Steve Carlton

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Steve Carlton

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Steve Carlton

Steve Carlton was elected to the Hall of Fame in his 1st year of eligibility, 1994, with 95.6% of the vote.

Five highlights of Steve Carlton's career:

Steve Carlton won four Cy Young awards: 1972, 1977, 1980, and 1982. He was named to ten All-Star teams and finished in the top 10 in MVP voting five times. He also won one Gold Glove award, in 1981.

Carlton won 20 or more games six times, leading the league four times. He also led his league in innings pitched and strikeouts five times apiece and in ERA once (1972).

Carlton held the major-league record for career strikeouts at the end of the 1983 season, with 3,709. He and Nolan Ryan traded first place through the 1984 season with Ryan leading Carlton 3,874 to 3,872 at the end of the 1984 season, before Ryan pulled away over the next several seasons. Steve Carlton retired with 4,136 strikeouts, which was the second-most in major-league history at the time of his retirement and is currently fourth all-time (Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens having passed him).

Carlton was the starting and winning pitcher in Game 6 of the 1980 World Series, which gave the Philadelphia Phillies the first World Series victory in their history. Carlton pitched seven innings in that game, allowing one run on four hits. Overall, in the 1980 postseason, Carlton started four games, winning three of them (3-0), allowing 7 runs (all earned) with 23 strikeouts in 27.1 IP.

Although not an official stat, Steve Carlton led his league in baserunners picked off nine times and his 144 career pickoffs are an unofficial major-league record.

The first two tables below present Steve Carlton'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
1965	SLN	20	15	0.9	0.9	0.1	-0.0
1966	SLN	21	9	3.2	3.2	0.6	0.2
1967	SLN	22	30	13.0	11.0	4.1	2.6
1968	SLN	23	35	14.2	14.1	2.6	0.9
1969	SLN	24	32	16.1	15.1	3.9	2.0
1970	SLN	25	34	16.0	17.8	1.1	-0.9
1971	SLN	26	37	18.6	16.1	5.5	3.4
1972	PHI	27	41	25.0	14.9	13.7	11.3
1973	PHI	28	40	18.5	21.6	0.5	-1.8
1974	PHI	29	39	18.1	16.0	5.0	3.1
1975	PHI	30	37	16.2	16.2	2.9	1.1
1976	PHI	31	35	17.0	12.6	7.1	5.4
1977	PHI	32	36	20.3	15.6	7.8	5.7
1978	PHI	33	34	15.5	15.4	2.8	1.0
1979	PHI	34	36	16.8	15.0	4.8	3.0
1980	PHI	35	38	19.8	13.2	9.7	7.8
1981	PHI	36	24	11.4	8.3	4.9	3.7
1982	PHI	37	38	21.5	15.5	9.4	7.3
1983	PHI	38	37	17.5	16.9	3.9	1.9
1984	PHI	39	34	12.9	11.9	3.3	2.0
1985	PHI	40	16	4.7	6.9	-1.0	-1.7
+– 1986		41	32	10.3	13.9	-1.6	-3.0
	CHA		10	3.6	3.3	0.8	0.3
	PHI		16	4.8	7.8	-1.9	-2.6
	SFN		6	1.9	2.8	-0.5	-0.8
+– 1987		42	32	7.6	12.3	-3.3	-4.7
	CLE		23	5.4	8.1	-1.7	-2.6
	MIN		9	2.2	4.2	-1.6	-2.0
1988	MIN	43	4	0.5	1.5	-0.9	-1.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			745	335.6	305.9	86.9	49.2
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			16	6.8	6.6	1.4	0.6
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			761	342.3	312.4	88.3	49.8

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1965	SLN	20	15	0.9	0.9	0.1	-0.0
1966	SLN	21	9	3.3	3.1	0.7	0.3
1967	SLN	22	30	12.1	12.0	2.4	0.9
1968	SLN	23	35	14.1	14.2	2.4	0.7
1969	SLN	24	32	16.5	14.8	4.6	2.7
1970	SLN	25	34	17.0	16.8	3.2	1.2
1971	SLN	26	37	16.7	18.0	2.0	-0.1
1972	PHI	27	41	23.6	16.4	11.0	8.7
1973	PHI	28	40	19.6	20.5	2.8	0.4
1974	PHI	29	39	17.5	16.6	4.0	2.1
1975	PHI	30	37	16.0	16.4	2.7	0.8
1976	PHI	31	35	15.8	13.8	4.8	3.1
1977	PHI	32	36	19.6	16.4	6.4	4.3
1978	PHI	33	34	15.6	15.2	3.1	1.3
1979	PHI	34	36	16.5	15.3	4.3	2.5
1980	PHI	35	38	18.5	14.5	7.3	5.4
1981	PHI	36	24	10.9	8.8	4.2	3.0
1982	PHI	37	38	19.8	17.2	6.1	4.0
1983	PHI	38	37	18.0	16.4	5.0	3.0
1984	PHI	39	34	12.5	12.3	2.7	1.3
1985	PHI	40	16	5.2	6.4	-0.1	-0.8
+– 1986		41	32	10.3	13.9	-1.5	-2.9
	CHA		10	3.5	3.4	0.6	0.2
	PHI		16	5.0	7.6	-1.5	-2.2
	SFN		6	1.8	2.9	-0.6	-0.9
+– 1987		42	32	8.7	11.2	-1.0	-2.4
	CLE		23	6.1	7.3	-0.2	-1.1
	MIN		9	2.6	3.9	-0.8	-1.3
1988	MIN	43	4	0.5	1.5	-0.9	-1.1
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			745	328.8	312.6	76.1	38.4
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			16	6.7	6.7	1.2	0.4
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			761	335.5	319.3	77.3	38.8

Steve Carlton had a brilliant career, winning 4 Cy Young awards (1972, 1977, 1980, and 1982, making 10 All-Star teams, with 329 traditional pitching wins (11th all-time). And Player won-lost records agree. The next table shows the top 40 players in pWins over replacement level (pWORL) for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records.

		Top 40 Players, career pWORL
	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Babe Ruth	410.9	236.0	161.2	195.2
2	Barry Bonds	466.8	310.6	136.5	174.4
3	Willie Mays	465.3	329.8	116.5	156.6
4	Hank Aaron	496.7	369.1	98.5	142.5
5	Mickey Mantle	354.1	227.5	112.2	141.9
6	Mel Ott	419.7	295.2	103.6	140.8
7	Ted Williams	373.0	250.0	104.3	136.6
8	Roger Clemens	316.9	228.6	94.6	131.3
9	Stan Musial	424.1	311.3	88.2	126.2
10	Lou Gehrig	304.3	183.8	99.6	124.8
11	Joe L. Morgan	371.9	293.9	84.9	117.6
12	Greg Maddux	327.2	271.7	77.9	115.0
13	Alex Rodriguez	373.8	298.7	81.2	114.9
14	Warren Spahn	351.1	294.8	74.3	113.8
15	Lefty Grove	261.0	187.5	84.0	112.3
16	Joe DiMaggio	287.1	193.1	84.5	109.4
17	Jimmie Foxx	301.3	200.3	81.9	108.1
18	Frank Robinson	398.0	302.5	70.9	106.8
19	Albert Pujols	359.9	267.3	71.8	104.3
20	Randy 'Big Unit' Johnson	279.8	221.0	69.8	102.9
21	Rickey Henderson	428.4	350.3	62.5	100.5
22	Mike Schmidt	338.5	257.6	71.0	99.7
23	Eddie Mathews	320.7	240.9	70.5	99.1
24	Chipper Jones	336.2	257.6	69.6	98.6
25	Tom Seaver	306.9	258.2	65.1	98.6
26	Pee Wee Reese	299.9	239.2	68.0	96.0
27	Derek Jeter	367.7	323.1	61.2	94.8
28	Al Kaline	380.5	299.2	58.6	93.2
29	Reggie Jackson	370.0	295.8	58.4	92.6
30	Manny Ramirez	320.0	247.6	60.2	88.9
31	Jim Palmer	241.5	186.1	61.9	88.7
32	Yogi Berra	246.3	182.5	66.1	88.4
33	Bob Gibson	262.4	218.4	58.7	87.4
34	Steve Carlton	335.6	305.9	49.2	86.9
35	Carl Yastrzemski	430.9	360.2	45.5	85.7
36	Rogers Hornsby	258.5	197.5	61.7	85.2
37	Pedro J. Martinez	192.4	137.8	62.6	84.7
38	Cal Ripken	382.3	351.6	49.2	84.5
39	Duke Snider	270.3	198.7	59.8	84.2
40	Al Simmons	323.3	253.8	53.8	83.6

A (Tepid) Defense of the Win: Steve Carlton's 1972 Season

There is a move among many sabermetrically inclined fans to "Kill the Win" (or #KilltheWin as the kids are writing things these days). I am sabermetrically inclined and I can appreciate the sentiment. But, having said that, I am also an afficianado of baseball history and the pitcher win has an important place in that history. I also think that pitcher wins can have some information and/or help to provide some context.

Consider, for example, Steve Carlton's 1972 season. Steve Carlton had a monster season in 1972. He led the National League with 346.1 innings pitched, 41 games started, 30 complete games, 310 strikeouts, and a 1.97 ERA. He won the first of his four Cy Young awards that year in a unanimous vote.

Those are all impressive numbers, but what was the most striking thing about Steve Carlton's 1972 season was his won-lost record. Steve Carlton went 27-10 for a team that went 30-85 in games that Carlton did not start. That's a .261 winning percentage, which works out to a 42-120 record over 162 games - which would tie the 1962 New York Mets' record for losses in a season (the Mets won only 40 games, though).

What made Steve Carlton's 1972 season so impressive was how many wins he produced for a team that was starved for them - and not just theoretical wins, but actual wins.

Of course, pitcher wins are not without their flaws: the largest flaw being that pitchers are not solely responsible for team wins (and losses). Pitchers are not even mainly responsible for team wins. If Player won-lost records are to be believed - and, of course, they are - pitching only accounts for about 39% of total pWins (over replacement level).

The solution, then, is not to "kill" the win, but to expand the win to encompass the other 61% of what leads to winning: batting, baserunning, and fielding.

And that is what I have done with Player won-lost records: pWins tie to real wins, but accurately distribute those wins to all of the players who contributed to them.

Meanwhile, back to Steve Carlton's 1972 season. The next table shows the top 10 players in single-season pWins over replacement level among all seasons for which I have calculated Player won-lost records.

		Top 10 Players, Single-Season pWORL
	Player	Season	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Babe Ruth	1927	31.4	14.8	15.5	18.0
2	Babe Ruth	1923	28.4	12.8	14.8	16.9
3	Babe Ruth	1921	29.1	14.4	13.8	16.1
4	Barry Bonds	2001	28.3	15.2	12.3	14.5
5	Babe Ruth	1928	29.1	16.0	11.9	14.3
6	Ted Williams	1946	28.5	15.2	12.0	14.3
7	Lefty Grove	1931	22.8	11.6	12.1	14.2
8	Sandy Koufax	1965	25.0	14.5	11.8	14.2
9	Al Simmons	1929	28.1	15.2	11.7	13.9
10	Al Simmons	1930	27.1	14.4	11.6	13.8

Steve Carlton's 1972 season was historically great.

Article last updated: May 25, 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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