Tommy John's stats as a professional baseball player are legendary and have earned him a place in the Hall of Fame. Help us make this happen when the Historic Committee meets in December 2023 to make their decision.
If you have any doubt on why Tommy John deserves election to the Baseball of Fame, put those doubts to rest based on his stats:
- Major League career spanning 26-years, 26 years (only Nolan Ryan, who IS a member of the Hall of Fame, pitched more years than Tommy John), finishing his career at the age of 46 (oldest active MLB player that season) with a 288 win record - the third-most wins of anyone not in Cooperstown and as the all-time leader for "no-decisions".
- 288 wins, THE MOST of any modern player not elected to the Hall of Fame and with 164 of those 288 wins coming AFTER his pioneering “Tommy John Surgery”; for comparison, Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax won a total of 165 games over his entire career.
- MLB Record 188 “no decisions” – take 12 of these “no decisions” and add them to his 288 wins and Tommy John is a 300-win Pitcher.
- 162 complete games with 91 complete games coming after Tommy John Surgery, and more complete games pitched than 17 current Hall of Fame inducted pitchers[i]
- Three 20-win seasons, with the last 20-win season coming at the age of 35, 35!
- Four All-Star nominations, three of which came after surgery – 1978, 1979, 1980
- Career bWAR of 61.6, with a 3.34 ERA over 4,710 innings (20th-most innings of all time and right behind Hall of Famer Tom Seaver who had 4783 innings pitched)[ii]
- Top 10 finish for 12 different seasons for fewest home runs rendered per nine innings with one of the lowest stats in modern baseball of 0.577 home runs per nine innings.
- MLB Record since 1925 for forcing ground balls that led to 604 double plays[iii]
- Ranks 8th all-time in career starts, starting exactly 700 games in his career. Only Hall of Famer pitchers Cy Young, Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton, Greg Maddux, Phil Niekro, and Steve Carlton started more games
- Seventh most victories for a Southpaw pitcher, behind Hall of Famer pitchers Lefty Grove, Randy Johnson and Tom Glavine
[i] Hall of Fame Pitching Register | Baseball-Reference.com (baseball-reference.com)
[ii] Career Leaders & Records for Innings Pitched | Baseball-Reference.com (baseball-reference.com)
[iii] Tommy John possibly surgin' in HOF debate (mlb.com)
Contact us at:
tommyjohncooperstown@gmail.com
