Will Clark

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Will Clark

Will Clark as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records

Will Clark has been elected to the Hall of Merit at Baseball Think Factory and has been nominated twice for the Hall of Fame by its Today's Game Committee.

Five highlights of Will Clark's career:

Will Clark won the 1985 Golden Spikes award as the top amateur baseball player in the United States. He was the second player taken in the 1985 MLB draft, two picks before Hall-of-Fame shortstop Barry Larkin and four picks before Barry Bonds.

Clark was named to six All-Star teams. He started four consecutive All-Star games for the National League from 1988 through 1991. He received MVP votes five times with four top-5 finishes.

Clark led his league once apiece in games played (162 in 1988), plate appearances (689 in 1988), runs scored (104 in 1989), RBI (109 in 1988), walks (100 in 1988), slugging percentage (.536 in 1991), and total bases (303 in 1991).

Clark had 91 or more RBI for five consecutive seasons from 1987 to 1991. He was the only National League player with more than 500 RBI over these five seasons (522).

Clark was named NLCS MVP in 1989 when he batted .650/.682/1.200 with two home runs, 8 runs scored and 8 RBI in five games. For his career, Clark batted .333/.409/.547 with 5 home runs and 16 RBI in 31 postseason games (132 plate appearances).

The first two tables below present Will Clark'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
1986	SFN	22	111	11.1	10.2	0.8	-0.2
1987	SFN	23	150	17.1	12.3	4.7	3.3
1988	SFN	24	162	21.4	14.3	7.3	5.6
1989	SFN	25	159	23.1	13.9	9.3	7.5
1990	SFN	26	154	18.7	15.6	2.8	1.2
1991	SFN	27	148	19.4	13.9	5.6	4.0
1992	SFN	28	144	17.8	13.1	4.7	3.2
1993	SFN	29	132	16.7	12.7	4.0	2.5
1994	TEX	30	110	11.4	9.2	2.4	1.4
1995	TEX	31	123	14.9	12.3	2.8	1.5
1996	TEX	32	117	12.5	11.0	1.7	0.5
1997	TEX	33	110	11.7	9.8	2.0	0.9
1998	TEX	34	149	15.8	14.5	1.6	0.0
1999	BAL	35	77	7.4	6.7	0.9	0.2
+– 2000		36	130	13.9	9.6	4.5	3.3
	BAL		79	7.4	6.1	1.4	0.8
	SLN		51	6.5	3.5	3.0	2.5
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,976	232.7	179.2	55.0	35.0
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			31	4.3	3.3	1.0	0.6
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,007	236.9	182.5	56.0	35.7

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1986	SFN	22	111	11.3	10.0	1.3	0.3
1987	SFN	23	150	16.8	12.7	3.9	2.5
1988	SFN	24	162	20.9	14.8	6.3	4.6
1989	SFN	25	159	22.6	14.3	8.3	6.5
1990	SFN	26	154	18.6	15.6	2.7	1.1
1991	SFN	27	148	19.6	13.7	6.1	4.5
1992	SFN	28	144	17.5	13.4	4.1	2.6
1993	SFN	29	132	15.6	13.9	1.5	0.0
1994	TEX	30	110	11.6	8.9	3.0	1.9
1995	TEX	31	123	14.6	12.6	2.3	1.0
1996	TEX	32	117	12.3	11.2	1.2	0.1
1997	TEX	33	110	11.9	9.7	2.3	1.3
1998	TEX	34	149	16.2	14.1	2.3	0.8
1999	BAL	35	77	7.6	6.5	1.3	0.6
+– 2000		36	130	13.4	10.1	3.4	2.3
	BAL		79	7.4	6.1	1.4	0.8
	SLN		51	6.0	4.0	2.0	1.5
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,976	230.4	181.4	50.2	30.3
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			31	4.3	3.2	1.1	0.8
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,007	234.8	184.6	51.4	31.0

I originally wrote this article when Will Clark appeared as a candidate for the 2019 "Today's Game Era" ballot, the latest version of the Hall-of-Fame's Veterans' Committee. Will Clark's Hall-of-Fame case is essentially a peak case.

Will Clark's peak was seven seasons, from 1987 - 1993. The next table shows the top 10 players in pWins over positional average and replacement level over this time period.

		pWins over Positional Average Top 10 Players						pWins over Replacement Level Top 10 Players
	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL		Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Barry Bonds	161.5	113.2	40.7	53.8	1	Barry Bonds	161.5	113.2	40.7	53.8
2	Roger Clemens	112.0	79.0	34.5	47.2	2	Roger Clemens	112.0	79.0	34.5	47.2
3	Rickey Henderson	139.5	102.5	32.8	44.6	3	Rickey Henderson	139.5	102.5	32.8	44.6
4	Will Clark	134.2	95.8	27.4	38.4	4	Will Clark	134.2	95.8	27.4	38.4
5	Jose Canseco	120.3	89.7	26.8	37.2	5	Barry Larkin	127.2	105.2	26.2	37.3
6	Barry Larkin	127.2	105.2	26.2	37.3	6	Jose Canseco	120.3	89.7	26.8	37.2
7	Darryl Strawberry	118.8	88.2	24.3	34.2	7	Paul Molitor	122.1	96.8	22.5	34.6
8	Alan Trammell	108.8	90.3	24.1	33.6	8	Darryl Strawberry	118.8	88.2	24.3	34.2
9	Paul Molitor	122.1	96.8	22.5	34.6	9	Greg Maddux	109.7	94.8	21.8	34.1
10	Greg Maddux	109.7	94.8	21.8	34.1	10	Alan Trammell	108.8	90.3	24.1	33.6

Clark's career was somewhat short for a Hall-of-Fame career, but still quite respectable in length. And, in fact, Will Clark shows up on a career leaders list as well.

The next table shows the top 10 first basemen in net career fielding wins among players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records.

		Top Fielding First Basemen (ranked by Net Fielding Wins)
		eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	Net Wins
1	Albert Pujols	35.3	29.9	0.542	5.4
2	Adrian Gonzalez	32.3	27.6	0.539	4.7
3	John Olerud	34.7	30.1	0.535	4.6
4	Gil Hodges	30.3	25.9	0.539	4.4
5	Todd Helton	39.9	35.6	0.529	4.3
6	Mark Grace	41.1	36.9	0.526	4.1
7	Will Clark	35.3	31.2	0.531	4.1
8	Wally Joyner	34.7	30.8	0.530	3.9
9	Tino Martinez	30.7	27.0	0.532	3.7
10	Pete M. O'Brien	24.7	21.2	0.538	3.5

Article last updated: March 13, 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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