Willie Stargell

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Willie Stargell

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Willie Stargell

Willie Stargell was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, 1988, with 82.4% of the vote.

Five highlights of Willie Stargell's career:

Willie Stargell's given first name was Wilver, a combination of his father’s first name, William, and his mother’s maiden name, Vernell.

Willie Stargell was named to seven All-Star teams and received MVP votes eleven times. Stargell finished second, third, and second in MVP voting in 1971, 1972, and 1973.

Willie Stargell was named NL Comeback Player of the Year in 1978 (awarded by the Sporting News at that time). He followed that up by sharing the 1979 NL MVP award with Keith Hernandez of the St. Louis Cardinals.

In addition to sharing the regular-season MVP, Stargell was named MVP of both the 1979 National League Championship Series and World Series. Stargell batted .455/.571/1.182 in the 1979 NLCS with 2 home runs, 6 RBI, and 5 runs scored. He then batted .400/.375/.833 with 3 home runs, 7 RBI, and 7 runs scored in the World Series.

A statue of Willie Stargell is outside of PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Willie Stargell died the same day the first regular-season major-league game was played at PNC Park, April 9, 2001.

The first two tables below present Willie Stargell'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
1962	PIT	22	10	0.6	1.0	-0.4	-0.5
1963	PIT	23	108	9.3	10.1	-0.6	-1.6
1964	PIT	24	117	12.5	12.3	0.4	-0.9
1965	PIT	25	144	19.0	16.1	3.3	1.5
1966	PIT	26	140	21.1	13.8	8.0	6.3
1967	PIT	27	133	16.8	15.0	2.0	0.4
1968	PIT	28	127	16.6	15.9	0.8	-0.8
1969	PIT	29	145	19.1	15.7	3.9	2.1
1970	PIT	30	136	18.6	15.7	3.2	1.5
1971	PIT	31	141	23.0	13.9	9.8	8.0
1972	PIT	32	138	20.3	13.0	7.4	5.7
1973	PIT	33	148	25.5	17.3	9.0	6.9
1974	PIT	34	140	21.9	15.5	7.0	5.2
1975	PIT	35	124	15.7	10.9	4.8	3.6
1976	PIT	36	117	11.3	10.2	1.1	0.0
1977	PIT	37	63	5.7	4.0	1.8	1.3
1978	PIT	38	120	13.9	9.7	4.5	3.3
1979	PIT	39	126	14.4	10.3	4.4	3.1
1980	PIT	40	67	6.4	5.3	1.1	0.6
1981	PIT	41	38	1.6	1.7	0.1	-0.1
1982	PIT	42	74	2.4	2.6	0.2	-0.1
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,356	295.7	230.0	71.8	45.7
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			36	4.4	3.8	0.6	0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,392	300.1	233.8	72.5	46.0

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1962	PIT	22	10	0.7	0.9	-0.1	-0.2
1963	PIT	23	108	9.7	9.7	0.3	-0.6
1964	PIT	24	117	13.0	11.8	1.3	0.1
1965	PIT	25	144	19.1	16.0	3.6	1.9
1966	PIT	26	140	20.3	14.6	6.2	4.5
1967	PIT	27	133	17.1	14.7	2.8	1.2
1968	PIT	28	127	17.5	15.0	2.9	1.3
1969	PIT	29	145	19.7	15.1	5.2	3.5
1970	PIT	30	136	18.8	15.5	3.7	2.0
1971	PIT	31	141	22.6	14.3	9.0	7.1
1972	PIT	32	138	18.9	14.5	4.6	3.0
1973	PIT	33	148	25.7	17.2	9.3	7.2
1974	PIT	34	140	21.4	15.9	6.1	4.3
1975	PIT	35	124	15.3	11.2	4.0	2.8
1976	PIT	36	117	11.7	9.8	1.9	0.9
1977	PIT	37	63	5.6	4.1	1.6	1.1
1978	PIT	38	120	13.5	10.0	3.8	2.7
1979	PIT	39	126	14.1	10.6	3.9	2.6
1980	PIT	40	67	6.7	4.9	1.9	1.4
1981	PIT	41	38	1.6	1.7	0.1	-0.1
1982	PIT	42	74	2.5	2.5	0.5	0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,356	295.7	230.1	72.8	46.6
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			36	4.5	3.6	1.0	0.6
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,392	300.2	233.7	73.7	47.2

In the past, I identified Willie Stargell as "the closest player to the average Hall-of-Famer" as measured by Player won-lost records. While Player won-lost records do not think that Stargell was a particularly bad baserunner or fielder, it is nevertheless the case that Stargell's value was overwhelmingly as a hitter. For his career, Stargell batted .282/.360/.529 with 475 home runs and 1,540 RBI. He did much of this in very low run-scoring environments such that his raw numbers probably understate the true value of his batting. Perhaps more reflective of his value, Stargell received MVP votes eleven times, with six top-10 finishes including a somewhat dubious co-MVP award in 1979 and consecutive finishes of second, third, and second in MVP voting in 1971, 1972, and 1973.

Willie Stargell had 400 plate appearances in a season for the first time in 1964 and for the last time in 1979. Over those 16 seasons, Willie Stargell was arguably the best hitter in baseball, at least as measured by (context-neutral) batting wins over non-pitcher average over those 16 seasons.

		Top 10 Batting Wins over Non-Pitcher Average (1964 - 1979)
		eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
1	Willie Stargell	202.0	141.1	55.4
2	Willie McCovey	196.1	137.3	53.5
3	Dick Allen	177.2	122.3	50.8
4	Hank Aaron	181.8	127.0	50.4
5	Frank Robinson	165.0	113.0	48.5
6	Carl Yastrzemski	220.1	168.2	48.2
7	Reggie Jackson	176.2	125.9	48.2
8	Harmon Killebrew	160.0	112.3	44.1
9	Joe L. Morgan	184.5	137.3	42.0
10	Jimmy Wynn	170.7	127.5	38.5

Positional Average excludes pitcher offense

It is, of course, a time period cherry-picked to be most favorable to Stargell - although it includes several seasons, mostly at both ends, which were below Stargell's career standards. But it is also a 16-year stretch where Willie Stargell ranks first in the most important component of value for non-pitchers.

Article last updated: October 7, 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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