Nellie Fox

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Nellie Fox

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Nellie Fox

Nellie Fox was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans' Committee in 1997 after missing election by two votes in his final year on the BBWAA ballot (in 1985).

Five highlights of Nellie Fox's career:

Nellie Fox was an All-Star in 12 seasons (in 13 years). He received MVP votes ten times with six top-10 MVP finishes.

Fox led the American League in hits four times. He led the league in triples once and scored 100 or more runs four times.

Fox led his league in at bats per strikeout 12 times. For his career, Fox struck out once every 42.7 at bats. This is the fourth-best AB-per-K ratio in MLB since 1900.

Fox won the American League MVP award in 1959. That season, Fox batted .306/.380/.389 and won the second of his three Gold Gloves. He then batted .375/.464/.500 in the World Series (his only career postseason appearance).

Fox played 2,295 career games at second base, the 5th-most in MLB history. Fox is 8th in MLB history in assists by a second baseman (6,373), 3rd in MLB history in putouts by a second baseman (6,090), and second in MLB history in double plays (1,619). Fox led the American League in fielding percentage six times.

The first two tables below present Nellie Fox'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
1947	PHA	19	7	0.0	0.0	0.0	-0.0
1948	PHA	20	3	0.2	0.6	-0.4	-0.5
1949	PHA	21	88	7.3	8.9	-0.7	-1.5
1950	CHA	22	130	11.5	15.2	-2.1	-3.5
1951	CHA	23	147	20.0	18.3	3.9	1.9
1952	CHA	24	152	20.2	19.1	3.5	1.5
1953	CHA	25	154	19.8	18.3	3.9	1.8
1954	CHA	26	155	21.3	18.8	5.1	2.9
1955	CHA	27	154	21.1	17.9	5.7	3.7
1956	CHA	28	154	19.5	20.6	1.6	-0.4
1957	CHA	29	155	22.2	17.8	6.9	4.9
1958	CHA	30	155	20.5	18.7	4.5	2.5
1959	CHA	31	156	22.1	16.2	8.3	6.4
1960	CHA	32	150	20.9	18.2	5.4	3.4
1961	CHA	33	159	18.0	18.9	2.0	0.1
1962	CHA	34	157	17.9	18.4	2.1	0.2
1963	CHA	35	137	14.0	16.5	-0.3	-1.8
1964	HOU	36	133	14.2	15.0	1.4	-0.1
1965	HOU	37	21	0.8	1.4	-0.4	-0.5
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,367	291.6	278.7	50.5	21.2
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			6	0.9	0.8	0.2	0.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,373	292.5	279.4	50.7	21.3

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1947	PHA	19	7	0.0	0.1	-0.0	-0.0
1948	PHA	20	3	0.3	0.6	-0.1	-0.2
1949	PHA	21	88	7.5	8.6	-0.2	-1.1
1950	CHA	22	130	11.9	14.7	-1.2	-2.6
1951	CHA	23	147	19.6	18.7	3.1	1.1
1952	CHA	24	152	19.9	19.4	2.9	0.8
1953	CHA	25	154	18.9	19.3	2.0	-0.0
1954	CHA	26	155	20.9	19.2	4.2	2.0
1955	CHA	27	154	20.2	18.8	4.0	2.0
1956	CHA	28	154	18.6	21.5	0.2	-1.9
1957	CHA	29	155	22.4	17.6	7.5	5.4
1958	CHA	30	155	20.0	19.2	3.5	1.5
1959	CHA	31	156	20.5	17.8	5.2	3.3
1960	CHA	32	150	19.7	19.4	3.2	1.2
1961	CHA	33	159	16.7	20.2	-0.5	-2.4
1962	CHA	34	157	17.3	19.0	0.9	-0.9
1963	CHA	35	137	13.1	17.4	-1.5	-3.0
1964	HOU	36	133	14.1	15.1	1.1	-0.3
1965	HOU	37	21	0.9	1.2	-0.2	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,367	282.5	287.8	33.9	4.7
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			6	0.9	0.7	0.3	0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,373	283.4	288.5	34.2	4.8

Top Fielding Second Basemen

Gold Gloves were first awarded in 1957, Nellie Fox's 9th full season in the major-leagues (and his age-29 season). In the first year, a single set of Gold Gloves were awarded for all of major-league baseball. Nellie Fox won the first Gold Glove awarded to a second baseman. He then won 2 more Gold Gloves in 1959 and 1960.

The next table shows the top 10 second basemen in fielding wins over replacement level for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records.

		Top Ten Fielding Second Basemen (Fielding wins over Replacement)
		eWins	eLosses	WORL_f
1	Willie Randolph	81.5	75.0	14.0
2	Nellie Fox	85.1	79.7	13.9
3	Frank White	80.6	74.5	13.5
4	Bill Mazeroski	85.5	80.9	12.9
5	Frankie Frisch	80.4	75.8	12.7
6	Lou Whitaker	82.1	78.1	11.7
7	Ryne Sandberg	78.8	74.6	11.5
8	Red Schoendienst	69.8	65.3	11.5
9	Hughie Critz	67.0	62.5	11.2
10	Dustin Pedroia	51.0	44.8	10.7

1959 American League MVP

Nellie Fox won the American League MVP award in 1959 as he helped the Chicago White Sox win their first American League pennant in 40 years.

The next table shows the top 10 players in the 1959 American League as measured by pWins over positional average and replacement level.

		pWins over Positional Average Top 10 Players						pWins over Replacement Level Top 10 Players
	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL		Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Nellie Fox	22.1	16.2	6.4	8.3	1	Nellie Fox	22.1	16.2	6.4	8.3
2	Minnie Minoso	23.7	16.8	5.7	7.7	2	Minnie Minoso	23.7	16.8	5.7	7.7
3	Early Wynn	20.1	15.5	5.3	7.4	3	Early Wynn	20.1	15.5	5.3	7.4
4	Tito Francona	15.6	10.2	4.7	6.0	4	Rocky Colavito	23.7	17.3	4.7	6.7
5	Rocky Colavito	23.7	17.3	4.7	6.7	5	Mickey Mantle	20.3	14.8	4.6	6.3
6	Bob Shaw	14.9	11.0	4.6	6.2	6	Bob Shaw	14.9	11.0	4.6	6.2
7	Mickey Mantle	20.3	14.8	4.6	6.3	7	Tito Francona	15.6	10.2	4.7	6.0
8	Camilo Pascual	16.2	13.1	4.1	5.8	8	Camilo Pascual	16.2	13.1	4.1	5.8
9	Yogi Berra	15.7	11.9	4.1	5.5	9	Harmon Killebrew	22.2	17.9	3.6	5.6
10	Harmon Killebrew	22.2	17.9	3.6	5.6	10	Yogi Berra	15.7	11.9	4.1	5.5

As measured by pWOPA and pWORL - which put a player's performance in context and tie to team wins - the 1959 AL MVP voters got it right. In context, Nellie Fox was the best player in the American League in 1959 and a key reason why the White Sox were able to end their 40-year pennant drought.

Article last updated: May 12, 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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