Larry Walker

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
Home List of Articles

Larry Walker

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Larry Walker

Larry Walker was elected to the Hall of Fame in his 10th (and final) year of (BBWAA) eligibility, 2020, with 76.6% of the vote.

Five highlights of Larry Walker's career:

Larry Walker was born in British Columbia, Canada. He leads all major-league players born in Canada in career plate appearances (8,030), hits (2,160), doubles (471), home runs (383), stolen bases (230), runs scored (1,355), and RBI (1,311).

Walker played his first six seasons in Montreal, making him one of 37 Canadian-born players to play for a major-league team based in Canada (either the Expos or the Toronto Blue Jays). Larry Walker stole 98 bases for the Montreal Expos. The other 36 Canadian-born players who played for a Canadian team stole a total of 69 bases for Canadian teams.

Larry Walker batted .313/.400/.565 for his career. He is one of 23 players in MLB history and one of 10 players since integration with a career batting line of at least .300/.400/.500.

Walker led his league in batting average three times, in on-base percentage twice, and in slugging percentage twice. He also led his league in home runs and doubles once apiece. On defense, he led right fielders in assists three times, leading all outfielders once, and won seven Gold Gloves.

Walker was the first Canadian-born player and first member of the Colorado Rockies to win an MVP award when he won the 1997 National League MVP. He was also the first Canadian-born position player and first player who ever played for the Colorado Rockies to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The first two tables below present Larry Walker'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
1989	MON	22	20	1.6	1.4	0.2	0.1
1990	MON	23	132	14.9	13.6	1.8	0.4
1991	MON	24	136	16.2	15.3	1.1	-0.4
1992	MON	25	143	20.6	14.7	6.5	4.9
1993	MON	26	138	22.7	14.8	8.7	6.9
1994	MON	27	103	16.0	11.4	4.9	3.5
1995	COL	28	131	19.2	18.1	1.5	-0.3
1996	COL	29	83	9.0	8.5	1.0	0.1
1997	COL	30	153	24.8	18.1	7.3	5.2
1998	COL	31	130	16.0	14.2	2.3	0.7
1999	COL	32	127	16.6	13.2	3.9	2.4
2000	COL	33	86	11.3	10.5	1.2	0.1
2001	COL	34	142	19.5	14.5	5.6	3.8
2002	COL	35	136	19.4	14.4	5.7	4.0
2003	COL	36	143	17.7	15.0	3.2	1.6
+– 2004		37	82	10.0	8.2	2.2	1.3
	COL		38	4.2	3.7	0.7	0.3
	SLN		44	5.8	4.5	1.6	1.1
2005	SLN	38	99	14.0	8.9	5.6	4.5
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,984	269.3	214.7	62.8	39.0
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			28	3.4	3.1	0.4	0.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,012	272.8	217.9	63.2	39.1

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1989	MON	22	20	1.4	1.6	-0.2	-0.4
1990	MON	23	132	15.4	13.1	2.9	1.5
1991	MON	24	136	16.3	15.2	1.4	-0.0
1992	MON	25	143	19.9	15.3	5.2	3.5
1993	MON	26	138	21.2	16.3	5.6	3.8
1994	MON	27	103	15.6	11.7	4.1	2.8
1995	COL	28	131	20.4	16.9	4.0	2.1
1996	COL	29	83	9.0	8.6	0.8	-0.0
1997	COL	30	153	24.8	18.0	7.5	5.4
1998	COL	31	130	17.3	12.9	4.8	3.3
1999	COL	32	127	17.2	12.6	5.0	3.5
2000	COL	33	86	11.1	10.7	0.7	-0.3
2001	COL	34	142	20.3	13.6	7.4	5.7
2002	COL	35	136	18.7	15.1	4.3	2.6
2003	COL	36	143	17.5	15.2	3.0	1.4
+– 2004		37	82	10.4	7.7	3.2	2.3
	COL		38	4.6	3.3	1.6	1.2
	SLN		44	5.8	4.4	1.6	1.1
2005	SLN	38	99	12.7	10.2	2.9	1.8
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,984	269.2	214.9	62.6	38.8
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			28	3.6	2.9	0.8	0.5
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,012	272.8	217.8	63.5	39.3

The next table shows the top 10 right fielders for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records (since 1916).

		Top 10 Right Fielders, ranked by eWOPA, (RF only)
		eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
1	Mel Ott	346.2	247.2	78.5
2	Babe Ruth	204.8	123.4	71.7
3	Hank Aaron	344.5	260.8	61.8
4	Reggie Jackson	280.3	226.3	40.8
5	Al Kaline	278.9	223.9	36.5
6	Frank Robinson	193.1	144.6	35.6
7	Larry Walker	238.7	192.9	31.6
8	Dwight Evans	272.7	233.9	27.8
9	Darryl Strawberry	186.5	148.4	27.3
10	Vladimir Guerrero Sr.	242.1	202.5	26.2

Larry Walker played right field in 1,718 of his 1,988 career games. This could arguably give him an unfair edge in the above table over players who played multiple outfield positions.

The next table, then, shows the top 25 outfielders for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records.

		Top 25 Outfielders, ranked by eWOPA, (OF only)
		eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
1	Babe Ruth	398.4	252.3	127.9
2	Barry Bonds	448.8	315.8	112.5
3	Ted Williams	362.3	252.7	90.1
4	Willie Mays	437.2	333.0	84.7
5	Mickey Mantle	309.4	212.4	83.9
6	Mel Ott	370.4	266.8	82.1
7	Hank Aaron	433.8	334.6	72.2
8	Joe DiMaggio	272.0	206.6	55.2
9	Rickey Henderson	409.0	338.7	54.8
10	Frank Robinson	322.6	249.4	51.8
11	Stan Musial	288.2	221.1	50.6
12	Mike Trout	170.2	119.5	48.7
13	Al Kaline	347.0	278.4	46.7
14	Reggie Jackson	305.8	249.8	41.5
15	Duke Snider	253.2	199.3	40.7
16	Ken Griffey Jr.	322.9	276.2	40.2
17	Manny Ramirez	278.2	227.0	39.6
18	Indian Bob Johnson	270.6	221.4	35.2
19	Jim Edmonds	243.9	204.1	34.8
20	Al Simmons	323.0	272.7	33.0
21	Jimmy Wynn	263.9	217.8	32.2
22	Larry Walker	249.8	203.2	31.8
23	Charlie Keller	161.3	120.7	31.3
24	Gary Sheffield	236.3	192.1	31.3
25	Carlos Beltran	303.0	263.9	30.7

Looks like a Hall-of-Famer to me.

Article last updated: January 23, 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.

Home List of Articles