Joe Torre

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Joe Torre

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Joe Torre

Joe Torre was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014 on the strength of his managerial career. Joe Torre was elected to the Hall of Merit in his second year of eligibility there (1984), based purely on his playing career.

Five highlights of Joe Torre's career:

Joe Torre was named to nine All-Star teams. He started six All-Star games for the National League, four as a catcher (1964 – 1967 as an Atlanta Brave) and two as a third baseman (1971 – 1972 as a St. Louis Cardinal).

Torre was traded from the Atlanta Braves to the St. Louis Cardinals for Orlando Cepeda on March 17, 1969 in a straight one-for-one trade of Hall-of-Famers. Two years prior to the trade, Orlando Cepeda won the 1967 National League MVP award as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals. Two years after the trade, Joe Torre won the 1971 National League MVP award as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals.

In Joe Torre’s 1971 MVP season, he led the National League with career highs in batting average (.363), hits (230), and RBI (137). Torre also had career highs that season in on-base percentage (.421), slugging percentage (.555), and runs scored (97).

Joe Torre is the only person in major-league history with at least 2,000 hits as a player (Torre had 2,342) and 2,000 wins as a manager (2,326).

Torre played the sixth-most regular-season games in major-league history without appearing in a postseason game, 2,209. Torre also failed to make the postseason in his first fifteen seasons as a manager (1,897 games) – a combined 4,106 major-league games without reaching the postseason. Joe Torre finally made the postseason in his 16th season as a manager in 1996, at the age of 55, the first of fourteen consecutive postseason appearances for Torre as a manager, during which time Torre’s teams won six American League pennants and four World Championships.

The first two tables below present Joe Torre'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
1960	MLN	19	2	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0
1961	MLN	20	113	10.0	9.9	1.4	0.4
1962	MLN	21	80	5.9	6.5	0.2	-0.4
1963	MLN	22	142	15.4	13.8	2.9	1.4
1964	MLN	23	154	18.2	14.9	4.6	2.9
1965	MLN	24	148	16.6	13.4	4.7	3.2
1966	ATL	25	148	18.1	14.1	5.5	3.9
1967	ATL	26	135	14.8	13.3	3.1	1.7
1968	ATL	27	115	13.5	11.6	3.2	2.0
1969	SLN	28	159	18.6	14.4	4.1	2.5
1970	SLN	29	161	18.5	17.3	2.8	1.0
1971	SLN	30	161	26.2	17.1	10.5	8.3
1972	SLN	31	149	17.9	16.4	2.5	0.8
1973	SLN	32	141	15.4	13.3	2.3	0.8
1974	SLN	33	147	15.4	13.3	2.1	0.7
1975	NYN	34	114	10.8	10.6	0.8	-0.2
1976	NYN	35	114	8.2	8.0	0.3	-0.5
1977	NYN	36	26	1.0	2.0	-0.9	-1.1
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,209	244.6	209.9	50.2	27.6
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,209	244.6	209.9	50.2	27.6

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1960	MLN	19	2	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
1961	MLN	20	113	10.1	9.8	1.6	0.6
1962	MLN	21	80	6.3	6.1	1.1	0.4
1963	MLN	22	142	15.9	13.4	3.8	2.4
1964	MLN	23	154	18.2	14.9	4.7	3.0
1965	MLN	24	148	16.4	13.6	4.4	2.9
1966	ATL	25	148	18.1	14.1	5.6	4.0
1967	ATL	26	135	15.4	12.7	4.3	2.9
1968	ATL	27	115	13.5	11.6	3.2	1.9
1969	SLN	28	159	17.9	15.0	2.8	1.1
1970	SLN	29	161	19.7	16.1	5.2	3.4
1971	SLN	30	161	25.2	18.2	8.5	6.4
1972	SLN	31	149	17.8	16.5	2.2	0.5
1973	SLN	32	141	15.6	13.1	2.7	1.3
1974	SLN	33	147	15.2	13.5	1.7	0.3
1975	NYN	34	114	10.5	10.9	0.1	-1.0
1976	NYN	35	114	8.7	7.5	1.4	0.5
1977	NYN	36	26	1.2	1.8	-0.4	-0.6
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,209	245.7	208.8	52.7	30.1
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,209	245.7	208.8	52.7	30.1

As measured by eWins over positional average earned exclusively at the position, Joe Torre was the best catcher of the 1960s.

		Top Catchers of the 1960s, ranked by eWOPA (C only)
		eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
1	Joe Torre	87.1	72.8	16.5
2	Bill Freehan	84.8	72.8	14.5
3	Johnny Romano	71.8	60.9	12.7
4	Tom Haller	89.9	80.5	12.0
5	Elston Howard	91.8	84.9	9.5
6	Jim Pagliaroni	62.0	55.8	7.9
7	Earl Battey	83.8	79.1	7.1
8	Ed Bailey	48.0	43.8	5.5
9	Johnny Bench	31.4	27.9	4.4
10	Tim McCarver	83.1	81.8	4.0

Torre did most of his catching in the 1960s, but even during that decade, he never caught more than 114 games in a single season and by 1969 he was a regular first baseman (144 games, 142 starts) who only occasionally caught (17 games, 16 starts). Sometimes, when I do lists of players by position, I use a standard of having earned 50% of their player wins at the position. By that standard, Joe Torre doesn't show up on any lists, because he's not eligible for any lists. He earned more player wins as a catcher than at any other position, but not a majority anywhere. The next table presents a breakdown of Joe Torre's (context-neutral, teammate-adjusted) career player wins by position.

	Joe Torre's Career Record by Position
	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
Catcher	97.6	81.3	18.6
First Base	77.2	68.8	0.1
Third Base	64.5	54.9	7.3
Left Field	0.1	0.1	0.1
Pinch Hitter	5.6	4.3	1.6

Because Joe Torre doesn't really have a position, one is forced to compare him to all baseball players in trying to figure out how good he was. We begin by cherry picking Joe Torre's own prime. The next table shows the top 25 players between 1963 and 1974, as ranked by pWins over replacement level.

		Top Players, 1963 - 1974 (ranked by pWORL)
	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Bob Gibson	214.9	171.6	55.6	78.4
2	Hank Aaron	263.3	194.1	52.3	74.9
3	Juan Marichal	194.9	156.6	50.1	71.1
4	Willie Mays	212.1	154.3	49.1	67.4
5	Frank Robinson	238.9	178.8	45.9	67.3
6	Willie McCovey	205.3	140.0	49.8	67.0
7	Dick Allen	211.6	156.6	44.4	62.6
8	Carl Yastrzemski	262.6	207.6	38.8	62.0
9	Joe L. Morgan	194.6	157.7	40.8	58.2
10	Fergie Jenkins	176.1	146.8	38.6	57.9
11	Harmon Killebrew	209.5	157.3	39.4	57.7
12	Billy Williams	271.9	220.5	32.2	56.5
13	Ron Santo	248.6	208.3	32.9	55.6
14	Tom Seaver	146.7	114.9	40.3	55.6
15	Brooks Robinson	243.6	203.3	33.1	55.2
16	Roberto Clemente	212.7	163.2	35.9	54.5
17	Willie Stargell	223.6	174.3	34.4	54.1
18	Jimmy Wynn	229.4	186.9	30.8	51.4
19	Al Kaline	195.6	150.2	33.8	51.4
20	Gaylord Perry	198.2	180.2	27.5	51.1
21	Joe Torre	208.7	172.8	29.4	48.3
22	Jim Kaat	178.0	160.6	26.8	47.2
23	Pete Rose Sr.	256.6	225.7	22.1	45.9
24	Johnny Bench	132.2	100.9	32.7	44.3
25	Sandy Koufax	86.1	55.1	35.5	44.2

Pretty impressive to be among the top 25 players in baseball over a 12-season period. Of course, as I noted above, it was cherry-picked in Torre's favor.

The next table, then, expands the time period somewhat in both directions, and shows the top 40 players of the 1960s and 1970s (i.e., 1960 - 1979).

		Top Players of the 1960s and 1970s (ranked by pWORL)
	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Hank Aaron	356.3	266.6	68.3	99.8
2	Willie Mays	293.3	208.8	72.8	97.9
3	Joe L. Morgan	296.0	230.0	71.4	97.2
4	Frank Robinson	315.2	232.0	64.5	92.7
5	Bob Gibson	257.5	213.7	58.2	86.4
6	Tom Seaver	230.3	181.3	62.4	86.4
7	Carl Yastrzemski	393.6	323.6	46.5	82.2
8	Juan Marichal	230.8	188.0	56.7	81.7
9	Jim Palmer	203.5	151.8	57.8	79.8
10	Willie McCovey	286.1	213.1	50.8	75.8
11	Reggie Jackson	263.8	200.1	51.6	74.7
12	Gaylord Perry	275.8	246.1	41.7	74.2
13	Fergie Jenkins	243.4	207.8	45.6	73.2
14	Harmon Killebrew	273.5	208.1	48.6	73.0
15	Willie Stargell	285.4	220.4	45.3	70.4
16	Roberto Clemente	278.7	214.9	45.5	70.1
17	Johnny Bench	207.8	159.5	50.3	68.4
18	Brooks Robinson	325.1	280.2	36.0	66.0
19	Dick Allen	237.7	181.4	43.1	63.8
20	Al Kaline	253.0	197.0	40.5	63.4
21	Pete Rose Sr.	354.9	311.1	30.6	63.4
22	Billy Williams	331.9	277.2	31.8	62.6
23	Steve Carlton	229.6	205.4	37.0	62.5
24	Luis Tiant Jr.	212.8	182.2	37.1	62.1
25	Jim Kaat	255.5	241.5	27.6	57.7
26	Mickey Mantle	155.9	104.2	44.5	57.6
27	Jimmy Wynn	269.5	223.9	31.9	56.3
28	Don Sutton	219.0	201.5	31.0	55.9
29	Tony Perez	257.3	208.5	31.6	54.6
30	Sandy Koufax	125.8	92.6	39.8	53.5
31	Ron Santo	293.3	259.0	25.6	53.2
32	Phil Niekro	231.8	221.0	25.4	52.6
33	Sal Bando	237.5	202.1	30.5	52.3
34	Tommy John	185.9	165.2	30.2	51.5
35	Reggie Smith	237.1	195.1	29.0	50.4
36	Joe Torre	244.6	209.9	27.6	50.2
37	Bobby Bonds	255.1	214.8	26.4	49.8
38	Jim Bunning	182.9	165.2	28.2	49.5
39	Amos Otis	203.5	167.2	30.3	48.5
40	Rod Carew	221.2	193.9	28.0	48.5

The longer a time period you can show where a player was one of the best in baseball, the stronger the player's Hall-of-Fame case.

To be one of the 40 best players in baseball over a 20-year period seems, to me, to be a fairly strong Hall-of-Fame case all by itself. Managing the Yankees to four World Series wins moves it from fairly strong to slam-dunk.

Article last updated: June 1, 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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