13.1	9.6	4.5	3.0
2000	SEA	37	153	15.8	11.0	6.1	4.2
2001	SEA	38	132	13.3	9.6	4.8	3.2
2002	SEA	39	97	8.7	6.8	2.7	1.6
2003	SEA	40	145	14.5	12.1	3.2	1.4
2004	SEA	41	141	10.0	11.2	-0.0	-1.5
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,055	213.0	167.9	62.7	39.3
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			34	3.5	2.9	0.8	0.4
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,089	216.5	170.8	63.5	39.6

As noted above, the MLB award for best designated hitter is the Edgar Martinez Award. The next table, then, shows the top 10 designated hitters in major-league history, as measured by Player won-lost records. The players here are ranked by career (context-neutral, teammate-adjusted) eWins over positional average earned only as a DH.


Top 10 Designated Hitters in MLB History (ranked by eWOPA)
	Player	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
1	David Ortiz	210.9	167.5	35.4
2	Edgar Martinez	138.9	106.3	26.8
3	Frank E. Thomas	126.6	101.7	19.2
4	Jim Thome	80.9	61.7	16.0
5	Travis Hafner	99.4	80.4	15.1
6	Edwin Encarnacion	71.5	56.6	12.8
7	Nelson R. Cruz	69.2	55.5	11.7
8	Brian Downing	75.2	61.9	10.8
9	Chili Davis	106.1	92.4	8.8
10	Hal McRae	125.2	112.7	8.3

Edgar Martinez ranked #1 at the time of his retirement (at the time when MLB renamed the Edgar Martinez Award in his honor).

There is a school of thought that designated hitters are not "real" baseball players or, at least, that they are not "complete" players because, of course, designated hitters do not play the field. And that is true, of course: Edgar Martinez earned very few fielding wins once he became a full-time DH in 1995.

The next table addresses this concern by showing the top 20 players as measured by eWins over replacement level (eWORL) through the 1990s.


		eWins over Replacement Level Top 20 Players
	Player	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
1	Barry Bonds	230.8	157.3	63.6	82.4
2	Greg Maddux	162.3	114.4	60.2	77.3
3	Roger Clemens	142.0	99.1	44.8	61.2
4	Ken Griffey Jr.	195.5	153.4	40.0	57.1
5	J. Kevin Brown	140.1	107.0	38.8	55.0
6	Randy 'Big Unit' Johnson	141.1	110.0	34.8	51.7
7	Frank E. Thomas	162.0	117.6	36.0	51.1
8	Barry Larkin	182.4	154.3	34.2	50.5
9	Mark McGwire	148.8	101.5	38.1	50.4
10	Jeff Bagwell	175.4	125.6	35.0	49.7
11	Craig Biggio	205.6	178.7	29.0	47.6
12	Edgar Martinez	144.7	110.6	30.8	45.8
13	Roberto Alomar	193.2	170.7	27.9	45.6
14	John Smoltz	143.5	124.9	28.5	45.1
15	Tom Glavine	139.9	122.6	27.5	43.7
16	Mike Piazza	119.5	89.8	33.0	43.3
17	Larry Walker	177.0	140.7	25.8	41.3
18	David Cone	126.6	105.9	25.2	40.4
19	Mike Mussina	108.7	83.2	27.1	40.3
20	Kevin Appier	116.8	92.3	26.0	40.2

By this measure, Edgar Martinez was one of the most valuable players of the 1990s even given his lack of fielding wins over the second half of the decade.

Article last updated: August 26, 2019

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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