51 Responses to “Most Batters In One Season With WAR >=8”

1. Hartvig Says:
   September 2nd, 2011 at 12:05 pm

   Bernard Gilkey- not a name you often hear bantered about when you're talking about the best players in the game

2. buddy Says:
   September 2nd, 2011 at 12:07 pm

   Am I the only one who has never, ever, ever heard of Bernard Gilkey before?

3. Steve Says:
   September 2nd, 2011 at 12:12 pm

   Gilkey had one big season with the Mets.He was a solid ballplayer but not great.

4. Kahuna Tuna Says:
   September 2nd, 2011 at 12:30 pm

   I did not realize that Jim Fregosi had such a terrific season in 1964.

5. Lawrence Azrin Says:
   September 2nd, 2011 at 12:34 pm

   Bernard Gilkey -
   His 1996 was excellent and by far his best year, but 2.2 of his 8.1 WAR that year was for defensive value in left field. Yaz, one of the best LFers ever, exceeded that total only twice. Any Cardinals fans remember how good defensively Gilkey was?

6. Atom Says:
   September 2nd, 2011 at 12:41 pm

   Holy god! The 04 Cards had 3 players with 8 WAR!

7. Jason Moyer Says:
   September 2nd, 2011 at 12:42 pm

   If memory serves, Gilkey was a marginal centerfielder who played left because the Muts had Lance Johnson. I also seem to remember that he had a huge arm, surely the 18 assists he had in left field in 96 was among the league leaders.

8. Andy Says:
   September 2nd, 2011 at 12:45 pm

   Gilkey was viewed as a good young player who came up around the same time as Ray Lankford. Lankford overshadowed Gilkey. Ultimately neither guy became the star that many expected. They remind me of Jerome Walton and Dwight Smith with the Cubs, right down to the fact that both Lankford and Walton did have long good careers, just not as big stars (though Lankford's numbers are better than most realize.)

9. Sean S Says:
   September 2nd, 2011 at 12:59 pm

   Gilkey's 1996 season deserves mention among the alltime "WTF?" seasons.

   One thing that strikes me is how many names on this list are HOFers, future HOFers, or at least really good candidates. Almost everyone who has ever been good enough to put up 8 WAR in a season has had a great career. It might be interesting to see what players had the worst careers among those who put up 8 WAR in a single season.

10. Steve Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 1:04 pm

    8 Yep,I remember them coming up wit lots of hype(along with Zeile at catcher?).Walton and Smith were much hyped as well.Lankford and Gilkey were beer than thm,Lankford was pretty good in fact.Gilkey had the big year and some decent years.

11. Jim Dunne Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 1:05 pm

    @6, Atom

    The 2004 Cardinals had 105 wins and were actually the favorites going into the World Series with the Red Sox - a lot of people forget that, because only one of the four games in the Series really felt competitive. That lineup was stacked, but their mediocre-ish starting pitching did them in against an also strong Sox lineup. Their only "quality start" was by Jason Marquis in Game 4, and even he walked 7 in 7 innings - he was very lucky to escape only having allowed 3 runs.

    @8, Andy

    Yeah, Gilkey and Lankford are sort of forever linked in my head. Both turned into good players, but something short of superstars. Lankford was a top prospect, though (#19 in Baseball America's 1990 rankings), and because of that, I always felt like he was never given enough credit for being a very good player because people thought he would become a great one (see also: JD Drew).

12. Steve Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 1:05 pm

    7 Gilkey was always a LF.

13. Steve Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 1:07 pm

    9 Well he had 155 OPS+ that year but he also had a 135 season and a 120 so it wasn't that out of line.

14. w.k.kortas Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    @4;

    A big part of that was having to play in a pitching-dominant era in a rough hitters park, plus a good chunk of that number is his defensive WAR. which in the context of his career was a bit fluky. Fregosi was a hell of a player, though.

15. Jimbo Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 1:09 pm

    @5

    Somehow Barry Bonds had a 3.9 dWAR in 1989. Is that the record for a LF? What are the single season dWAR records by position?

    He followed that with a 2.9 dWAR in '90.

    For all his controversies, he really excelled in absolutely every part of the game except pitching, and did everything but win a ring.

16. Blurr Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 1:22 pm

    Gilkey, Lankford, Walton. oh the Donruss Rated Rookie cards of these guys are permanently burned into my brain.

17. Steve Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 1:30 pm

    13 Whoops,the 135 was for a very small number of games.He did have seasons of 128 and 127 though.

18. Evil Squirrel Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 1:34 pm

    Brian Jordan also came up with St. Louis shortly after Gilkey and Lankford and had a rather nice career himself. The three were together in the outfield for a couple years until Gilkey departed for the Mets in 1996.

19. Doug Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 1:41 pm

    @9, Sean S.

    "Almost everyone who has ever been good enough to put up 8 WAR in a season has had a great career".

    Maybe should amend that to "good career". There are a goodly number of names that most would not characterize as having a "great career", depending on how you define "great". Some of them might be: Marcus Giles, Scott Rolen, Lonnie Smith, Bret Boone, Snuffy Stirnweiss, Will Clark, Rico Petrocelli, Jim Wynn, Scott Rolen and probably others.

20. Jimbo Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    I like how you listed Scott Rolen twice, and yet if there's anyone on that list that maybe did have a great career, it was him (honourable mention Will Clark).

21. Jimbo Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 2:10 pm

    In fact, looking at the career WAR of Scott Rolen, it's hard to say he hasn't had a great career, with 66.3 WAR.

    Will Clark's 57.6 is pretty great too. It ranks over guys who would commonly be considered to have great careers like Carlos Delgado, Fred McGriff, and John Olerud, to name a handful of ex Blue Jay great 1b hitters.

22. PhilM Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 2:12 pm

    I believe Gilkey has a cameo in the first Men in Black movie, when he loses a fly ball in the UFO. . . .

23. Lawrence Azrin Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 2:12 pm

    @15/ Jimbo -
    I always wondered why Barry Bonds never played CF regularly after his rookie year, if he was such a great defensive outfielder - was his arm _that_ weak (the 1992 Braves might agree with that...)?

    According the defensive leaderboards for Total Zone Rating, Bonds' 1989 season is the 4th best ever by ANY defensive player since 1950,
    with no LFers ahead of him, and none really close to him.

    two problems with this:
    - this goes back only to 1950, w/complete seasons only since 1974
    - is Total Zone Rating the same as dWAR? They seem to be the same for Bond's 1989 season.

24. Steve Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    22 Yeah,the UFO that was disguised as a Worlds Fair exhibit.

25. Steve Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 2:15 pm

    23 I saw a lot of Bonds against the Mets and Braves(thanks to TBS),and I simply don't remember him being a great outfielder.

26. Chris Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 2:26 pm

    @22 - I remember Gilkey more for his part in "Men In Black" than anything he did on an actual baseball field.

27. Artie Z Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 2:27 pm

    @23 - Bonds' weak arm, and, while he has negative dWAR after 1989, Andy Van Slyke was winning Gold Gloves in CF for the Pirates. When Bonds went to SF they had Darren Lewis, who played pretty good defense. By the time Lewis left SF Bonds was in his 30s, and I doubt it probably wouldn't have made sense to move him back then.

    The 6 guys who posted 8+ WAR in 1912 were pretty good.

28. Michael Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 2:30 pm

    @24
    Great...couldn't have said . Movie is ruined now.
    (I keed).

    You have to stand in sheer awe of that 2004 Cards team. MV3 and then some.

29. Johnny Twisto Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 2:47 pm

    Yes, Total Zone is the defensive rating used in B-R WAR. TZ = Rfield = dWAR.

30. howard rosen Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    @8...Jerome Walton didn't have a long, good career. He played parts of ten seasons which I guess could be considered long but he was a marginal player after his rookie year which wasn't all that good anyway.

31. Jimbo Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    @23

    I don't know what you guys think, or if I'm just biased because Bonds was my favourite player to watch, but I always thought that the infamous play where Bonds failed to throw out Sid Bream was not a bad throw at all, and was in fact better than at least 90% of throws I see. It seemed like a quick release, slightly off line but a strong throw from how deep he fielded the ball. If anything, it was his positioning that off, but the throw to me still looks quite good. Not great, but far better than most throws to the plate I see in MLB games.

    Don't know where to see a good video of it, here is a bad one...it's at the very end.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5I-MAUn4mA

32. Jimbo Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 3:12 pm

    And damn, that was a close play!

33. Dr. Doom Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 3:13 pm

    Best quotation regarding Bernard Gilkey ever, from the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (page 591 of the paperback edition):

    "Many people who are casual baseball fans will confuse Honus Wagner and Rogers Hornsby, based just on the facts that they were both truly great players, both middle infielders, they both played a long time ago, and their names sound a little bit alike.
    A more inappropriate confusion is hard to imagine; it's kind of like confusing Ken Griffey with Bernard Gilkey."

34. Cameron Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 3:14 pm

    Does anyone know the explanation for the stock comment image? I have no problem with it but it seems like an odd stock photo to use. Also Adam Dunn has a higher OBP. than Slugging Percentage, has anyone with at least 400 PAs ever done that?

35. Steve Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    11 Yeah,they got swept yet an 83 win Cards team wins a WS.

36. Lawrence Azrin Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    @27/ Artie Z. - Thanks, I forgot that Van Slyke got traded from the Cardinals to the Pirates in 1988. Still it seems kinda strange that after 1988, Bonds played a grand total of 9 games in CF for the Pirates, and 6 games in CF for the Giants.

    Van Slyke missed a lot of games in CF for the Pirates from 1988-92 (an average of over 20 a year), so it's not as if Bonds didn't have the opportunity to occasionally fill in at CF. Or maybe he didn't want to be moved back and forth between LF and CF.

37. Lawrence Azrin Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 3:47 pm

    @29/ Johnny Twisto - Thanks for the explanation

    @34/ Cameron - "... Also Adam Dunn has a higher OBP than Slugging Percentage, has anyone with at least 400 PAs ever done that?"

    Cameron, there are several players that have done this over an entire career, mostly little lead-off type hitters with no HR power: Richie Ashburn, Miller Huggins, Ozzie Smith, and Roy Thomas (the most extreme: OBA: .413, SLG: .333). Luis Castillo is the most well-known current (?) one.

    I'm guessing the single best season of OBA>SLG is Wee Willie Keeler in 1898 - 216 hits, 206 of them singles (7 2B, 2 3B, 1 HR)!

38. Bastaducci Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    @ 23.

    It just goes to show you how little defensive WAR means. I think offensive WAR has much use but defensive WAR has no use and is the reason WAR is useless.Bonds was a fine LF for alot of his career so don't get me wrong..but there has never been a LF that should have the 4th highest WAR since 1950. using WAR as a guide to who the best player is is like using batting average. it don't tell the truth. every starting Catcher,3B and shortstop in the league should have a higher defensive WAR that year than Bonds. until that is fixed WAR will continue to mean nothing.

39. Jeff Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 4:34 pm

    @31.

    The funny thing about that famous Bonds/Bream play was that Andy Van Slyke(a notorious hater of Bonds) supposedly told Bonds to move further left on the field towards him, not towards the line. If that were the case, Bonds wouldn't have had to throw against his body and Bream would definitely be out.

    With that said, Bonds was the best at virtually everything he did on a baseball field.

40. Jeff Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    @38.

    Not if that Catcher, 3B or SS sucked at his position.

41. Johnny Twisto Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 5:12 pm

    every starting Catcher,3B and shortstop in the league should have a higher defensive WAR that year than Bonds. until that is fixed WAR will continue to mean nothing

    dWAR as presented on this site is *not* actually defensive value. It is very misleading and everyone gets confused by it. It is only the player's performance compared to the average player at his position.

    If you want to see actual defensive value, you need to look at Rfield plus Rpos. That will show the best catchers and shortstops being the most valuable defenders. It is not a problem with WAR, but with its presentation.

42. BSK Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 6:11 pm

    Jeff @39

    Not sure that makes much sense. If you watch the replay (better quality here: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=13062933), you see that Bonds had to move to his left to get to the ball. If he had been further to the right (meaning he ignored Van Slyke's supposed advice to move to the left and closer to center), he would have been farther from the ball, meaning having to take an angle farther away from the plate to reach it, might not have reached it at all, or would have had an even harder throw.

    All things considered, Bonds made a good throw. If people put the result of that play or series on him, shame on them.

    In general, I always wonder why we have such different expectations for the throws that infielders make versus those made by catchers and outfielders. I realize that there is more margin for error for much infield throws, since they are generally trying to force guys, meaning they only have to get the ball close enough so that the receiver can catch it while maintaining contact with the bag. And, obviously, the throw is shorter and guys often have a chance to set themselves. But the guys still seem to throw pretty much exactly where they need to with a high rate of frequency. Contrast that with catchers or, more egregiously, outfielders, who routinely throw the ball in only the general area of where they want it to go. A SS gets an error if he bounces a throw and draws the 1B off the bag (and rightfully so). But does a CF get an error if he throws the ball up the 1B line allowing a guy to score who might otherwise have been out by 10 feet? I know they'll give the guy an error if they launch it over someone's head and allow guys to advance. But why do we excuse throws that allow guys to reach safely when there was a good to great shot at getting them out with an accurate throw?

43. Lawrence Azrin Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 6:31 pm

    Bastaducci -
    "@ 23. It just goes to show you how little defensive WAR means. I think offensive WAR has much use but defensive WAR has no use and is the reason WAR is useless..."

    I don't think defensive WAR is useless, that's a great exaggeration. True, it's not as accurate as offensive WAR, but it's in the general ballpark of separating out good, about average, and not-so-good. It's not making any gross errors, such as (for example) calling Dick Stuart, Dave Kingman or Babe Herman above-average (or even average) defensive players. Also, several positions, such as catcher and first base, are just harder to evaluate fairly.

    Another point - defensive performance is not a constant, it can vary quite a lot from year to year. Even the very greatest and most consistent players, such as Stan Musial or Hank Aaron, varied some in their offensive performance from year to year. It is not unreasonable to expect defensive value to also vary a lot.

44. Lawrence Azrin Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 6:32 pm

    @43/ Sorry, I was referring to #38 above.

45. Jimbo Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    I like to view dWar as a stat that has to be appreciated in a larger volume than a single season. Over a large sample of seasons, dWAR is almost always accurate to how a player was evaluated by his peers.

    Roberto Alomar and Derek Jeter being my main exceptions that I know of, they are evaluated by media, coaches and fans as being great defenders, but dWar says they are/were bad.

46. Steve Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 7:31 pm

    Somehow Lonnie "Skates" Smith is a career positive in dWAR.

47. Marty Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 10:28 pm

    has anyone ever compiled a list best roto seasons, i am a fan of fantasy baseball and a list of the best fantasy seasons from the last 25 years would be interesting.

48. mccombe35 Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 11:51 pm

    Marcus Giles 2003 season being at 8.1 really makes me question WAR.

    In the history of the White Sox 8.1+ only happened 3 times.

49. Bastaducci Says:
    September 2nd, 2011 at 11:52 pm

    @40 even a sucky catchers defense is means more than the best LF. almost any player in the league can play LF. the same does not hold true at catcher.

    @41. yes I know. but WAR is what people are talking about here and using to compare players at different positions to each other.

    @43 I get your point and I do understand where you are coming from. but many of the numbers guys(which I am 1 of) think WAR is the be all end all of stats and IMO it is erratic. many guys cover more ground and in turn get errors that another guy would never have gotten and it hurts their WAR. many guys play on fields that are in worse shape and get errors that the pallbark factors do not pick up.many guys play under worse pitching staffs and many of them have much harder balls to catch. so many factors that can not now or probably ever be calculated correctly. but, I can live with that but my problem with DWAR is they do not separate the hardness of positions enough. anytime I see a 1st basemen with a better WAR than 1 of the other infielders it bothers me.

    Now don't get me to be hard headed and just wanting to argue because that is not what I am doing. but there is some very intelligent guys on here who use common sense every time they write and I respect many of the people here and I don't know of a better place to discuss this subject than here and that is what I am attempting to do. I guess what I hope is enough people pick up what I am talking about( and many do) to where eventually it will cause the WAR geniuses to adjust it so it does mean more. because I really do love the idea of WAR and its attempt to roll up everything into 1 to come up with the best rating possible

    @ 45 someone here gave a great example of doug flynn 1 day and how lowly his DWAR was. and trust..Flynn could field or he would not of even been in the league because he could not hit for chit. and many times I am looking over guys who can field when going through stats and I see major differences in DWAR value and what was actually the truth.

50. Johnny Twisto Says:
    September 3rd, 2011 at 1:22 am

    yes I know. but WAR is what people are talking about here and using to compare players at different positions to each other.

    WAR *can* (and is intended to) be used to compare players at different positions to each other. "dWAR" cannot. It is only a comparison within position.

    Please let me know what you're not understanding, because from the rest of your comment it seems you're not, i.e. "anytime I see a 1st basemen with a better WAR than 1 of the other infielders it bothers me."

51. Andy Says:
    September 3rd, 2011 at 7:04 am

    @30, yeah I forgot that although Walton appeared in 10 seasons, he averaged only 60 games per season. I also was giving him more credit than he was due for his 1996 season with the Braves, where he helped them win some games and make the playoffs...he actually only played 37 games with them.