George Brett

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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George Brett

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: George Brett

George Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in his 1st year of eligibility, 1999, with 98.2% of the vote.

Five highlights of George Brett's career:

George Brett was named to thirteen All-Star teams in his career and received MVP votes eleven times.

Brett is the only player in major-league history to win batting titles in three decades: in 1976 (.333), 1980 (.390), and 1990 (.329).

In 1976, George Brett led the American League in hits (215), triples (14), and total bases (298). Brett hit only 7 home runs in 1976, the lowest total for a league leader in total bases since 1919.

George Brett won the American League MVP award in 1980. That year, Brett batted .390/.454/.664, leading the major leagues in all three categories, with 118 RBI in 117 games.

Brett appeared in the postseason seven times. For his career, he batted .337/.397/.627 in 184 postseason plate appearances (43 games) with 10 home runs, 23 RBI, and 30 runs scored. He batted .340/.400.728 in six ALCS, winning the 1985 ALCS MVP for batting .348/.500/.826 with 3 home runs, 5 RBI, and 6 runs scored in seven games. In two World Series (1980 and 1985), Brett batted a combined .373/.439/.529 with 8 runs scored in 13 games.

The first two tables below present George Brett'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
1973	KCA	20	13	0.6	1.0	-0.3	-0.4
1974	KCA	21	133	13.0	14.6	-0.4	-1.8
1975	KCA	22	159	20.9	17.9	4.7	2.8
1976	KCA	23	159	22.3	17.2	6.9	5.0
1977	KCA	24	139	21.2	15.7	7.2	5.4
1978	KCA	25	128	16.5	14.2	3.7	2.2
1979	KCA	26	154	21.2	16.8	6.1	4.2
1980	KCA	27	117	18.5	10.3	9.5	8.1
1981	KCA	28	89	10.6	10.5	1.0	-0.0
1982	KCA	29	144	18.6	15.1	4.8	3.2
1983	KCA	30	123	16.8	13.8	4.2	2.7
1984	KCA	31	104	14.9	10.9	5.2	4.0
1985	KCA	32	155	22.2	15.4	8.5	6.7
1986	KCA	33	123	15.6	13.2	3.6	2.2
1987	KCA	34	115	12.6	11.8	1.2	0.0
1988	KCA	35	157	18.2	15.0	3.9	2.2
1989	KCA	36	124	14.5	12.5	2.3	1.0
1990	KCA	37	142	15.3	14.2	1.6	0.2
1991	KCA	38	131	11.0	11.3	0.5	-0.9
1992	KCA	39	152	11.3	12.2	0.0	-1.5
1993	KCA	40	145	11.9	12.4	0.7	-1.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,706	327.7	275.9	74.9	44.4
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			43	5.8	5.5	0.8	0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,749	333.5	281.4	75.7	44.6

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1973	KCA	20	13	0.6	1.0	-0.3	-0.4
1974	KCA	21	133	13.5	14.1	0.6	-0.7
1975	KCA	22	159	20.2	18.6	3.3	1.4
1976	KCA	23	159	22.1	17.4	6.4	4.5
1977	KCA	24	139	20.1	16.8	5.1	3.3
1978	KCA	25	128	16.4	14.3	3.4	1.9
1979	KCA	26	154	20.9	17.1	5.5	3.6
1980	KCA	27	117	17.4	11.3	7.4	6.0
1981	KCA	28	89	11.1	10.0	2.0	0.9
1982	KCA	29	144	18.4	15.3	4.5	2.9
1983	KCA	30	123	16.8	13.8	4.1	2.7
1984	KCA	31	104	13.3	12.4	2.2	1.0
1985	KCA	32	155	21.2	16.5	6.9	5.1
1986	KCA	33	123	16.0	12.8	4.4	3.0
1987	KCA	34	115	13.3	11.1	2.5	1.3
1988	KCA	35	157	18.6	14.5	4.8	3.1
1989	KCA	36	124	14.4	12.5	2.3	1.0
1990	KCA	37	142	16.2	13.3	3.4	1.9
1991	KCA	38	131	10.9	11.4	0.2	-1.3
1992	KCA	39	152	11.9	11.7	1.1	-0.4
1993	KCA	40	145	11.9	12.4	0.7	-0.9
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,706	325.2	278.4	70.5	40.0
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			43	6.2	5.1	1.6	1.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,749	331.4	283.5	72.1	41.1

George Brett was an extraordinarily balanced baseball player. He was very good to excellent at everything. He led his league in batting average three times, in slugging percentage once, in doubles twice, in triples three times. He scored over 100 runs 4 times; he drove in over 100 runs 4 times. He hit 20 or more home runs 8 times with a career high of 30.

In The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James writes that, "[a]mong all the great players in history, George Brett has the most balanced offensive skills - that is, he is the one who most nearly matches his hit total in ... secondary bases, and ... Runs Plus RBI - a 1% spread from the highest figure to the lowest."

Baseball Prospectus used to calculate a statistic called TAv ("True Average"), which it described as "a measure of total offensive value scaled to batting average." George Brett had a career batting average of .305. Baseball Prospectus calculated Brett as having had a career TAv of .305.

Fangraphs presents a statistic called wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average) "which attempts to credit a hitter for the value of each outcome ... on the same scale as On-Base Percentage". George Brett had a career OBP of .369 and a career wOBA of .374.

Baseball Player Won-Lost records are calculated via nine components. Batting won-lost records are accumulated in seven of these components:

Component 3: Balls not in play: strikeouts, walks, hit-batsmen

Component 4: Balls in play, including home runs

Component 5: Hits vs. Outs on balls in play

Component 6: Singles vs. Doubles vs. Triples on hits in play

Component 7: Double Plays

Component 8: Baserunner Outs

Component 9: Baserunner Advancements

The next table decomposes George Brett's batting Player won-lost records by component.

Component	Wins	Losses	Win Pct
Batting Won-Lost Records by Component
Component 3	30.5	19.9	0.605
Component 4	100.2	80.3	0.555
Component 5	85.4	81.9	0.510
Component 6	12.7	8.4	0.602
Component 7	5.1	5.2	0.493
Component 8	2.3	1.9	0.550
Component 9	7.6	6.0	0.560

Brett's batting profile is not quite as "balanced" as measured by Player won-lost records as by James, TAv, and wOBA. But, outside of Component 7 (which is perhaps better thought of as a baserunning skill anyway), George Brett was above average across the board.

The next table shows all players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records with at least 200 batting wins who have more wins than losses at each of the six batting components, excluding Component 7. Players are ranked by total batting wins. Players in italics were also above .500 in Component 7.

	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
Hank Aaron	344.5	241.6	94.1
Babe Ruth	294.1	146.4	142.7
Carl Yastrzemski	292.2	233.0	54.1
Ted Williams	260.2	145.2	109.4
Mickey Mantle	247.3	152.5	89.0
Chipper Jones	241.3	181.6	53.4
George Brett	240.6	200.7	39.8
Jimmie Foxx	239.5	154.2	79.5
Eddie Mathews	228.3	162.9	58.9
Rogers Hornsby	228.0	146.0	77.1
Al Simmons	212.3	173.1	32.9
Ron Santo	210.5	169.5	34.6
Goose Goslin	207.2	168.1	33.2
Bobby Abreu	204.0	166.3	33.7

Positional Average excludes pitcher offense

Going back to Brett's record by component, his numbers stand out especially strong in three components: 6, the number of bases on hits-in-play (i.e., the ability to hit more doubles and triples), 8, baserunner outs, and 9, baserunner advancement. The latter two of these can be thought of as a kind of package deal, the ability to advance baserunners (without getting them out) toward the ultimate goal of scoring runs.

The last two tables, then, show the top 10 players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records in net batting wins for Component 6 and Components 8 and 9, combined.

	Component 6
	eWins	eLosses	Net Wins
Stan Musial	15.3	10.3	5.0
George Brett	12.7	8.4	4.3
Enos Slaughter	10.5	7.1	3.4
Roberto Clemente	12.4	9.0	3.4
Joe Medwick	10.7	7.4	3.3
Vada Pinson	11.3	8.1	3.2
Lou Gehrig	9.5	6.4	3.2
Mickey Vernon	10.8	7.7	3.1
Babe Herman	7.7	4.7	3.0
Jeff Heath	6.9	4.1	2.8

	Components 8 & 9, Combined
	eWins	eLosses	Net Wins
Babe Ruth	7.7	4.6	3.2
Ernie Lombardi	7.2	4.6	2.6
Kent Hrbek	6.3	3.9	2.4
Rusty Staub	11.5	9.1	2.4
John 'Boog' Powell	7.5	5.1	2.3
Eddie Murray	10.3	8.0	2.3
Joe Mauer	5.8	3.6	2.1
Willie McCovey	8.8	6.6	2.1
Joe Medwick	9.8	7.7	2.1
George Brett	9.9	7.9	2.1

George Brett was a heckuva batter.

Article last updated: April 27, 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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