Phil Niekro

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Phil Niekro

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Phil Niekro

Phil Niekro was elected to the Hall of Fame in his 5th year of eligibility, 1997, with 80.3% of the vote.

Five highlights of Phil Niekro's career:

Phil Niekro did not have his first full season in the major leagues until 1967 at the age of 28. Prior to 1967, Phil Niekro had pitched 140 major-league innings. In 1967, he pitched 207 innings with a major-league leading ERA of 1.87.

From 1974 to 1979, Phil Niekro averaged just over 40 games started (40.3) and 309 innings pitched per season. Since 1980, no pitcher has started more than 40 games or pitched more than 304 innings in a single season.

In 1982, at the age of 43, Phil Niekro compiled a traditional won-lost record of 17-4 in 35 games started (234.1 innings pitched) to help lead the Atlanta Braves to their only playoff appearance between 1969 and 1991. The Braves entered the final weekend of the 1982 season with a one-game lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers. That Friday, October 1st, Phil Niekro pitched a complete-game three-hit shutout and hit a two-run home run to spark a 4-0 Braves victory over the San Diego Padres. The Braves ended up winning the 1982 NL West by one game.

Phil Niekro and his brother Joe have the most combined pitcher wins by any pair of brothers in major-league history, 539.

Phil Niekro won five Gold Gloves in his career, at the ages of 39, 40, 41, 43, and 44.

The first two tables below present Phil Niekro'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
1964	MLN	25	10	0.2	0.3	-0.0	-0.1
1965	MLN	26	42	3.4	3.2	0.8	0.2
1966	ATL	27	28	2.1	1.9	0.5	0.2
1967	ATL	28	46	13.5	12.4	3.4	1.7
1968	ATL	29	37	15.3	14.3	3.7	2.0
1969	ATL	30	40	20.3	15.8	7.8	5.6
1970	ATL	31	34	14.2	17.6	-0.5	-2.4
1971	ATL	32	42	15.7	16.0	2.6	0.7
1972	ATL	33	38	17.8	14.5	6.5	4.5
1973	ATL	34	42	13.4	13.4	2.5	0.9
1974	ATL	35	41	18.3	16.8	4.7	2.7
1975	ATL	36	39	16.9	17.7	2.4	0.3
1976	ATL	37	38	17.2	15.5	4.6	2.8
1977	ATL	38	44	21.5	21.4	4.2	1.6
1978	ATL	39	45	21.9	18.9	6.7	4.3
1979	ATL	40	44	20.2	21.4	2.8	0.4
1980	ATL	41	40	17.2	18.8	1.7	-0.5
1981	ATL	42	22	8.6	9.3	1.1	-0.0
1982	ATL	43	35	12.5	11.2	3.5	2.2
1983	ATL	44	34	11.6	14.3	-0.2	-1.7
1984	NYA	45	32	13.4	9.8	5.3	3.8
1985	NYA	46	33	13.9	14.4	1.6	-0.2
1986	CLE	47	34	11.7	13.2	0.3	-1.4
+– 1987		48	26	8.4	10.8	-1.0	-2.3
	ATL		1	0.1	0.4	-0.3	-0.3
	CLE		22	7.6	8.8	0.0	-1.0
	TOR		3	0.7	1.6	-0.8	-1.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			866	329.1	322.8	64.8	25.2
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			2	0.5	1.1	-0.4	-0.5
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			868	329.7	323.9	64.4	24.7

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1964	MLN	25	10	0.3	0.3	-0.0	-0.1
1965	MLN	26	42	3.2	3.3	0.5	-0.1
1966	ATL	27	28	1.9	2.1	0.2	-0.2
1967	ATL	28	46	13.1	12.7	2.9	1.2
1968	ATL	29	37	14.1	15.4	1.7	-0.1
1969	ATL	30	40	19.9	16.3	7.2	5.0
1970	ATL	31	34	14.2	17.6	-0.5	-2.4
1971	ATL	32	42	16.0	15.7	3.3	1.4
1972	ATL	33	38	17.0	15.3	5.0	3.0
1973	ATL	34	42	13.4	13.3	2.8	1.1
1974	ATL	35	41	19.0	16.0	6.2	4.2
1975	ATL	36	39	16.2	18.3	1.2	-0.8
1976	ATL	37	38	16.2	16.4	2.8	1.0
1977	ATL	38	44	21.8	21.1	4.7	2.2
1978	ATL	39	45	22.0	18.9	7.1	4.7
1979	ATL	40	44	20.0	21.6	2.2	-0.1
1980	ATL	41	40	17.1	18.9	1.6	-0.5
1981	ATL	42	22	8.6	9.3	1.3	0.2
1982	ATL	43	35	11.6	12.0	1.9	0.5
1983	ATL	44	34	11.8	14.0	0.3	-1.2
1984	NYA	45	32	12.1	11.1	2.7	1.2
1985	NYA	46	33	12.9	15.4	-0.4	-2.2
1986	CLE	47	34	11.6	13.3	0.1	-1.5
+– 1987		48	26	8.7	10.5	-0.4	-1.7
	ATL		1	0.1	0.4	-0.3	-0.3
	CLE		22	7.8	8.6	0.4	-0.7
	TOR		3	0.8	1.5	-0.6	-0.7
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			866	322.9	329.0	54.4	14.9
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			2	0.7	0.9	0.0	-0.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			868	323.7	329.9	54.5	14.8

Phil Niekro had 20 traditional pitcher wins in a season twice (1974, 1979) in his career. He also had two seasons with 20 traditional pitcher losses (1977, 1979) (he's the last player to win and lose 20 in the same season). Overall, he had 318 traditional wins in his 24-year major-league career. Broadly speaking, pitcher wins and pWins tend to be on the same scale - 20 pwins is usually a very good season; 300 pWins is a very good career.

As shown in the table above, Phil Niekro actually earned more pWins than pitcher wins in his career (329 to 318). He also had more 20-pWin seasons than 20-win seasons (4 to 2), although he had as many 20-pLoss seasons as 20-loss seasons. In fact, his two 20-pLoss seasons (a) were the same as his two 20-loss seasons (1977 and 1979), and (b) were both 20-pWin/20-pLoss seasons (which is somewhat more common for pWins than for traditional pitcher wins).

Best Players in Atlanta Braves History

Phil Niekro made his major-league debut in 1964 with the Milwaukee Braves. Phil Niekro was the last active major-league player to have played for the Milwaukee Braves. Niekro's time in Milwaukee saw him only pitch 89.2 innings over two seasons.

Niekro's breakthrough season in the major leagues came in his (and the Braves') second season in Atlanta in 1967 when he led the National League in ERA (1.87) in 207 IP split between starting (20 starts, 10 complete games) and relieving (26 relief appearances, 20 games finished, 9 saves).

Hence, Phil Niekro was the first player to make his Hall-of-Fame case in Atlanta. Hank Aaron obviously stamped his final ticket to Cooperstown in Atlanta, but Aaron won his only MVP award and his only World Series title in Milwaukee (both in 1957) and Aaron hit more home runs as a Milwaukee Brave (398) than as an Atlanta Brave (335). While Niekro earned his 300th pitching win as a New York Yankee, the overwhelming majority of his value was earned as an Atlanta Brave.

Phil Niekro remains one of the top ten players in Atlanta Braves history, as measured by pWins over replacement level (pWORL) earned as an Atlanta Brave.

		Top 10 Players in Atlanta Braves History, 1966 - 1996 (ranked by pWORL)
	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Chipper Jones	336.2	257.6	69.6	98.6
2	John Smoltz	233.9	195.2	51.0	78.9
3	Greg Maddux	171.9	122.8	60.4	78.8
4	Tom Glavine	217.4	189.3	41.8	67.0
5	Andruw Jones	247.3	198.9	41.6	63.4
6	Hank Aaron	193.8	139.3	42.4	58.9
7	Phil Niekro	278.3	271.5	24.9	57.7
8	Dale Murphy	256.5	224.7	19.4	42.3
9	Freddie Freeman	154.3	124.3	18.1	31.5
10	Tim Hudson	101.4	89.4	19.3	31.2

Best Fielding Pitchers

Phil Niekro won 5 Gold Gloves in his major-league career: the first in his age-39 season (1978), the last in his age-44 season (1983). This ties Niekro for the 8th-most Gold Gloves for a pitcher since they began to be awarded (in 1957). Player won-lost records agree that Phil Niekro was a very good fielder. In fact, Player won-lost records place Niekro even higher among all pitchers over a longer time period.

The next table shows the top 10 fielding pitchers, ranked by net fielding wins, for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records.

	Top Ten Fielding Pitchers (net career fielding wins)
		eWins	eLosses	Net Wins
1	Livan Hernandez	6.3	3.9	2.4
2	Tom Glavine	7.4	5.0	2.4
3	Zack Greinke	4.5	2.2	2.3
4	Pete Alexander	7.7	5.6	2.1
5	Phil Niekro	7.9	5.8	2.0
6	Dennis Martinez	6.7	4.7	2.0
7	Stan Coveleski	6.9	4.9	2.0
8	Mike Mussina	4.8	3.0	1.9
9	Tom Seaver	7.3	5.4	1.9
10	Bret Saberhagen	4.6	2.8	1.8

Article last updated: May 11, 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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