Just for fun, and because I was surprised by Buckner’s low WAR rating even in his batting championship season, I thought I’d look up other NL batting champions in the same era and compare them to Buckner in 1980.
Turns out that one of these fellows doesn’t belong.
I looked at the NL champs from 1970 to 1990, so there were ten years on each side of Buckner. It’s an impressive group. Three Hall of Famers (Gwynn four titles, Raines one, Billy Williams one), and some other terrific players (Rose, Torre, Dave Parker, Keith Hernandez), along with some other folks I think of as being in roughly the same league as Buckner–Bill Madlock, Willie McGee, Al Oliver, Rico Carty–and one I think of as below that level, that one being Ralph Garr in 1974.
Buckner’s OPS in his batting-champion year was .810, which is of course good. But it ranks 20th of the 21 seasons, beating out only Gwynn in 1988. He’s barely behind two others. Fifteen of the seasons are better than .850. Ten are above .900. In this company, .810’s not so hot.
It’s WAR, though, where Buckner really stands out and not in a good way. His 1980 WAR was 1.5. Next worst of these 21 seasons was 2.4, by Madlock in 1983. Gwynn at 2.5 in 1989 is the only other one under 3. Well over half are over 5, and Gwynn in 1987, Rose in '73, and McGee is '85 are all over 8. “One of these things is not like the others…”
It’s not just defense. Buckner’s oWAR in 1980 was 2.1. Next lowest: Madlock in '81 at 3.4. Almost everybody’s over 4. Torre had the highest, 8.6.
I looked up the career WAR figures for these guys as well. Another eye-opener. Buckner did beat out Garr, barely, 15.1 to 14.8, but he didn’t achieve even half the WAR of anybody else. Carty 32.6, McGee 34.2, Madlock 38.2, Parker 40.1, Oliver 43.7. The rest of them well above that.
I also scanned the AL leaders, same time frame. It’s full of Bretts and Boggses and Carews, though, and at a glance it looks like Carew in '72 and Willie Wilson in '82 are the only ones coming in behind Buckner in OPS (and not by much), and all of them that I can see are way ahead of Buckner in yearly WAR and (except for Alex Johnson in 1970) career WAR.
So Buckner really stands out. I don’t know why WAR downgrades him so much, but in this crowd it sure is noticeable! Not to say he wasn’t a good player, because 15.1 WAR and 22 years of the major leagues is very far from nothing. Still, I would not have thought of him as half as good as McGee or Madlock or Oliver…