Ivan Rodriguez

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Ivan Rodriguez

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Ivan Rodriguez

Ivan Rodriguez was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, 2017, with 76.0% of the vote.

Five highlights of Ivan Rodriguez's career:

Ivan Rodriguez was named to fourteen All-Star teams. He won thirteen Gold Gloves, the most by any catcher in major-league history, and won the 1999 American League MVP award.

Rodriguez batted .300 or better 10 times, including three times over .330. Rodriguez hit over 30 home runs and had 100 RBI once apiece, in his MVP season in 1999, when he batted .332 and scored 116 runs, matching his career high (originally set in 1996).

In the 2003 postseason, Rodriguez batted .313/.390/.522 with 5 doubles, 3 home runs, 17 RBI, and 10 runs scored in 17 games, as the Florida Marlins won the World Series. Rodriguez was named MVP of the National League Championship Series, in which he batted .321/.424/.607 with 2 home runs and 10 RBI in 7 games.

Ivan Rodriguez holds the major-league record for games caught, 2,427, as well as for hits by a catcher, 2,749 of his 2,844 career hits.

Ivan Rodriguez threw out the first two players who attempted to steal on him in his major-league career (both in his debut game) as well as the last three would-be basestealers of his career. Overall, for his career, he threw out 46% of would-be basestealers.

The first two tables below present Ivan Rodriguez'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
1991	TEX	19	88	5.7	7.2	-0.4	-1.0
1992	TEX	20	123	9.4	10.5	0.5	-0.4
1993	TEX	21	137	12.2	12.5	1.6	0.4
1994	TEX	22	99	9.1	8.5	2.0	1.2
1995	TEX	23	130	12.3	13.1	1.3	0.0
1996	TEX	24	153	15.9	14.6	3.8	2.3
1997	TEX	25	150	15.1	13.3	3.9	2.5
1998	TEX	26	145	15.6	13.4	4.6	3.1
1999	TEX	27	144	17.0	14.8	4.9	3.3
2000	TEX	28	91	9.6	8.2	2.8	2.0
2001	TEX	29	111	10.5	9.8	2.5	1.4
2002	TEX	30	108	9.3	9.6	1.4	0.4
2003	FLO	31	144	15.8	13.0	4.8	3.4
2004	DET	32	135	12.5	13.4	1.3	0.0
2005	DET	33	129	12.1	12.6	1.6	0.4
2006	DET	34	136	12.5	12.5	2.0	0.8
2007	DET	35	129	10.4	11.7	0.6	-0.5
+– 2008		36	115	7.2	9.3	-0.7	-1.5
	DET		82	5.5	7.4	-0.8	-1.4
	NYA		33	1.7	2.0	0.0	-0.1
+– 2009		37	121	9.0	10.3	0.1	-0.8
	HOU		93	6.6	7.9	-0.3	-1.0
	TEX		28	2.4	2.4	0.4	0.2
2010	WAS	38	111	8.9	11.1	-0.9	-1.8
2011	WAS	39	44	3.6	4.4	-0.2	-0.6
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,543	233.5	233.6	37.6	14.6
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			40	4.0	3.4	1.1	0.7
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,583	237.5	237.1	38.7	15.4

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1991	TEX	19	88	5.8	7.0	-0.1	-0.7
1992	TEX	20	123	9.3	10.5	0.3	-0.6
1993	TEX	21	137	12.0	12.7	1.3	0.1
1994	TEX	22	99	9.3	8.3	2.3	1.5
1995	TEX	23	130	12.8	12.6	2.3	1.0
1996	TEX	24	153	15.6	14.8	3.2	1.7
1997	TEX	25	150	14.9	13.6	3.5	2.1
1998	TEX	26	145	15.2	13.7	3.9	2.4
1999	TEX	27	144	17.0	14.8	4.8	3.2
2000	TEX	28	91	9.8	7.9	3.2	2.4
2001	TEX	29	111	11.4	8.9	4.3	3.3
2002	TEX	30	108	10.1	8.8	3.0	2.0
2003	FLO	31	144	15.3	13.4	3.9	2.5
2004	DET	32	135	13.4	12.4	3.2	1.8
2005	DET	33	129	12.3	12.5	2.0	0.8
2006	DET	34	136	12.7	12.3	2.3	1.2
2007	DET	35	129	10.3	11.8	0.5	-0.5
+– 2008		36	115	8.0	8.6	0.8	-0.0
	DET		82	6.3	6.5	0.8	0.2
	NYA		33	1.6	2.0	-0.1	-0.2
+– 2009		37	121	9.1	10.2	0.2	-0.7
	HOU		93	6.9	7.7	0.2	-0.5
	TEX		28	2.2	2.5	0.1	-0.2
2010	WAS	38	111	9.0	11.0	-0.6	-1.5
2011	WAS	39	44	3.8	4.2	0.2	-0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,543	237.0	230.1	44.5	21.6
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			40	3.7	3.7	0.6	0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,583	240.7	233.8	45.1	21.8

Ivan Rodriguez won 13 Gold Gloves in his major-league career, more than any other catcher and more than all but three players at any position (Greg Maddux, Jim Kaat, and Brooks Robinson; Ozzie Smith also won 13 Gold Gloves). Rodriguez is regarded by many as the finest defensive catcher in major-league history.

Player won-lost records agree with this assessment. The next table shows the top 10 catchers in net career fielding wins among players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records. Player won-lost records do not evaluate a catcher's game-calling or pitch-framing abilities, so the numbers below are based entirely on a catcher's ability to prevent stolen bases, wild pitches, and passed balls, and on his abilities in fielding balls in play. Catchers share credit with pitchers in all of these components.

		Top 10 Players, Net Fielding Wins, Catcher
		eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	Net Wins
1	Ivan Rodriguez	30.6	25.2	0.549	5.5
2	Gary Carter	34.9	29.7	0.540	5.2
3	Yadier Molina	23.3	18.6	0.557	4.7
4	Jim Sundberg	26.9	22.8	0.542	4.2
5	Gabby Hartnett	23.8	19.8	0.545	3.9
6	Bob Boone	31.3	27.6	0.531	3.7
7	Tony Pena Sr.	30.0	26.8	0.528	3.2
8	Del Crandall	17.4	14.3	0.550	3.2
9	Johnny Bench	22.5	19.4	0.537	3.1
10	Charles Johnson	14.8	11.9	0.555	2.9

In addition to being an historically great fielder, Rodriguez was also a very good hitter for most of his career. From 1992 - 2004, Rodriguez batted .308/.350/.496 with 162-game averages of 24 home runs, 97 runs scored, and 95 RBI. Rodriguez then adds to this the record for most games caught.

That's an impressive combination - one which Hall-of-Fame voters found compelling enough to elect him in his first year of eligibility.

The final table, then shows where Rodriguez ranks among all catchers for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records, measured in career wins over replacement level, earned exclusively as a catcher.

		Top 10 Catchers, Wins over Replacement Level (catcher only)
		eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
1	Carlton Fisk	227.2	196.1	41.8	62.6
2	Mike Piazza	192.1	154.9	43.2	60.4
3	Johnny Bench	193.0	154.2	42.2	59.3
4	Gary Carter	219.9	190.6	34.4	54.2
5	Yogi Berra	189.0	158.0	35.3	53.3
6	Gabby Hartnett	179.0	148.8	35.3	52.3
7	Mickey Cochrane	158.3	128.8	34.3	49.2
8	Bill Dickey	173.5	146.5	32.4	49.1
9	Ivan Rodriguez	228.4	221.8	21.0	43.1
10	Ted Simmons	192.0	171.5	24.8	42.8

Article last updated: October 2, 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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