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70-780: This is a list of award winners and league leaders for the Athletics of Major League Baseball . The team was known as the Philadelphia Athletics from 1901 to 1954 , the Kansas City Athletics from 1955 to 1967 , and the Oakland Athletics from 1968 to 2024 . Designated hitter First baseman Third baseman Outfield The award is given to the Athletics' most inspirational player. Athletics (baseball) The Athletics (often referred to as

140-720: A new ballpark on the Las Vegas Strip , finalizing their plans to relocate to the Las Vegas area. On May 9, 2023, the Athletics switched their planned location in the Las Vegas area to the site of the Tropicana Las Vegas hotel and casino, which was subsequently demolished in October to construct a 33,000-seat partially retractable ballpark and a 1,500-room hotel and casino. By June 15, 2023, Nevada governor Joe Lombardo signed an MLB stadium funding bill known as SB1 into law after

210-577: A 4–1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles at the Coliseum , in front of an opening-night crowd of 50,164. With four locations, the A's have had the most home cities of any MLB team. The Athletics' name originated in the term "Athletic Club" for local gentlemen's clubs—dates to 1860 when an amateur baseball team, the Athletic (Club) of Philadelphia , was formed. The team later turned professional in 1875, becoming

280-534: A batter can reach base besides a hit – as a batter on base can score runs, and runs, not hits, win ballgames. Even though slugging percentage and an early form of on-base percentage (OBP) – which takes into accounts base on balls ("walks") and hit-by-pitches – date to at least 1941, pre-dating both Bill James (born 1949) and SABR (formed 1971), enhanced focus was put on the relationship of times on base and run scoring by early SABR-era baseball statistical pioneers. SA and OBP were combined to create

350-757: A charter member of the National League in 1876, but were expelled from the N.L. after one season. A later version of the Athletics played in the American Association from 1882 to 1891. The familiar blackletter "A" is one of the oldest sports logos still in use. An image in Harper's Weekly with the rival Brooklyn Atlantics shows that the "A" appeared on the original Athletics' uniform as early as 1866. After New York Giants manager John McGraw told reporters that Philadelphia manufacturer Benjamin Shibe , who owned

420-411: A job he held until 2015, and hired his assistant Paul DePodesta . During the 2002 season, a noted "moneyball" Oakland A's team went on to win 20 games in a row, a term (and approach to the game) which soon gained national recognition when Michael Lewis published Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (where "unfair" reflected the disparity in resources available to the big market teams versus

490-440: A pitcher has a high BABIP, they will often show improvements in the following season, while a pitcher with low BABIP will often show a decline in the following season. This is based on the statistical concept of regression to the mean . Others have created various means of attempting to quantify individual pitches based on characteristics of the pitch, as opposed to runs earned or balls hit. Value over replacement player (VORP)

560-411: A pitcher is likely to put a player on base (either via walk, hit-by-pitch, or base hit) and thus how effective batters are against a particular pitcher in reaching base. A later development was the creation of defense independent pitching statistics (DIPS) system. Voros McCracken has been credited with the development of this system in 1999. Through his research, McCracken was able to show that there

630-555: A rivalry with the Los Angeles Angels since their relocation to California in 1968, and the charter membership of both teams in the AL West in 1969. The A's and Angels have often competed for the division title. The peak of the rivalry was during the early part of the millennium as both teams were perennial contenders. During the 2002 season, the A's famous "Moneyball" tactics led them to a league record 20-game winning streak, knocking

700-400: Is all-black, initially with the green and white-trimmed "A's" wordmark, before switching to a white and gold-trimmed "A's" wordmark. Commercially popular but rarely chosen as the alternate by players, the black uniform was retired in 2011 in favor of a gold alternate jersey. The gold alternate has "A's" in green trimmed in white on the left chest. With the exception of several road games during

770-430: Is also heavily dependent on the pitcher's team, particularly on the number of runs it scores. Sabermetricians have attempted to find different measures of pitching performance that exclude the performances of the fielders involved. One of the earliest developed, and one of the most popular in use, is walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP), which while not completely defense-independent, tends to indicate how many times

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840-583: Is another popular sabermetric statistic for evaluating a player's contributions to his team. Similar to VORP, WAR compares a given player to a replacement-level player in order to determine the number of additional wins the player provides to his team relative to an average ballplayer at his position. WAR, like VORP a cumulative statistic, heavily reflects the amount of a player's playing time. "Static" statistics based on simple ratios of already accumulated data (like batting average) and accumulative tallies (such as pitching wins) do not fully reveal all aspects of

910-401: Is forest green with a gold bill and white lettering. This design was also the basis of their batting helmet, which is used both at home and on the road. The road cap, which initially debuted in 1993, is all-forest green. The first version had the white "A's" wordmark before it was changed to gold the following season. An all-forest green batting helmet was paired with this cap until 2008. In 2014,

980-562: Is little to no difference between pitchers in the number of hits they allow on balls put into play – regardless of their skill level. Some examples of these statistics are defense-independent ERA , fielding independent pitching, and defense-independent component ERA . Other sabermetricians have furthered the work in DIPS, such as Tom Tango who runs the Tango on Baseball sabermetrics website. Baseball Prospectus created another statistics called

1050-410: Is the earned run average (ERA). It is calculated as earned runs allowed per nine innings. Earned run average does not separate the ability of the pitcher from the abilities of the fielders that he plays with. Another classic measure for pitching is a pitcher's winning percentage . Winning percentage is calculated by dividing wins by the total number of decisions (wins plus losses). Winning percentage

1120-664: The A's ) are an American professional baseball team based in West Sacramento, California . The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West Division . The team will play its home games at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento for the 2025–2027 seasons before its permanent move to Las Vegas . While in West Sacramento, the team is being referred to as simply

1190-664: The California Golden Seals ' relocation to Cleveland in 1976, the Golden State Warriors ' move across the bay to San Francisco in 2019, and the Oakland Raiders ' move to Las Vegas in 2020, the Athletics were left as the sole remaining professional sports team in Oakland. However, on April 20, 2023, the Athletics announced they had entered a land purchase agreement with Red Rock Resort located near Las Vegas to build

1260-503: The Democratic Party 's symbol is a donkey .) Since 1988 , the Athletics' 21st season in Oakland, an illustration of an elephant has adorned the left sleeve of the A's home and road uniforms. Beginning in the mid-1980s, the on-field costumed incarnation of the A's elephant mascot went by the name Harry Elephante, a play on the name of singer Harry Belafonte . In 1997 , he became Stomper , debuting Opening Night on April 2. Over

1330-470: The Haas family, the team changed its primary color to a more subdued forest green in 1982 and began a move back to more traditional uniforms. The 2023 team wore home uniforms with "Athletics" spelled out in script writing and road uniforms with "Oakland" spelled out in script writing, with the cap logo consisting of the traditional "A" with "apostrophe-s". The home cap, which was also the team's road cap until 1992,

1400-616: The Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. , becoming the Washington Nationals in 2005. The Bay Bridge Series is the name of a series of games played between (and the rivalry of) the A's and San Francisco Giants of the National League . The series takes its name from the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge which links the cities of Oakland and San Francisco. Although competitive, the regional rivalry between

1470-656: The New York Mets in 1984, he arranged for a team employee to write a dBASE II application to compile and store advanced metrics on team statistics. Craig R. Wright was another employee in MLB, working with the Texas Rangers in the early 1980s. During his time with the Rangers, he became known as the first front office employee in MLB history to work under the title "sabermetrician". David Smith founded Retrosheet in 1989, with

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1540-466: The box score in New York City in 1858. This was the first way statisticians were able to describe the sport of baseball by numerically tracking various aspects of game play. The creation of the box score has given baseball statisticians a summary of the individual and team performances for a given game. What would become the earliest Sabermetrics research in the 1970s and 1980s began in the middle of

1610-418: The peripheral ERA . This measure of a pitcher's performance takes hits, walks, home runs allowed, and strikeouts while adjusting for ballpark factors. Each ballpark has different dimensions when it comes to the outfield wall so a pitcher should not be measured the same for each of these parks. Batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is another useful measurement for determining pitchers’ performance. When

1680-508: The " Swingin' A's ", under owner Charlie O. Finley they won three consecutive World Series in 1972 , 1973 , and 1974 , led by players including Vida Blue , Catfish Hunter , Reggie Jackson , and Rollie Fingers . After being sold by Finley to Walter A. Haas Jr. , the team won three consecutive pennants and the 1989 World Series behind the " Bash Brothers ", Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire , as well as Hall of Famers Dennis Eckersley , Rickey Henderson and manager Tony La Russa . In 2002,

1750-506: The "A's" wordmark returned to white but added gold trim. From 1994 until 2013, the A's wore green alternate jerseys with the word "Athletics" in gold, for both road and home games. During the 2000s, the Athletics introduced black as one of their colors. They began wearing a black alternate jersey with "Athletics" written in green. After a brief discontinuance, the A's brought back the black jersey, this time with "Athletics" written in white with gold highlights. The cap paired with this jersey

1820-732: The "Athletics" and "A's", with no city name attached. The franchise's nine World Series championships, fifteen pennants, and seventeen division titles are the second-most in the AL after the New York Yankees . One of the AL's eight charter franchises, the team was founded in Philadelphia in 1901 as the Philadelphia Athletics . They won three World Series championships in 1910 , 1911 , and 1913 , and back-to-back titles in 1929 and 1930 . The team's owner and manager for its first 50 years

1890-512: The "Athletics" wordmark. Prior to the mid-2010s, the A's had a long-standing tradition of wearing white cleats team-wide (in line with the standard MLB practice that required all uniformed team members to wear a base cleat color), which dated to the Finley ownership. Since the mid-2010s, however, MLB has gradually relaxed its shoe color rules, and several A's players began wearing cleats in non-white colors, such as Jed Lowrie 's green cleats. Following

1960-518: The "BART Series" for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system that links Oakland to San Francisco. However, the name "BART Series" has never been popular beyond a small selection of history books and national broadcasters and has fallen out of favor. Bay Area locals almost exclusively refer to the rivalry as the "Battle of the Bay". Originally, the term described a series of exhibition games played between

2030-399: The 2011 season, the Athletics' gold uniforms were used as the designated home alternates. A green version of their gold alternates was introduced for the 2014 season, serving as a replacement to the previous green alternates. The new green alternates featured the piping, "A's" and lettering in white with gold trim. In 2018, as part of the franchise's 50th anniversary since the move to Oakland,

2100-535: The 20th century with the writings of Earnshaw Cook , one of the earliest baseball analysts. Cook's 1964 book Percentage Baseball was one of the first of its kind. At first, most organized baseball teams and professionals dismissed Cook's work as meaningless. The idea of a science of baseball statistics began to achieve legitimacy in 1977 when Bill James began releasing Baseball Abstracts , his annual compendium of baseball data. However, James's ideas were slow to find widespread acceptance. Bill James believed there

2170-401: The A's and Giants is considered a friendly one with mostly mutual companionship between the fans, as opposed to White Sox–Cubs , or Yankees–Mets games where animosity runs high. Hats displaying both teams on the cap are sold from vendors at the games, and once in a while the teams both dress in original team uniforms from the early era of baseball. The series is also occasionally referred to as

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2240-518: The A's tradition in that his number was a re-retirement, as well as his not being in the Hall of Fame. Sabermetrics The term moneyball is used for the practice of using metrics to identify "undervalued players" and sign them to what ideally will become "below market value" contracts, which debuted in the efforts of small market teams to compete with the much greater resources of big market ones. English-American sportswriter Henry Chadwick developed

2310-466: The A's wore a kelly green alternate uniform with "Oakland" in white with gold trim, and was paired with an all-kelly green cap. This set was later worn with an alternate kelly green helmet with gold visor. This uniform eventually supplanted the gold alternates by 2019, and in 2022, after the forest green alternate was retired, it became the team's only active alternate uniform. The nickname "A's" has long been used interchangeably with "Athletics", dating to

2380-599: The Angels out of the first seed in the division. The A's finished 4 games ahead while the Angels secured the Wild Card berth. Despite the 103-win season for Oakland, they lost to the underdog Minnesota Twins in the ALDS . The Angels beat the heavily favored New York Yankees, then beat the Twins, and then won the 2002 World Series . During the 2004 season, the teams were tied for wins headed into

2450-485: The Angry A's , owner Charlie O. Finley banned the word "Athletics" from the club's name because he felt that name was too closely associated with former Philadelphia Athletics owner Connie Mack, and he wanted the name "Oakland A's" to become just as closely associated with him. The name also vaguely suggested the name of the old minor league Oakland Oaks , which were alternatively called the "Acorns". New owner Walter Haas restored

2520-510: The Athletics and Giants started battling for a "Bay Bridge" Trophy made from steel taken from the old east span of the Bay Bridge, which was taken down after the new span was opened in 2013. The A's won the inaugural season with the trophy, allowing them to place their logo atop its Bay Bridge stand. When the A's left Oakland, the Giants had won the trophy 4 times, to the A's 3. The A's have held

2590-710: The Athletics set the record for most consecutive wins in a season with twenty, an event that would go on to be the pioneering step in the application of sabermetrics in baseball. From 1901 through the end of 2024, the franchise's overall win–loss record is 9,329–9,859–87 (.486). The history of the Athletics Major League Baseball franchise spans from 1901 to the present day, having begun in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City in 1955 and then to its home in Oakland, California , in 1968. The A's made their Bay Area debut on Wednesday, April 17, 1968, with

2660-513: The Giants franchise moved there a decade earlier than the A's did. On March 24, 2018, the Oakland A's announced that for the Sunday, March 25, 2018, exhibition game against the San Francisco Giants, A's fans would be charged $ 30 for parking and Giants fans would be charged $ 50. However, the A's stated that Giants fans could receive $ 20 off if they shout "Go A's" at the parking gates. In 2018,

2730-998: The Week and MVP). Those which are most useful in evaluating past performance and predicting future outcomes are valuable in determining a player's contributions to his team, potential trades, contract negotiations, and arbitration. Recently, sabermetrics has been expanded to examining ballplayer minor league performance in AA and AAA ball in a manner similar to evaluating it at the Major League level, known as Minor-League Equivalency. Machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence (AI) can be applied to predicting future outcomes in baseball modeling, in-game strategy, personnel handling, and roster-building and contract negotiations. Bill James' two books, The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985) and Win Shares (2002) have continued to advance

2800-551: The bill was approved by the Nevada Legislature , and the Athletics officially announced they would begin the relocation process. On November 16, 2023, the Athletics' move to Las Vegas was unanimously approved by MLB team owners. According to the team, the new Las Vegas ballpark will not be completed until 2028. The lease to the Oakland Coliseum expired after the 2024 season. Before the scheduled move to Las Vegas in 2028,

2870-639: The cap. Upon moving to Oakland, the "A" cap emblem was restored, and in 1970 an "apostrophe-s" was added to the cap and uniform emblem to reflect that Finley was officially changing the team's name to the "A's". While in Kansas City, Finley changed the team's colors from their traditional red, white and blue to what he termed "Kelly Green, Wedding Gown White and Fort Knox Gold". It was here that he began experimenting with dramatic uniforms to match these bright colors, such as gold sleeveless tops with green undershirts and gold pants. The uniform innovations increased after

Athletics award winners and league leaders - Misplaced Pages Continue

2940-434: The controlling interest in the new team, had a " white elephant on his hands", team manager Connie Mack defiantly adopted the white elephant as the team mascot, and presented McGraw with a stuffed toy elephant at the start of the 1905 World Series . McGraw and Mack had known each other for years, and McGraw accepted it graciously. By 1909 , the A's were wearing an elephant logo on their sweaters, and in 1918 it turned up on

3010-474: The early 1970s Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball (MLB), used an IBM System/360 at team owner Jerold Hoffberger 's brewery to write a FORTRAN -based baseball computer simulation . In spite of his results, he was unable to persuade his manager Earl Weaver that he should bat second in the lineup. He wrote IBM BASIC programs to help him manage the Tidewater Tides , and after becoming manager of

3080-423: The field of sabermetrics. The work of his former assistant Rob Neyer , who later became a senior writer at ESPN.com and national baseball editor of SBNation, also contributed to popularizing sabermetrics since the mid-1980s. Nate Silver , a former writer and managing partner of Baseball Prospectus , invented PECOTA ( Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm ) in 2002–2003, introducing it to

3150-416: The final week of September with the last three games being played in Oakland against the Angels. Both teams were battling to secure the division championship. Oakland lost two of the three games to the Angels, and they were eliminated from the playoff hunt. The Angels were swept in the playoffs by the eventual champion Boston Red Sox. The Athletics lead the series 541–491, and the two teams have yet to meet in

3220-589: The first games taking place in 2003) but the rivalry had effectively died in the intervening years since the A's left Philadelphia. In 2014, when the A's faced the Phillies in inter-league play at the Oakland Coliseum, the Athletics did not bother to mark the historical connection, going so far as to have a Connie Mack promotion the day before the series while the Texas Rangers were in Oakland. The first City Series

3290-524: The game represented in their numeric totals. Advanced metrics are increasingly developed and targeted to addressing in-game activities (such as when a team should attempt to steal a base, and when to bring closers in). Sabermetrics are commonly used for everything from sportswriting to baseball Hall of Fame consideration, selecting player match-ups and evaluating in-game strategic options. Advanced statistical measures may be utilized in determining in-season and end-of-the-season awards (such as Player of

3360-418: The game, including batting, pitching, baserunning, and fielding. A ballplayer's batting average (BA) (simply hits divided by at-bats ) was the historic measure of a player's offensive performance, enhanced by slugging percentage (SA) which incorporated their ability to hit for power. Bill James, along with other early sabermetricians, was concerned that batting average did not incorporate other ways

3430-677: The modern statistic on-base plus slugging (OPS). OPS is the sum of the on-base percentage and the slugging percentage. This modern statistic has become useful in comparing players and is a powerful method of predicting runs scored by any given player. An enhanced version of OPS, "OPS+", incorporates OPS, historic statistics, ballpark considerations, and defensive position weightings to attempt to allow player performance from different eras to be compared. Some other advanced metrics used to evaluate batting performance are weighted on-base average , secondary average , runs created , and equivalent average . The traditional measure of pitching performance

3500-541: The objective of computerizing the box score of every major league baseball game ever played, in order to more accurately collect and compare the statistics of the game. The Oakland Athletics began to use a more quantitative approach to baseball by focusing on sabermetric principles in the 1990s. This initially began with Sandy Alderson as the general manager of the team when he used the principles toward obtaining relatively undervalued players. His ideas were continued when Billy Beane took over as general manager in 1997,

3570-472: The official name to "Athletics" in 1981, but retained the nickname "A's" for marketing. At first, the word "Athletics" was restored only to the club's logo, underneath the much larger stylized-"A" that had come to represent the team since the early days. By 1987, however, the word returned, in script lettering, to the front of the team's jerseys. From 2025 to 2027, while the team temporarily plays its home games in West Sacramento, all of its uniforms would feature

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3640-510: The organization. Though Jackson and Hunter played small portions of their careers in Kansas City, no player that played the majority of his years in the Kansas City era has his number retired either. The A's have retired only the numbers of Hall-of-Famers who played large portions of their careers in Oakland. The Athletics have all of the numbers of the Hall-of-Fame players from the Philadelphia Athletics displayed at their stadium, as well as all of

3710-521: The postseason. The City Series was the name of baseball games played between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Philadelphia Phillies of the National League , that ran from 1903 through 1955. After the A's move to Kansas City in 1955, the City Series rivalry came to an end. Since the introduction of interleague play in 1997, the teams have since faced each other during the regular season (with

3780-465: The public in the book Baseball Prospectus in 2003. It assumes that the careers of similar players will follow a similar trajectory. Beginning in the 2007 baseball season, MLB started looking at technology to record detailed information regarding each pitch that is thrown in a game. This became known as the PITCHf/x system, which uses video cameras to record pitch speed at its release point and crossing

3850-412: The regular uniform jersey for the first time. In 1963, when the A's were located in Kansas City, then-owner Charlie Finley changed the team mascot from an elephant to a mule , the state animal of Missouri. This is rumored to have been done by Finley in order to appeal to fans from the region who were predominantly Democrats at the time. (The traditional Republican Party symbol is an elephant , while

3920-469: The same "A" on it. In the early days of the American League, the standings listed the club as "Athletic" rather than "Philadelphia", in keeping with the old tradition. Eventually, the city name came to be used for the team, as with the other major league clubs. After buying the team in 1960, owner Charles O. Finley introduced road uniforms with "Kansas City" printed on them, with an interlocking "KC" on

3990-417: The seasons, the Athletics' uniforms have paid homage to their amateur forebears. Until 1954, when the uniforms had "Athletics" spelled out in script across the front, the team's name never appeared on either home or road uniforms. Furthermore, neither "Philadelphia" nor the letter "P" appeared on the uniform or cap. The Philadelphia uniform had only a script "A" on the left front, and likewise the cap usually had

4060-518: The small) in 2003 to detail Beane's use of advanced metrics. In 2011, a film based on Lewis' book – also called Moneyball – was released and gave broad exposure to the techniques used in the Oakland Athletics' front office. Sabermetrics reflected a desire by a handful of baseball enthusiasts to expand their understanding of the game by revealing new insights that may have been hidden in its traditional statistics. Their early efforts ultimately evolved into evaluating players in every aspect of

4130-456: The team from 1980 until his death in 1995, was honored by the retirement of the letter "A". Of the six players with retired numbers, five were retired for their play with the Athletics and one, 42, was universally retired by Major League Baseball when they honored the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking the color barrier. No A's player from the Philadelphia era has his number retired by

4200-547: The team will play in West Sacramento, California at Sutter Health Park (home of the San Francisco Giants ' Triple-A affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats ) for the 2025–2027 seasons (with an option for the 2028 season if necessary). While in West Sacramento the team will be referred to as simply the "A's" and "Athletics," with no city name attached. The relocation will mark the first move by an MLB team since

4270-461: The team's early days when headline writers used it to shorten the name. From 1972 through 1980, the team name was officially "Oakland A's", although the Commissioner's Trophy , given out annually to the winner of baseball's World Series , still listed the team's name as the "Oakland Athletics" on the gold-plated pennant representing the Oakland franchise. According to Bill Libby's Book, Charlie O and

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4340-401: The team's move to Oakland, which came with the introduction of polyester pullover uniforms. During their dynasty years in the 1970s, the A's had dozens of uniform combinations with jerseys and pants in all three team colors, and never wore the traditional gray on the road, instead wearing green or gold, which helped to contribute to their nickname of "The Swingin' A's". After the team's sale to

4410-467: The teams during the regular season since the commencement of interleague play in 1997. Through the 2024 regular season, the Athletics have won 76 games, and the Giants have won 72 contests. Through the 2024 season, the A's also have edges on the Giants in terms of overall postseason appearances (21–13), division titles (17–10) and World Series titles (4–3) since both teams moved to the Bay Area, even though

4480-517: The two clubs after the conclusion of spring training, immediately prior to the start of the regular season. It was first used to refer to the 1989 World Series in which the Athletics won their most recent championship and the first time the teams had met since they moved to the San Francisco Bay Area (and the first time they had met since the A's also defeated the Giants in the 1913 World Series ). Today, it also refers to games played between

4550-594: The years that the Philadelphia Athletics won World Championships (1910, 1911, 1913, 1929, and 1930). Dave Stewart was about to have his #34 jersey retired by the Athletics in 2020, but the ceremony was postponed until further notice, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Questions were raised if there would be a formal ceremony after no news about a reschedule happened in 2021 before it was announced in April 2022 that Stewart would have his jersey retired on September 11, 2022. Stewart broke

4620-529: Was Connie Mack , and Hall of Fame players included Chief Bender , Frank "Home Run" Baker , Jimmie Foxx , and Lefty Grove . The team left Philadelphia for Kansas City in 1955 and became the Kansas City Athletics , before moving to Oakland, California , in 1968 and becoming the Oakland Athletics . The Athletics played their home games at the Oakland Coliseum from 1968 until 2024. Nicknamed

4690-695: Was a widespread misunderstanding about how the game of baseball was played, claiming the sport was not defined by its rules but actually, as summarized by engineering professor Richard J. Puerzer, "defined by the conditions under which the game is played – specifically, the ballparks but also the players, the ethics, the strategies, the equipment, and the expectations of the public." Early Sabermetricians – sometimes considered baseball statisticians – began trying to enhance such fundamental baseball statistics as batting average (simply at-bats divided by hits) with advanced mathematical formulations. The correlation between team batting average and runs scored

4760-403: Was also examined, as runs – not hits – win ballgames. Thus, a good measure of a player's worth would be his ability to help his team score runs, which was observed to be highly correlated with his number of times on base – leading to the development of a new stat, "on-base percentage". Before Bill James popularized sabermetrics, Davey Johnson , then a second baseman playing for

4830-1499: Was held in 1883 between the Phillies and the American Association Philadelphia Athletics . When the Athletics first joined the American League , the two teams played each other in a spring and fall series. No City Series was held in 1901 and 1902 due to legal warring between the National League and American League. Home Run Baker * Chief Bender * Ty Cobb Mickey Cochrane * Eddie Collins Jimmy Collins Stan Coveleski Elmer Flick Nellie Fox Jimmie Foxx * Lefty Grove * Waite Hoyt George Kell Nap Lajoie Connie Mack * Herb Pennock Eddie Plank * Al Simmons * Tris Speaker Rube Waddell * Zack Wheat Luke Appling Lou Boudreau Whitey Herzog Tommy Lasorda Satchel Paige Enos Slaughter Harold Baines Orlando Cepeda Dennis Eckersley * Rollie Fingers * Goose Gossage Rickey Henderson * Catfish Hunter * Reggie Jackson * Tony La Russa Willie McCovey Joe Morgan Mike Piazza Tim Raines Don Sutton Frank Thomas Billy Williams Dick Williams Harry Caray Herb Carneal Al Helfer Bill King By Saam Lon Simmons The Athletics have retired six numbers; additionally, Walter A. Haas, Jr. , owner of

4900-403: Was once considered a popular sabermetric statistic. This statistic attempts to demonstrate how much a player contributes to his team in comparison to a hypothetical player performing at the minimum level needed to hold a roster position on a major league team. It was invented by Keith Woolner, a former writer for the sabermetric group/website Baseball Prospectus . Wins above replacement (WAR)

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