Paul Molitor

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
Home List of Articles

Paul Molitor

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Paul Molitor

Paul Molitor was elected to the Hall of Fame in his 1st year of eligibility, 2004, with 85.2% of the vote.

Five highlights of Paul Molitor's career:

Paul Molitor was named to seven All-Star teams in his career and received MVP votes nine times.

Molitor batted .300 or better twelve times in his career. He led his league in hits three times, in runs scored three times, and in doubles and triples once each.

Molitor is in the top 21 in major-league history in career plate appearances (12,167, 17th), hits (3,319, 10th), singles (2,366, 12th), doubles (605, 14th), and runs scored (1,782, 21st). Paul Molitor is one of four players (along with Barry Bonds, Ty Cobb, and Honus Wagner) in major-league history with at least 900 extra-base hits (953) and 500 stolen bases (504).

Paul Molitor’s best season was probably either 1987 or 1993. In 1987, he batted .353/.438/.566, all three of which were career highs, and he led the American League with 114 runs scored and 41 doubles in only 118 games played. In 1993, Molitor batted .332/.402/.509 and led the league in hits (211) while scoring 121 runs and hitting career highs in home runs (22) and RBI (111); he stole 22 bases and was caught only 4 times, all while tying his career high with 160 games played.

In 1987, Paul Molitor had a 39-game hitting streak, the seventh-longest in major-league history.

The first two tables below present Paul Molitor'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
1978	MIL	21	125	16.0	15.1	3.2	1.7
1979	MIL	22	140	20.7	16.5	6.8	5.0
1980	MIL	23	111	15.4	14.2	3.3	1.9
1981	MIL	24	64	7.0	7.0	0.6	-0.2
1982	MIL	25	160	22.3	17.7	6.3	4.4
1983	MIL	26	152	17.4	17.3	1.6	-0.0
1984	MIL	27	13	1.1	1.2	-0.1	-0.2
1985	MIL	28	140	17.6	16.7	2.4	0.8
1986	MIL	29	105	14.2	11.6	3.6	2.4
1987	MIL	30	118	15.3	10.4	6.2	4.8
1988	MIL	31	154	20.6	16.4	6.0	4.1
1989	MIL	32	155	19.4	16.9	4.2	2.4
1990	MIL	33	103	11.7	11.8	1.0	-0.1
1991	MIL	34	158	18.8	15.1	4.7	2.7
1992	MIL	35	158	17.9	13.5	5.5	3.7
1993	TOR	36	160	18.4	12.7	7.0	5.0
1994	TOR	37	115	11.3	9.4	2.7	1.3
1995	TOR	38	130	10.7	11.0	0.5	-1.0
1996	MIN	39	161	16.7	14.3	3.5	1.5
1997	MIN	40	135	13.0	12.9	1.1	-0.6
1998	MIN	41	126	11.3	11.6	0.4	-1.1
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,683	316.7	273.4	70.6	38.3
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			29	4.4	3.0	1.8	1.4
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,712	321.2	276.4	72.4	39.6

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1978	MIL	21	125	15.4	15.6	2.2	0.7
1979	MIL	22	140	19.7	17.5	4.8	3.0
1980	MIL	23	111	16.0	13.5	4.7	3.3
1981	MIL	24	64	7.1	6.9	0.8	0.0
1982	MIL	25	160	21.6	18.5	4.8	2.9
1983	MIL	26	152	17.7	17.0	2.0	0.4
1984	MIL	27	13	1.0	1.2	-0.1	-0.2
1985	MIL	28	140	17.6	16.7	2.6	0.9
1986	MIL	29	105	13.5	12.3	2.3	1.1
1987	MIL	30	118	14.8	10.9	5.1	3.7
1988	MIL	31	154	20.1	16.9	5.0	3.1
1989	MIL	32	155	19.5	16.8	4.4	2.6
1990	MIL	33	103	12.5	11.0	2.5	1.4
1991	MIL	34	158	18.8	15.1	4.7	2.7
1992	MIL	35	158	17.4	13.9	4.6	2.7
1993	TOR	36	160	17.6	13.5	5.4	3.5
1994	TOR	37	115	11.5	9.2	3.2	1.8
1995	TOR	38	130	11.0	10.7	1.1	-0.4
1996	MIN	39	161	16.1	15.0	2.3	0.2
1997	MIN	40	135	13.3	12.6	1.7	-0.0
1998	MIN	41	126	11.1	11.8	0.2	-1.4
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,683	313.4	276.8	64.3	31.9
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			29	4.3	3.1	1.5	1.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,712	317.7	279.9	65.8	33.0

Paul Molitor had an extremely well-balanced game. He batted over .300 12 times, with career highs (in different seasons) of 41 doubles, 13 triples, and 22 home runs. He scored 100 runs 5 times (as well as one 99-run season); he drove in 100 runs twice. He stole 30 or more bases eight times with a career high of 45. On the defensive side, while he played a plurality of his games as a designated hitter, that was because of injuries, not fielding. Molitor played all four infield positions as well as a few games in center field. And he played them all well.

Paul Molitor's Player won-lost records reflect this balance. The next table shows his (context-neutral, teammate-adjusted) career record by factor: Batting, Baserunning, and Fielding.

eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.
Batting			Baserunning			Fielding
231.8	207.3	0.528	31.3	22.0	0.587	49.2	48.5	0.503

Paul Molitor had an extremely well-balanced game. But was it an historically well-balanced game? I tried to come up with a way to identify and rank players who were above average at everything. The first step in doing this, then, is to define "average". For batting and baserunning, instead of .500, I used the average offensive winning percentage for non-pitchers (by season-league). For fielding, instead of .500, I used positional average. I did this in an attempt to give more credit to, say, a good defensive shortstop than, say, a good defensive left fielder.

What I did then was to subtract these (player-specific) factor averages from a player's batting, baserunning, and fielding winning percentage. Doing this, the resulting numbers will be positive if the winning percentage is above average, negative if below.

I then multiplied these three numbers together. The product of three numbers will be positive if either all three are positive - which is what I want - or if exactly two of the three are negative. I weeded out these latter players. Multiplying the three numbers together effectively weights all three values equally and gives more value to being equivalently above-average in everything than being essentially average in one factor but very good in two. So, for example, the product of 3, 3, and 3 (27) is greater than the product of 1, 4, and 4 (16), even though the average value in both cases is the same (3).

For players with at least 10 eWins each in batting, baserunning, and fielding, here, then, are the top 25 players in this statistic.

	Player	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.
		Players with Most Well-Rounded Excellence
			Batting			Baserunning			Fielding
1	Mike Trout	1,199	124.2	79.7	0.609	12.0	8.7	0.580	39.8	36.0	0.525
2	Paul Molitor	2,683	231.8	207.3	0.528	31.3	22.0	0.587	49.2	48.5	0.503
3	Mel Ott	2,716	281.4	181.4	0.608	19.4	17.0	0.533	113.9	101.6	0.529
4	Al Kaline	2,833	255.4	199.5	0.561	21.7	17.3	0.557	98.7	87.2	0.531
5	Lou Whitaker	2,387	194.4	173.5	0.528	21.4	16.9	0.559	82.1	78.1	0.512
6	Jackie Robinson	1,382	128.9	100.3	0.562	15.3	12.3	0.555	43.4	37.1	0.539
7	Chase Utley	1,934	159.7	137.4	0.538	14.0	10.2	0.580	61.5	57.7	0.516
8	Barry Bonds	2,985	309.4	187.3	0.623	28.6	24.1	0.543	118.8	109.2	0.521
9	Tim Raines Sr.	2,500	196.6	170.6	0.535	35.8	21.5	0.625	82.7	81.5	0.504
10	Vern Stephens	1,720	161.4	133.6	0.547	10.3	8.0	0.561	71.0	70.9	0.500
11	Carlton Fisk	2,498	201.7	178.2	0.531	16.7	13.8	0.548	30.9	29.8	0.509
12	Joe DiMaggio	1,736	189.0	132.7	0.588	13.5	9.9	0.577	70.4	64.7	0.521
13	Barry Larkin	2,180	180.6	159.8	0.531	21.8	15.0	0.593	82.5	81.2	0.504
14	Arky Vaughan	1,817	166.7	128.2	0.565	17.6	14.3	0.551	82.8	81.3	0.505
15	Toby Harrah	2,155	166.4	146.0	0.533	19.8	16.0	0.553	70.9	70.1	0.503
16	Joe Mauer	1,858	153.6	136.6	0.529	11.8	10.4	0.533	17.5	16.8	0.510
17	Bobby Grich	2,006	162.2	135.5	0.545	16.0	14.7	0.521	73.6	69.1	0.516
18	Larry Doby	1,530	146.2	109.2	0.572	11.1	9.8	0.532	52.0	50.8	0.506
19	Amos Otis	1,997	159.7	145.7	0.523	19.4	13.6	0.588	76.9	68.7	0.528
20	Yogi Berra	2,119	190.1	159.1	0.544	12.3	10.7	0.536	29.1	27.5	0.515
21	Jimmie Foxx	2,309	239.1	153.9	0.608	15.3	14.0	0.522	38.9	38.8	0.500
22	Rickey Henderson	3,080	259.4	209.8	0.553	55.7	38.5	0.591	110.7	104.6	0.514
23	Mickey Cochrane	1,452	128.4	101.3	0.559	11.8	10.3	0.535	17.5	17.0	0.508
24	Joe Gordon	1,566	136.3	114.3	0.544	11.8	10.2	0.535	61.1	56.3	0.520
25	Albert Pujols	2,823	280.9	214.9	0.567	18.9	16.9	0.529	50.9	44.6	0.533

So, was the balance of Paul Molitor's career historically great? I'd say that having one of the top 5 most well-balanced careers of the past 100 years is pretty historically great.

Article last updated: March 17, 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