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Homers in wins and losses

Posted by Andy on November 18, 2009

Let's take a look at post-1954 HR leaders in their team's wins and losses. For starters, here's a little lesson about new capabilities of the PI.

For a long time, we could search for career games in which players hit at least one home run. Here are the top 20:

Rk Player #Matching
1 Hank Aaron 461 Ind. Games
2 Barry Bonds 437 Ind. Games
3 Willie Mays 396 Ind. Games
4 Reggie Jackson 363 Ind. Games
5 Manny Ramirez 362 Ind. Games
6 Ken Griffey 358 Ind. Games
7 Frank Robinson 350 Ind. Games
8 Jim Thome 347 Ind. Games
9 Mike Schmidt 340 Ind. Games
10 Harmon Killebrew 336 Ind. Games
11 Alex Rodriguez 332 Ind. Games
12 Mark McGwire 327 Ind. Games
13 Rafael Palmeiro 320 Ind. Games
14 Eddie Murray 318 Ind. Games
15 Sammy Sosa 317 Ind. Games
16 Gary Sheffield 313 Ind. Games
17 Willie Stargell 312 Ind. Games
18 Willie McCovey 307 Ind. Games
19 Frank Thomas 300 Ind. Games
20 Mickey Mantle 296 Ind. Games
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/15/2009.

But this doesn't tell the entire story since it doesn't take into account multi-homer games. With the new Batting Game Finder, the total stats in such games are also provided and can then be sorted. Re-running the list above and then sorting for total homers gives a new top 20:

Rk Player #Matching PA AB H 2B 3B HR ▾ RBI
1 Hank Aaron 461 Ind. Games 2090 1837 855 72 7 512 1005
2 Barry Bonds 437 Ind. Games 1975 1560 780 74 12 493 917
3 Willie Mays 396 Ind. Games 1784 1582 772 66 11 447 827
4 Manny Ramirez 362 Ind. Games 1626 1390 688 89 5 405 870
5 Ken Griffey 358 Ind. Games 1643 1431 657 72 1 402 805
6 Frank Robinson 350 Ind. Games 1576 1347 673 61 12 396 792
7 Reggie Jackson 363 Ind. Games 1593 1398 660 64 6 396 792
8 Jim Thome 347 Ind. Games 1552 1294 614 72 4 382 727
9 Mark McGwire 327 Ind. Games 1455 1190 543 41 2 381 730
10 Mike Schmidt 340 Ind. Games 1524 1284 585 58 9 381 737
11 Harmon Killebrew 336 Ind. Games 1470 1223 563 30 0 375 743
12 Alex Rodriguez 332 Ind. Games 1576 1376 660 52 5 373 762
13 Sammy Sosa 317 Ind. Games 1447 1289 612 63 7 365 745
14 Rafael Palmeiro 320 Ind. Games 1468 1263 586 56 6 349 685
15 Willie McCovey 307 Ind. Games 1273 1092 521 32 4 346 696
16 Eddie Murray 318 Ind. Games 1427 1265 588 46 1 344 712
17 Gary Sheffield 313 Ind. Games 1422 1196 596 59 4 343 705
18 Willie Stargell 312 Ind. Games 1366 1192 579 59 11 342 694
19 Mickey Mantle 296 Ind. Games 1321 1092 546 35 7 334 612
20 Fred McGriff 290 Ind. Games 1284 1122 546 47 6 325 611
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/15/2009.

Reggie Jackson drops from 4th down to 7th. If I had to guess why, I'd say it's because he played longer than most and added on more games with single homers.

Now here are the most total homers in team losses:

Rk Player #Matching PA AB H 2B 3B HR ▾ RBI
1 Barry Bonds 250 Ind. Games 1087 892 411 38 5 269 427
2 Sammy Sosa 217 Ind. Games 946 853 370 21 3 244 394
3 Hank Aaron 230 Ind. Games 1012 930 400 30 5 242 416
4 Ken Griffey 215 Ind. Games 951 832 351 29 3 228 379
5 Rafael Palmeiro 215 Ind. Games 921 829 350 24 3 220 357
6 Alex Rodriguez 194 Ind. Games 886 769 346 31 2 210 347
7 Mark McGwire 184 Ind. Games 800 684 287 18 0 202 319
8 Ernie Banks 185 Ind. Games 804 757 320 21 6 202 345
9 Frank Thomas 186 Ind. Games 818 711 302 27 1 198 297
10 Harmon Killebrew 187 Ind. Games 792 692 276 11 1 194 312
11 Frank Robinson 181 Ind. Games 790 707 296 20 4 190 286
12 Willie Mays 175 Ind. Games 775 689 302 13 4 189 293
13 Jim Thome 171 Ind. Games 721 617 262 25 0 182 290
14 Dave Kingman 160 Ind. Games 673 634 253 20 5 175 277
15 Willie McCovey 167 Ind. Games 714 617 257 16 0 175 270
16 Fred McGriff 163 Ind. Games 689 612 248 17 0 168 283
17 Reggie Jackson 156 Ind. Games 668 599 226 22 1 167 257
18 Mike Schmidt 160 Ind. Games 683 602 254 22 3 167 283
19 Gary Sheffield 158 Ind. Games 703 606 261 18 0 166 280
20 Dave Winfield 158 Ind. Games 694 634 282 17 1 166 280
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/15/2009.

Hmm, wow, this is interesting. Firstly, Bonds and Sosa pass Aaron for more total homers in losses. I think that can be attributed to 2 general factors: 1) I'm guessing that Aaron's teams had a better overall W-L% than Bonds' or Sosa's teams. Obviously, all other things being equal, playing on better teams makes it harder to hit home runs in losses. 2) In Aaron's day, one guy hitting a home run gave his team a much better chance of winning. With so much more offense these days, a single home run does less to win games for your team and means that guys like Bonds and Sosa tend to have their homers spread more evenly across wins and losses.

A bunch of new names pop up on this top 20 list for homers in losses: Banks, Thomas, Kingman, and Winfield. I suspect that these guys turn up here but not on the top 20 list for team wins because of the same 2 factors I mentioned above.

Related posts:

    Consecutive losses with at least 2 homers
    RBIs in team wins and losses
    Pitchers used in wins vs losses
    Consecutive wins with no homers
    Most Homers After 32nd Birthday

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 7:20 am and is filed under Game Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Responses to “Homers in wins and losses”

  1. DavidRF Says:
    November 18th, 2009 at 9:58 am

    "Reggie Jackson drops from 4th down to 7th. If I had to guess why, I'd say it's because he played longer than most and added on more games with single homers."

    He actually only drops from 4th to T6th. Also, Robinson played longer and Griffey almost as long. They were pretty bunched up already, though, so it could just be a random quirk. Still a bit ironic that the guy with one of the most famous multi-homer games in history loses ground here. 🙂

  2. Andy Says:
    November 18th, 2009 at 10:04 am

    Yeah, it's tough to draw conclusions here. When we look at baseball stats, sometimes we forget just how much strength of team and strength of opponent plays into things.

  3. iiicollies Says:
    November 18th, 2009 at 12:31 pm

    Shouldn't you also look at the difference of the (number of games with at least one hr) and the (total number of HRs). That way you get the ceiling of the number of multiple HR games. (ceiling because of games with >2 HRs). That leave Barry Bonds as the leader (56 diff) with McGwire close behind.

    Also, if you're correlating with lost games, you have to consider what were the total number of runs scored EXCLUSIVELY due to the HR(s). So one possible explanation for Barry leading that list is that his team didn't provide him with as many base runners as the others

  4. Andy Says:
    November 18th, 2009 at 12:55 pm

    These are good points, Iiicollies. For me, it's tough to do any kind of detailed analysis into these numbers because they are so dependent on other factors not measured here. That's why I didn't write too much about what the numbers really mean.

  5. dave Says:
    November 18th, 2009 at 7:17 pm

    You guys need records in these lists.
    Like Jeter has 100 games "doing this" and in those 100 games his team is 75-25

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