Ted Simmons

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Ted Simmons

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Ted Simmons

Ted Simmons was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Modern Era Veterans' Committee in 2020.

Five highlights of Ted Simmons's career:

Ted Simmons was named to eight All-Star teams in his career. He was the starting catcher once each for the National League (1978) and American League (1983). Simmons received MVP votes seven times, finishing in the top 10 three times. He won a Silver Slugger in 1980.

Simmons had 90 or more RBI eight times. He hit 20 or more home runs six times.

Simmons had more hits (2,472) and doubles (483) than any other catcher in the twentieth century. He was second among catchers in the twentieth century to Yogi Berra with 1,389 RBI.

Simmons led the National League in intentional walks twice, in 1976 and 1977. He had more intentional walks in his career (188) than any other catcher (since 1955 when intentional walks became an official statistic).

It is very fitting that Ted Simmons was elected to the Hall of Fame by the same committee that elected longtime MLBPA head Marvin Miller. Ted Simmons almost played Andy Messersmith's role as the player who successfully challenged baseball's reserve clause. Simmons refused to accept the St. Louis Cardinals' contract offer for the 1972 season, but rather than hold out, he played the season without a contract. Had he finished the season, the MLBPA would have argued that the reserve clause no longer applied and Simmons should be a free agent. The Cardinals signed Simmons just before the All-Star game, allegedly meeting Simmons's salary demands. Messersmith (and Dave McNally) finally played an entire season without a contract three years later, setting up the arbitration case that eliminated the reserve clause and paved the way to free agency in major-league baseball (McNally retired after the 1975 season, so only Messersmith became a free agent) (see, for example, this article by Stew Thornley, The Demise of the Reserve Clause: The Players' Path to Freedom).

The first two tables below present Ted Simmons'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
1968	SLN	18	2	0.1	0.0	0.1	0.1
1969	SLN	19	5	0.5	0.4	0.2	0.2
1970	SLN	20	82	6.1	7.0	-0.1	-0.7
1971	SLN	21	133	13.9	11.9	3.6	2.3
1972	SLN	22	152	17.4	16.5	2.6	0.9
1973	SLN	23	161	19.3	17.1	4.2	2.4
1974	SLN	24	152	17.7	15.6	3.9	2.3
1975	SLN	25	157	18.1	15.3	4.6	3.0
1976	SLN	26	150	15.1	15.3	1.1	-0.4
1977	SLN	27	150	17.7	13.9	5.4	3.8
1978	SLN	28	152	16.7	15.9	2.3	0.8
1979	SLN	29	123	14.5	10.9	5.0	3.8
1980	SLN	30	145	16.9	15.0	3.6	2.1
1981	MIL	31	100	10.0	9.2	2.2	1.2
1982	MIL	32	137	13.8	12.6	3.1	1.8
1983	MIL	33	153	16.2	14.0	4.0	2.4
1984	MIL	34	132	10.1	13.0	-2.2	-3.5
1985	MIL	35	143	12.3	13.6	-0.3	-1.8
1986	ATL	36	76	4.3	4.9	-0.0	-0.6
1987	ATL	37	73	5.1	5.0	0.5	0.0
1988	ATL	38	78	2.7	4.4	-1.3	-1.7
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,456	248.5	231.7	42.7	18.4
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			17	1.7	1.6	0.3	0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,473	250.2	233.4	43.1	18.6

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1968	SLN	18	2	0.1	0.1	0.0	0.0
1969	SLN	19	5	0.3	0.6	-0.2	-0.2
1970	SLN	20	82	6.0	7.1	-0.3	-0.9
1971	SLN	21	133	13.3	12.5	2.4	1.1
1972	SLN	22	152	17.3	16.6	2.6	0.9
1973	SLN	23	161	19.4	16.9	4.6	2.8
1974	SLN	24	152	17.4	15.9	3.3	1.7
1975	SLN	25	157	18.4	15.0	5.2	3.5
1976	SLN	26	150	15.8	14.6	2.7	1.2
1977	SLN	27	150	18.0	13.6	6.0	4.4
1978	SLN	28	152	17.6	15.0	4.3	2.7
1979	SLN	29	123	14.0	11.4	4.1	2.8
1980	SLN	30	145	17.6	14.3	5.2	3.6
1981	MIL	31	100	9.2	10.0	0.6	-0.5
1982	MIL	32	137	13.6	12.7	2.8	1.5
1983	MIL	33	153	15.6	14.6	2.9	1.2
1984	MIL	34	132	9.7	13.4	-3.0	-4.3
1985	MIL	35	143	12.9	13.0	0.9	-0.6
1986	ATL	36	76	4.6	4.6	0.6	0.1
1987	ATL	37	73	5.0	5.1	0.3	-0.2
1988	ATL	38	78	3.3	3.9	-0.1	-0.5
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,456	249.2	231.0	44.8	20.5
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			17	1.7	1.7	0.2	0.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,473	250.9	232.6	45.1	20.6

Ted Simmons played his final major-league game in 1988. He was finally elected to the Hall of Fame in 2020 (well, technically late 2019), more than 30 years later. Why did it take so long?

Let's start with Ted Simmons's strongest case. Ted Simmons was an excellent hitter, especially for a catcher. The next table shows the top 10 catchers in offsensive eWins over positional average - offense only, earned only while playing catcher - since World War II.

		Top 10 Catchers, 1946 - 2019 (ranked by career eWOPA, Offense only)
		eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	eWOPA
1	Mike Piazza	173.2	132.1	0.567	47.0
2	Carlton Fisk	198.7	169.2	0.540	40.2
3	Johnny Bench	170.5	134.7	0.559	39.1
4	Yogi Berra	169.8	140.2	0.548	33.8
5	Gary Carter	184.2	160.1	0.535	29.2
6	Jorge Posada	130.2	112.6	0.536	26.8
7	Ted Simmons	167.1	146.6	0.533	24.7
8	Roy Campanella	106.4	88.2	0.547	20.7
9	Gene Tenace	71.3	52.4	0.577	20.6
10	Joe Mauer	86.9	71.8	0.548	20.4

Obviously, Ted Simmons looks very good there. But, of course, defense matters too.

The next table shows the top 10 catchers in (context-neutral, teammate-adjusted) eWins over positional average since World War II. I need to add a caveat here. For catcher fielding, Player won-lost records only measure a catcher's ability to control the opponents' running game, to prevent wild pitches and passed balls, and to make plays on balls in play. The last of these is very small - catchers don't make very many plays on balls in play - and the former two, while important, are also affected by pitchers. So, these number are missing any effect of catchers on pitch framing or pitch calling.

		Top 10 Catchers, 1946 - 2019 (ranked by career eWOPA)
		eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	eWOPA
1	Mike Piazza	192.1	154.9	0.554	43.2
2	Johnny Bench	193.0	154.2	0.556	42.2
3	Carlton Fisk	227.2	196.1	0.537	41.8
4	Yogi Berra	189.0	158.0	0.545	35.3
5	Gary Carter	219.9	190.6	0.536	34.4
6	Jorge Posada	147.5	131.2	0.529	25.5
7	Ted Simmons	192.0	171.5	0.528	24.8
8	Roy Campanella	119.0	98.7	0.547	22.9
9	Joe Mauer	95.2	79.2	0.546	21.3
10	Ivan Rodriguez	228.4	221.8	0.507	21.0

The table above only includes player decisions earned while playing catcher. Simmons, like many catchers, spent some time playing elsewhere. The next table shows the top 10 players in pWins over replacement level (pWORL) who earned at least half of their player wins at catcher.

In addition to giving players credit for playing positions other than catcher, this list also gives a boost to players with longer careers by comparing to replacement level instead of positional average.

	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWin Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL
		Top 10 Catchers, 1946 - 2019 (ranked by career pWORL)
1	Yogi Berra	246.3	182.5	0.574	66.1	88.4
2	Johnny Bench	247.2	196.8	0.557	51.5	73.3
3	Carlton Fisk	251.9	219.3	0.535	43.0	66.2
4	Mike Piazza	213.7	173.6	0.552	45.2	64.6
5	Gary Carter	242.7	215.2	0.530	31.2	53.3
6	Jorge Posada	172.1	146.8	0.540	34.2	50.4
7	Roy Campanella	127.5	93.9	0.576	36.1	47.7
8	Darrell Porter	162.9	139.1	0.539	28.8	43.9
9	Ted Simmons	248.5	231.7	0.517	18.4	42.7
10	Thurman Munson	154.5	133.1	0.537	26.0	40.4

Like many catchers, Ted Simmons's career faded quickly in his mid-30s. Ted Simmon's age-34 season (1984), in particular, was terrible (he batted .221/.269/.300 in 532 plate appearances, mostly as a DH) and actually lowers his numbers in the previous table. He then hung around four more seasons after that which, while not as bad as his 1984 season, did nothing to add to his Hall-of-Fame case.

The next table repeats the above table but looks only at players' performances through their age-33 season (1983, in the case of Ted Simmons).

	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWin Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL
		Top 10 Catchers through Age 33, 1946 - 2019 (ranked by career pWORL)
1	Johnny Bench	225.3	173.6	0.565	53.7	73.3
2	Yogi Berra	190.3	137.5	0.581	55.3	72.3
3	Mike Piazza	168.8	127.0	0.571	46.4	61.1
4	Gary Carter	207.1	177.5	0.538	32.1	50.6
5	Ted Simmons	214.0	190.7	0.529	26.0	46.1
6	Roy Campanella	106.0	75.6	0.584	32.4	42.0
7	Darrell Porter	155.3	133.3	0.538	26.8	41.1
8	Thurman Munson	154.5	133.1	0.537	26.0	40.4
9	Carlton Fisk	122.6	100.5	0.549	26.2	37.3
10	Ivan Rodriguez	181.9	174.3	0.511	19.0	36.6

This is not necessarily the "fairest" way to judge Simmons, so much as the most favorable to him. But it's not entirely unreasonable, in my opinion. That's not to say that Ted Simmons is a more deserving Hall-of-Famer than Carlton Fisk, for example, but I think he is probably a deserving Hall-of-Famer.

Article last updated: January 8, 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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