Jeff Bagwell

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Jeff Bagwell

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Jeff Bagwell

Jeff Bagwell was elected to the Hall of Fame in his seventh year of eligibility, 2017, with 86.2% of the vote.

Five highlights of Jeff Bagwell's career:

Jeff Bagwell was named to four All-Star teams in his career. He started two All-Star games, in 1997 (at first base) and 1999 (at DH). He won one Gold Glove (in 1994) and three Silver Sluggers. He was elected National League Rookie of the Year in 1991 and received MVP votes ten times with six top-10 finishes.

Bagwell scored 100 or more runs in a season nine times, leading the league in runs scored three times. He drove in 100 or more runs eight times (in all of which he also scored 100 or more runs), leading the league in RBI once.

Bagwell is the only player in major-league history to have at least 30 doubles, 40 home runs, 30 stolen bases, and 100 walks in a season. He did it twice, in 1997 and 1999.

Bagwell may have been the only player to have actually benefitted from the 1994 players' strike. Bagwell suffered a season-ending wrist injury the day before the strike, at a time when he was leading the National League in runs scored, RBI, and OPS. He was voted NL MVP unanimously, but, if not for the strike, he would have missed the last one-third of the season and almost certainly his league leads in runs and RBI as well as his MVP award.

Jeff Bagwell was born on May 27, 1968, the same date as Frank Thomas. Bagwell and Thomas are the only two Hall-of-Famers to share a birth date (including the year).

The first two tables below present Jeff Bagwell'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	HOU	23	156	17.6	16.0	1.5	-0.0
1992	HOU	24	162	23.0	16.7	6.5	4.6
1993	HOU	25	142	17.1	14.0	2.9	1.4
1994	HOU	26	110	17.0	9.8	7.3	6.0
1995	HOU	27	114	15.2	10.7	4.4	3.2
1996	HOU	28	162	22.9	14.9	8.2	6.3
1997	HOU	29	162	22.0	14.6	7.3	5.5
1998	HOU	30	147	19.5	13.1	6.4	4.8
1999	HOU	31	162	22.6	14.1	8.7	6.9
2000	HOU	32	159	18.8	15.6	2.9	1.2
2001	HOU	33	161	22.4	14.0	8.5	6.7
2002	HOU	34	158	20.0	15.5	4.4	2.6
2003	HOU	35	160	18.6	16.1	2.6	0.9
2004	HOU	36	156	16.7	14.2	2.5	0.9
2005	HOU	37	39	3.0	3.0	0.1	-0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,150	276.5	202.4	74.3	50.8
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			33	2.6	3.3	-0.8	-1.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,183	279.1	205.8	73.4	49.6

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1991	HOU	23	156	18.0	15.5	2.5	0.9
1992	HOU	24	162	21.9	17.8	4.1	2.2
1993	HOU	25	142	17.6	13.5	4.1	2.6
1994	HOU	26	110	17.2	9.6	7.7	6.4
1995	HOU	27	114	15.1	10.8	4.1	2.8
1996	HOU	28	162	22.3	15.5	6.8	5.0
1997	HOU	29	162	22.6	14.0	8.5	6.7
1998	HOU	30	147	19.0	13.7	5.3	3.6
1999	HOU	31	162	21.7	15.1	6.5	4.7
2000	HOU	32	159	19.9	14.5	5.2	3.6
2001	HOU	33	161	21.1	15.4	5.8	3.9
2002	HOU	34	158	20.1	15.4	4.6	2.8
2003	HOU	35	160	18.8	15.9	2.8	1.1
2004	HOU	36	156	16.7	14.2	2.6	1.0
2005	HOU	37	39	3.1	2.9	0.3	0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,150	275.1	203.8	70.9	47.4
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			33	2.9	3.0	-0.2	-0.4
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,183	278.0	206.8	70.8	47.0

Jeff Bagwell has a case as the best first baseman since World War II (and/or since integration). The next table shows the top 10 players in (context-neutral, teammate-adjusted) wins over positional average earned as a first baseman among all players since 1946.


	Top 10 First Basemen (Ranked by Career eWins over Positional Average, First Base Only)
		eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
1	Jeff Bagwell	271.0	203.0	44.3
2	Mark McGwire	212.4	154.2	43.8
3	Albert Pujols	238.3	177.9	43.3
4	Willie McCovey	244.2	186.8	35.4
5	Frank E. Thomas	125.1	88.3	29.2
6	Will Clark	225.4	177.9	28.6
7	Joey Votto	199.3	157.3	26.3
8	Todd Helton	248.4	200.0	26.1
9	Norm Cash	211.1	166.1	25.4
10	Jim Thome	129.7	95.9	24.6

Jeff Bagwell has the most (context-neutral) eWins over positional average amassed as a first baseman since World War II. He also has significantly more decisions at first base than the players in the above table.

To be entirely fair, this is due, in part, to the fact that Jeff Bagwell was exclusively a first baseman throughout his career (outside of 10 games as a DH and 7 innings in right field) while several other players played multiple positions. The final table, then, shows the top 10 players in pWins over replacement level (pWORL) among players who earned at least one-third of their player wins as a first baseman.


	Top 10 First Basemen (Ranked by career pWORL, All Positions)
		pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Albert Pujols	359.9	267.3	71.8	104.3
2	Stan Musial	347.8	263.8	63.1	94.7
3	Willie McCovey	296.7	220.6	53.2	79.1
4	Jim Thome	273.9	209.5	52.2	78.7
5	Frank E. Thomas	254.1	190.3	50.8	76.9
6	Harmon Killebrew	301.1	235.0	48.5	75.7
7	Jeff Bagwell	276.5	202.4	50.8	74.3
8	Willie Stargell	295.7	230.0	45.7	71.8
9	Eddie Murray	346.7	285.5	38.6	70.7
10	Miguel Cabrera	300.3	243.1	43.8	70.5

Regardless of how one measures it, even if Jeff Bagwell was not the best first baseman since World War II, he is an extremely well-qualified Hall-of-Famer.

Article last updated: September 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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