Tony Lazzeri

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Tony Lazzeri

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Tony Lazzeri

Tony Lazzeri was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans' Committee in 1991.

Five highlights of Tony Lazzeri's career:

Tony Lazzeri was named as a reserve for the American League team in the first All-Star game ever played in 1933.

Lazzeri received MVP votes five times. He had two top-10 finishes in MVP voting with a high finish of third place in 1928 when Lazzeri batted .332/.397/.535 in 116 games (434 plate appearances).

Lazzeri had 100 or more RBI seven times. He scored 100 or more runs twice.

Lazzeri played in seven World Series, six with the New York Yankees and once against the Yankees, as a member of the 1938 Chicago Cubs. In 125 career World Series plate appearances, Lazzeri batted .262/.342/.421 with four home runs, 19 RBI, and 16 runs scored.

On May 24, 1936, Lazzeri had a triple and three home runs, two of them grand slams, with 11 RBI in a 25-2 Yankees win over the Philadelphia A's. Lazzeri was the first player in major-league history to hit two grand slams in one game and his 11 RBI set an American League record which still stands.

The first two tables below present Tony Lazzeri'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
1926	NYA	22	155	24.0	19.6	6.8	4.7
1927	NYA	23	153	23.0	16.5	8.8	6.7
1928	NYA	24	116	16.5	11.6	6.4	5.0
1929	NYA	25	147	20.6	18.1	4.5	2.5
1930	NYA	26	143	19.7	18.0	3.9	1.9
1931	NYA	27	135	15.1	14.4	2.3	0.8
1932	NYA	28	142	19.2	14.7	6.5	4.7
1933	NYA	29	139	18.9	16.1	4.6	2.9
1934	NYA	30	123	16.3	13.7	4.3	2.7
1935	NYA	31	130	16.6	14.3	4.2	2.6
1936	NYA	32	150	19.5	16.6	5.0	3.1
1937	NYA	33	126	14.5	12.9	3.3	1.9
1938	CHN	34	54	4.0	4.4	0.2	-0.3
+– 1939		35	27	3.6	3.3	0.6	0.2
	BRO		14	1.8	1.7	0.3	0.1
	NY1		13	1.8	1.7	0.3	0.1
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,740	231.3	194.1	61.4	39.3
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			32	4.4	3.3	1.5	1.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			1,772	235.7	197.4	62.9	40.4

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1926	NYA	22	155	22.1	21.5	3.0	0.9
1927	NYA	23	153	21.7	17.8	6.2	4.1
1928	NYA	24	116	15.7	12.4	4.9	3.4
1929	NYA	25	147	21.3	17.4	5.8	3.8
1930	NYA	26	143	19.6	18.1	3.7	1.7
1931	NYA	27	135	15.3	14.2	2.8	1.3
1932	NYA	28	142	17.9	15.9	4.0	2.2
1933	NYA	29	139	18.7	16.3	4.2	2.4
1934	NYA	30	123	15.8	14.1	3.4	1.9
1935	NYA	31	130	16.1	14.8	3.2	1.5
1936	NYA	32	150	18.5	17.5	3.1	1.2
1937	NYA	33	126	13.7	13.6	1.8	0.3
1938	CHN	34	54	4.3	4.0	1.0	0.5
+– 1939		35	27	3.6	3.4	0.5	0.1
	BRO		14	1.8	1.6	0.3	0.1
	NY1		13	1.7	1.7	0.2	-0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,740	224.4	201.0	47.6	25.5
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			32	4.2	3.5	1.1	0.7
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			1,772	228.6	204.5	48.7	26.2

Player won-lost records are calculated using play-by-play data. The source of my play-by-play data is Retrosheet. Retrosheet has released complete play-by-play for all games since 1928 and for most games since 1916. Retrosheet is missing play-by-play for 25 games from five of the first six seasons of Lazzeri's career (Retrosheet has complete play-by-play for the 1927 Yankees). The numbers in the two previous tables include these missing games, the values of which have been extrapolated based on Lazzeri's Player won-lost records in games for which play-by-play data are available.

Lazzeri was one of the best second basemen of his time. Fielding estimates become somewhat less reliable the farther back in time one goes but Player won-lost records see Lazzeri as an average fielder over the course of his career. What made Lazzeri a Hall-of-Famer was his bat - and, specifically, how well he hit for an average-fielding middle infielder. Lazzeri had a career batting line of .292/.380/.467 with 334 doubles, 115 triples, and 178 home runs in his career. This makes Lazzeri one of only 31 players in major-league history with more than 300 career doubles, 100 career triples, and 150 career home runs.

The next table, then, shows the top 25 players in offensive wins over positional average earned as a second baseman among players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records. Missing games are extrapolated for seasons for which I am missing games.


Top Second Basemen, career eWOPA, (Offense Only, since 1916)
	Player	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
1	Joe L. Morgan	263.3	200.0	70.2
2	Rogers Hornsby	184.2	117.2	67.5
3	Charlie Gehringer	219.3	175.9	46.6
4	Lou Whitaker	208.5	183.5	34.8
5	Bobby Grich	154.3	129.7	32.3
6	Jeff Kent	199.8	170.9	31.2
7	Ryne Sandberg	191.7	163.1	31.0
8	Craig Biggio	196.3	167.9	30.7
9	Roberto Alomar	220.2	198.1	29.3
10	Bobby Doerr	179.7	155.6	27.8
11	Chase Utley	165.6	139.0	27.0
12	Robinson Cano	196.4	175.6	26.5
13	Eddie Collins Sr.	154.8	129.3	26.3
14	Joe Gordon	145.0	121.9	25.9
15	Jackie Robinson	84.2	63.1	22.3
16	Tony Lazzeri	131.9	113.0	20.7
17	Rod Carew	111.5	96.3	19.5
18	Davey Lopes	127.1	111.6	19.3
19	Max Bishop	111.0	93.0	19.1
20	Billy Herman	170.0	154.7	18.6
21	Willie Randolph	184.4	174.8	18.5
22	Eddie Stanky	104.6	88.4	18.2
23	Chuck Knoblauch	132.0	120.5	17.3
24	Frankie Frisch	168.6	153.0	17.1
25	Ian Kinsler	168.4	157.0	16.6
26	Dan Uggla	113.7	99.2	15.1

That's definitely not a bad pair of offensive players to be sandwiched between in a table - although Robinson had a fairly short career and Carew spent a lot of time at first base. So, is that the record of a deserving Hall-of-Famer? I think it probably is.

Article last updated: June 18, 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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