Class of: 2001 (BBWAA, 84.5%)
Team: Padres
Key Stats: 465 HR, 59.9 WAR, 1833 RBI
Oh, I can see people being upset about this one. How could someone I ranked in the top-60 before fall this far? Well, I have a lot of reasons for that. First, remember that I’m emphasizing peak-value in this study, and while Winfield was of course awesome in his peak, that peak wasn’t quite as high as a few other right fielders in the Hall of Fame. Also, since the last time I did this study, we’ve seen another right fielder inducted that put up similar totals (other than hits) to Winfield in much fewer games via Vlad Guerrero, so Winfield gets dinged slightly for that. Also, here are two slash lines. One belongs to Winfield, and the other belongs to another Hall of Famer who people were disappointed with for his selection. Player A: .298/.352/.502 (128 wRC+). Player B: .283/.353/.475 (128 wRC+). If you picked Player B, you’d be right. Player A is Jim Rice, who’s slash line is nearly identical to Winfield’s. While Winfield’s bulk puts him ahead of Rice, his lack of a strong peak limits how highly he can rank.
Winfield was famous for being drafted in baseball, basketball and football (a sport he didn’t even play) because of how great of an athlete he was coming out of college. Thankfully, he chose baseball and was a dominant offensive force throughout his career. After a couple of average years to begin his career, Winfield blossomed with the Padres in 1976 with a 132 wRC+, 4.6 WAR and 13 homers in 137 games. From 1976 until 1988, Winfield continuously flirted with great numbers. He would hit 20 or more homers ten times, with three 30-homer seasons while driving in over 90 runs in ten seasons as well. The lowest his wRC+ was during that stretch was 116, which he only dropped close to twice. Most of his peak featured a wRC+ of at least 130, and he had a wRC+ above 150 twice. Winfield was worth at least 3 wins nearly every year during that span, only dropping below that mark twice. One of the impressive parts of his peak was how well he was performing while signing one of the first large free agent deals in the game. Following the 1980 season, Winfield signed a 10-year deal worth over $23 million with the Yankees. However, Winfield’s relationship with Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner would deteriorate quickly and Steinbrenner would attempt several times to trade the contract to remove what he thought was an impediment to the team. Winfield’s accomplishments are incredible given the context of the crazy strain he must have been under due to Steinbrenner’s antics.
Winfield lost the entire 1989 season due to back surgery, and that began a long decline phase to conclude his career. From 1990, his first year back in the game, until his retirement in 1995 Winfield had one more good season (a 3.8-WAR, 26-homer season in 1992 with the Jays), but was mostly a replacement level player or worse. Any defensive value that he had early in his career was essentially gone now and while he had some power (at least 21 homers in four of the last six years of his career), he didn’t do a lot outside of those homers. But Winfield kept playing in order to reach the legendary milestone of 3000 hits as well as 400 homers, both seen at the time as rubber stamps for the Hall of Fame (the former more so than the latter).
When Winfield retired, he ranked in the top-20 of hits (15), homers (19) and RBI (12). By traditional measures, he was an incredible player. By more advanced measures, he’s still good, but not quite as good as at first glance. A 128 wRC+ is the same career value as Rice as well as Zack Wheat and Roger Bresnahan. His 59.9 WAR ranked 93rd at his retirement, and lower than Max Carey, Reggie Smith and Bobby Wallace among others. During his career, while he was one of the top players, Darryl Strawberry, Reggie Jackson, Tony Gwynn and other right fielders were able to put up a better wRC+ than Winfield. Winfield did have more homers and RBI than other right fielders during his career, but it’d be difficult to say he was the best one during his career.
Despite some demerits to his case (i.e., not as high a peak, lower rate stats than his peers), Winfield still had a remarkable career. Only a small handful of players have been able to reach the levels that Winfield was able to attain, and that’s because he really was one of the best players in the history of the game. His decline period while chasing the milestone numbers reduced his rate stats, but the sheer bulk and productivity of Winfield’s career assured his place as one of the best players in the game’s history.
Baseball From the Outside 