Harold Baines

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Harold Baines

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Harold Baines

Harold Baines was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Today's Game Era Committee in 2019.

Five highlights of Harold Baines's career:

Harold Baines was named to six All-Star teams. He was the starting DH for the American League in 1989.

Baines was named Designated Hitter of the Year twice, in 1987 and 1988.

On May 8, 1984, Baines hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 25th inning. This was the longest non-tie game in major-league history.

Baines played 1,643 games at DH in his career. This was a major-league record at the time of his retirement. He is still second all-time in DH games, behind only David Ortiz (2,029).

The Chicago White Sox retired Harold Baines's number on August 20, 1989. Baines played 12 more seasons in the major leagues after that, including parts of four seasons with the White Sox.

The first two tables below present Harold Baines'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
1980	CHA	21	141	14.2	15.7	-0.8	-2.3
1981	CHA	22	81	9.2	8.0	1.7	0.8
1982	CHA	23	161	21.3	19.5	2.9	0.9
1983	CHA	24	156	21.6	18.5	4.3	2.4
1984	CHA	25	147	21.5	18.6	3.8	1.9
1985	CHA	26	160	20.9	22.2	-0.0	-2.1
1986	CHA	27	145	19.1	18.4	1.7	-0.1
1987	CHA	28	132	11.9	10.2	2.6	1.3
1988	CHA	29	158	13.4	13.1	1.4	-0.2
+– 1989		30	146	13.4	13.0	1.7	0.1
	CHA		96	8.9	9.2	0.5	-0.5
	TEX		50	4.6	3.9	1.2	0.6
+– 1990		31	135	11.9	9.4	3.7	2.3
	OAK		32	3.2	2.1	1.4	1.0
	TEX		103	8.7	7.3	2.3	1.3
1991	OAK	32	141	12.3	10.9	2.4	0.9
1992	OAK	33	140	12.7	10.3	3.4	2.0
1993	BAL	34	117	10.5	8.7	2.7	1.4
1994	BAL	35	94	7.2	7.1	0.8	-0.2
1995	BAL	36	127	10.1	9.3	1.7	0.4
1996	CHA	37	143	12.9	11.2	2.7	1.1
+– 1997		38	136	10.9	9.2	2.8	1.4
	BAL		44	3.0	2.6	0.7	0.3
	CHA		92	7.9	6.6	2.1	1.1
1998	BAL	39	103	7.3	7.1	1.0	-0.0
+– 1999		40	134	11.2	10.0	2.3	0.8
	BAL		106	9.2	8.0	2.0	0.9
	CLE		28	2.0	2.0	0.2	-0.0
+– 2000		41	95	5.1	6.3	-0.7	-1.5
	BAL		71	4.0	4.8	-0.4	-1.0
	CHA		24	1.0	1.5	-0.3	-0.5
2001	CHA	42	30	1.0	2.0	-0.9	-1.1
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,822	279.6	258.8	41.0	10.1
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			31	2.7	2.4	0.6	0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,853	282.3	261.2	41.6	10.4

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1980	CHA	21	141	14.3	15.5	-0.5	-1.9
1981	CHA	22	81	9.1	8.1	1.5	0.7
1982	CHA	23	161	20.8	20.0	1.8	-0.1
1983	CHA	24	156	20.1	19.9	1.4	-0.5
1984	CHA	25	147	21.3	18.8	3.5	1.6
1985	CHA	26	160	21.7	21.4	1.6	-0.5
1986	CHA	27	145	19.5	18.0	2.5	0.8
1987	CHA	28	132	11.5	10.6	2.0	0.6
1988	CHA	29	158	13.6	12.8	2.0	0.3
+– 1989		30	146	14.3	12.2	3.4	1.8
	CHA		96	10.0	8.0	2.9	1.8
	TEX		50	4.2	4.2	0.5	-0.1
+– 1990		31	135	11.4	10.0	2.4	1.0
	OAK		32	2.9	2.5	0.8	0.4
	TEX		103	8.4	7.5	1.6	0.6
1991	OAK	32	141	12.7	10.4	3.4	1.9
1992	OAK	33	140	11.7	11.3	1.4	-0.0
1993	BAL	34	117	10.6	8.7	2.9	1.6
1994	BAL	35	94	7.4	6.9	1.2	0.2
1995	BAL	36	127	10.6	8.8	2.6	1.2
1996	CHA	37	143	13.0	11.1	3.0	1.3
+– 1997		38	136	10.5	9.6	2.0	0.6
	BAL		44	2.9	2.8	0.4	0.0
	CHA		92	7.6	6.8	1.6	0.6
1998	BAL	39	103	7.5	6.9	1.2	0.2
+– 1999		40	134	11.4	9.7	2.8	1.4
	BAL		106	9.6	7.5	3.0	1.8
	CLE		28	1.8	2.2	-0.2	-0.4
+– 2000		41	95	5.3	6.1	-0.3	-1.1
	BAL		71	4.2	4.6	-0.0	-0.6
	CHA		24	1.1	1.4	-0.3	-0.4
2001	CHA	42	30	1.0	2.1	-1.0	-1.2
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,822	279.5	258.9	40.8	10.0
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			31	2.7	2.4	0.5	0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,853	282.2	261.3	41.3	10.2

Harold Baines was the first player taken in the 1977 amateur draft. The next table shows all of the players taken first in the draft, since its inception in 1965, ranked by pWins over replacement level (pWORL).

Player	Draft Year	Debut Year	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
First Overall Draft Picks (ranked by career pWORL)
Alex Rodriguez	1993	1994	373.8	298.7	81.2	114.9
Chipper Jones	1990	1993	336.2	257.6	69.6	98.6
Ken Griffey Jr.	1987	1989	342.1	297.2	38.3	69.8
Darryl Strawberry	1980	1983	219.9	163.2	45.6	64.3
David Price	2007	2008	125.9	100.8	27.8	43.5
Bryce Harper	2010	2012	158.0	122.5	28.4	42.0
Harold Baines	1977	1980	279.6	258.8	10.1	41.0
Adrian Gonzalez	2000	2004	219.4	181.8	19.7	39.0
Joe Mauer	2001	2004	183.5	163.3	20.9	38.5
Rick Monday	1965	1966	210.8	184.5	16.5	36.1
Josh Hamilton	1999	2007	138.0	111.9	23.1	35.4
Stephen Strasburg	2009	2010	97.1	83.0	22.0	33.5
Pat Burrell	1998	2000	195.7	170.6	13.8	32.0
Justin Upton	2005	2007	222.7	201.6	11.2	31.6
Andy Benes	1988	1989	158.3	160.5	8.3	28.3
Gerrit Cole	2011	2013	76.8	62.1	19.1	28.3
Darin Erstad	1995	1996	178.4	164.3	6.8	23.8
Tim Belcher	1983	1987	149.5	151.5	4.0	23.6
Carlos Correa	2012	2015	75.8	63.5	14.6	21.4
Bob Horner	1978	1978	125.7	111.2	8.2	19.6
Phil Nevin	1992	1995	134.1	122.6	6.2	19.2
B.J. Surhoff	1985	1987	233.6	236.1	-4.8	18.5
Floyd Bannister	1976	1977	137.6	140.7	-0.5	17.6
Ben McDonald	1989	1989	73.8	68.5	6.2	15.9
Jeff King	1986	1989	133.0	124.0	2.7	15.2
Jeff Burroughs	1969	1970	184.9	181.3	-5.8	12.7
Shawon Dunston	1982	1985	183.0	195.8	-6.8	11.6
Mike Moore	1981	1982	158.6	172.1	-11.3	10.6
Ron Blomberg	1967	1969	41.0	34.4	4.5	8.7
Kris Benson	1996	1999	76.4	83.1	-1.7	8.6
Tim Foli	1968	1970	177.0	198.4	-9.9	8.4
Dansby Swanson	2015	2016	50.1	47.6	2.9	7.6
Mike Ivie	1970	1971	75.9	73.7	-3.4	4.2
Delmon Young	2003	2006	121.4	125.3	-8.3	4.1
Matt Bush	2004	2016	8.9	7.6	1.0	2.6
Matt Anderson	1997	1998	12.4	13.2	-1.1	1.3
Tim Beckham	2008	2013	45.6	50.3	-3.8	1.0
Luke Hochevar	2006	2007	50.1	57.8	-7.1	0.7
Shawn Abner	1984	1987	22.6	23.8	-2.1	0.2
Al Chambers	1979	1983	3.0	3.9	-1.0	-0.6
Bryan Bullington	2002	2005	3.1	5.2	-2.0	-1.4
Danny Goodwin	1975	1975	13.0	15.8	-3.2	-1.5
David Clyde	1973	1973	22.8	28.1	-5.1	-1.9
Dave W. Roberts	1972	1972	52.6	60.2	-8.6	-3.1
Paul Wilson	1994	1996	52.1	66.4	-11.6	-3.7
Bill Almon	1974	1974	94.9	113.1	-15.3	-5.1

For missing draft years, player never played in the major leagues. Danny Goodwin was the first pick in two drafts: 1971 out of high school by the Chicago White Sox and again in 1975, out of college, by the California Angels.

Major League Baseball first introduced the draft in 1965. The first player taken first overall to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame was Ken Griffey, Jr. in 2016. He was joined by Chipper Jones in 2018. With his election, Baines is now the earliest #1 overall draft pick to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Harold Baines was fairly clearly the most successful first overall draft pick in the first 15 years of the draft and arguably remains one of the five to ten most successful top draft picks to this day.

Article last updated: August 29, 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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