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Willie Upshaw

Willie Clay Upshaw

Positions: First Baseman and Leftfielder
Bats: Left, Throws: Left
Height: 6' 0", Weight: 185 lb.

Born: April 27, 1957 in Blanco, TX
High School: Blanco (Blanco, TX)
Drafted by the New York Yankees in the 5th round of the 1975 amateur draft. (All Transactions)
Debut: April 9, 1978
Teams (by GP): BlueJays/Indians 1978-1988
Agents: Tom Reich, previously: Steve Comte [*]
Final Game: September 28, 1988
    About biographical information


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Fan EloRater

Fine Details  · Last Updated Feb 10, 2012, 12:22AM
All-Time Rank (among Batters): #1108. Red Murray… #1109. Monte Cross… #1110. Irv Noren… #1111. WILLIE UPSHAW… #1112. Don Hurst… #1113. Ronnie Belliard… #1114. Rube Oldring… 

Standard Batting

More Stats

Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB Pos Awards
1978 21 TOR AL 95 250 224 26 53 8 2 1 17 4 6 21 35 .237 .298 .304 .602 70 68 4 0 2 3 0 3
1980 23 TOR AL 34 68 61 10 13 3 1 1 5 1 0 6 14 .213 .284 .344 .628 68 21 0 0 1 0 1 3/
1981 24 TOR AL 61 123 111 15 19 3 1 4 10 2 1 11 16 .171 .252 .324 .576 62 36 1 1 0 0 0 3
1982 25 TOR AL 160 646 580 77 155 25 7 21 75 8 8 52 91 .267 .327 .443 .770 102 257 11 1 10 3 8 *3
1983 26 TOR AL 160 655 579 99 177 26 7 27 104 10 7 61 98 .306 .373 .515 .887 137 298 8 5 3 7 8 *3 MVP-11
1984 27 TOR AL 152 635 569 79 158 31 9 19 84 10 4 55 86 .278 .345 .464 .809 118 264 8 5 3 3 14 *3 MVP-16
1985 28 TOR AL 148 557 501 79 138 31 5 15 65 8 8 48 71 .275 .342 .447 .789 111 224 6 4 1 3 7 *3
1986 29 TOR AL 155 661 573 85 144 28 6 9 60 23 5 78 87 .251 .341 .368 .709 91 211 5 2 4 4 4 *3
1987 30 TOR AL 150 577 512 68 125 22 4 15 58 10 11 58 78 .244 .324 .391 .715 87 200 7 3 3 1 4 *3
1988 31 CLE AL 149 564 493 58 121 22 3 11 50 12 9 62 66 .245 .330 .369 .699 95 182 10 2 3 4 4 *3
10 Seasons 1264 4736 4203 596 1103 199 45 123 528 88 59 452 642 .262 .335 .419 .754 103 1761 60 23 30 28 50
162 Game Avg. 162 607 539 76 141 26 6 16 68 11 8 58 82 .262 .335 .419 .754 103 226 8 3 4 4 6
TOR (9 yrs) 1115 4172 3710 538 982 177 42 112 478 76 50 390 576 .265 .336 .426 .762 104 1579 50 21 27 24 46
CLE (1 yr) 149 564 493 58 121 22 3 11 50 12 9 62 66 .245 .330 .369 .699 95 182 10 2 3 4 4

Player Value--Batters

WAR: 8+ MVP, 5+ A-S, 2+ Strtr, 0-2 Sub, < 0 Repl.
Year Age Tm Lg PA Rbat Rbaser Rroe Rdp Rfield Rpos Rrep RAR WAR oRAR oWAR dWAR Salary Pos Awards
1978 21 TOR AL 250 -9 -2 -1 0 -6 -4 8 -14 -1.5 -8 -0.9 -0.6 $ 3
1980 23 TOR AL 68 -3 0 2 1 -0 -2 2 0 0.0 0 0.0 0.0 $ 3/
1981 24 TOR AL 123 -5 -1 0 0 -0 -2 4 -5 -0.6 -4 -0.5 -0.1 $ 3
1982 25 TOR AL 646 1 -2 0 1 3 -11 20 12 1.2 9 0.9 0.3 $ *3
1983 26 TOR AL 655 26 0 -2 3 4 -10 20 41 4.3 37 3.8 0.5 $200,000 *3 MVP-11
1984 27 TOR AL 635 5 -1 -1 2 2 -10 19 16 1.7 14 1.5 0.2 $ *3 MVP-16
1985 28 TOR AL 557 6 -1 -2 1 8 -9 18 21 2.1 13 1.3 0.8 $730,000 *3
1986 29 TOR AL 661 -4 5 -3 2 7 -10 20 17 1.7 10 1.0 0.7 $940,000 *3
1987 30 TOR AL 577 -9 -4 2 3 14 -9 18 15 1.6 1 0.1 1.5 $940,000 *3
1988 31 CLE AL 564 -2 0 0 0 -4 -9 18 3 0.3 7 0.7 -0.4 $900,000 *3
10 Seasons 4736 6 -6 -5 13 26 -76 147 106 10.8 79 7.9 2.9 $3,710,000
TOR (9 yrs) 4172 8 -6 -5 13 30 -67 129 103 10.5 72 7.2 3.3 $2,810,000
CLE (1 yr) 564 -2 0 0 0 -4 -9 18 3 0.3 7 0.7 -0.4 $900,000

Postseason Batting

Postseason Gamelog
Year Age Tm Lg Series Opp Rslt G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB
1985 28 TOR AL ALCS KCR L 7 28 26 2 6 2 0 0 1 0 0 1 4 .231 .286 .308 .593 8 0 1 0 0 0
1 ALCS 7 28 26 2 6 2 0 0 1 0 0 1 4 .231 .286 .308 .593 8 0 1 0 0 0

Standard Fielding

More Stats

Adv Fielding w/ run summary
Year Tm Lg Age Pos G GS CG Inn Ch PO A E DP Fld% Rtot Rtot/yr RF/9 RF/G lgFld% lgRF9 lgRFG Awards
1978 TOR AL 21 OF 52 88 81 2 5 1 .943 -6 1.60 .979 2.45
1978 TOR AL 21 1B 10 54 50 2 2 4 .963 -0 5.20 .992 9.95
1978 TOR AL 21 LF 46 39 35 345.0 74 67 2 5 1 .932 -6 -21 1.80 1.50 .974 2.21 2.19
1978 TOR AL 21 DH 8 8
1978 TOR AL 21 CF 6 4 3 39.0 11 11 0 0 0 1.000 -0 -6 2.54 1.83 .984 2.98 2.93
1978 TOR AL 21 RF 1 0 0 6.0 1 1 0 0 0 1.000 0 20 1.50 1.00 .980 2.25 2.20
1980 TOR AL 23 1B 14 59 51 7 1 11 .983 0 4.14 .992 10.00
1980 TOR AL 23 OF 1 0 0 0 0 0 -1 0.00 2.50
1980 TOR AL 23 DH 8 8
1980 TOR AL 23 LF 1 1 0 7.0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 -103 0.00 0.00 2.31 2.40
1981 TOR AL 24 1B 14 63 58 5 0 7 1.000 1 4.50 .993 10.03
1981 TOR AL 24 OF 14 15 14 1 0 1 1.000 -2 1.07 .983 2.47
1981 TOR AL 24 DH 11 11
1981 TOR AL 24 RF 8 7 5 55.0 9 9 0 0 0 1.000 -1 -22 1.47 1.13 .980 2.16 2.15
1981 TOR AL 24 LF 6 4 1 29.0 6 5 1 0 0 1.000 -1 -29 1.86 1.00 .978 2.39 2.38
1982 TOR AL 25 1B 155 1556 1438 101 17 123 .989 3 9.93 .992 9.81
1982 TOR AL 25 DH 3 3
1983 TOR AL 26 1B 159 1432 1294 117 21 131 .985 4 8.87 .992 9.82 MVP-11
1984 TOR AL 27 1B 151 1363 1246 103 14 133 .990 2 8.93 .991 9.68 MVP-16
1985 TOR AL 28 1B 147 1271 1157 104 10 111 .992 8 8.58 .991 9.67
1985 TOR AL 28 DH 1 1
1986 TOR AL 29 1B 154 1457 1314 131 12 118 .992 7 9.38 .991 9.33
1987 TOR AL 30 1B 146 1305 1169 127 9 114 .993 14 8.88 .992 9.48
1988 CLE AL 31 1B 144 1276 1162 102 12 93 .991 -4 8.78 .992 9.49
10 Seasons 1B 1094 9836 8939 799 98 845 .990 35 8.90 .992 9.63
3 Seasons OF 67 103 95 3 5 2 .951 -8 1.46 .980 2.46
3 Seasons LF 53 44 36 381.0 80 72 3 5 1 .938 -7 -23 1.77 1.42 .974 2.23 2.22
2 Seasons RF 9 7 5 61.0 10 10 0 0 0 1.000 -1 -18 1.48 1.11 .980 2.17 2.16
1 Season CF 6 4 3 39.0 11 11 0 0 0 1.000 -0 -6 2.54 1.83 .984 2.98 2.93
10 Seasons TOT 1161 9939 9034 802 103 847 .990 26 8.47 .991 9.21
Lg Pos G GS CG Inn Ch PO A E DP Fld% Rtot Rtot/yr RF/9 RF/G lgFld% lgRF9 lgRFG Awards
Note: Fielding stats are a combination of official records and RetroSheet records. Both are likely to have substantial errors and will not match perfectly.
View Complete Notes on Fielding Data
Leagues historically made no effort to balance team, league, and player fielding stats. Since 1990 or so, computers have made this feasible, but prior to that there are hundreds or thousands of discrepancies each year in games played (even whether a player played a position), putouts, assists, double plays and errors.
  • Pre-1950 SB & CS data for catchers is estimated from catcher assists, games started and opposition stolen bases.
  • From 1950 on SB, CS, Pickoff, & WP data for catchers and pitchers is taken from play-by-play accounts in the retrosheet files. There are several hundred games without pbp from 1950 to 1973 and for those we may not have any data.
  • CG & GS come from the retrosheet data and should be complete and pretty accurate from 1919 on.
  • Innings played (like SB and CS) come from the retrosheet play-by-play data and should be considered mostly complete from 1950 to 1973 and complete from then on.
  • Stats (PO,A,G, etc) for LF-CF-RF positions (since 1919) is taken from play-by-play or box score data as available.
  • Stats (PO,A,G,etc) for C,P,1B,2B,3B,SS,OF positions is taken from the official reported totals and may have been corrected at various times since their publication.
  • For detailed information on which games retrosheet is missing play-by-play from 1950 to 1973, please see their most wanted games list
  • For detailed information on the availability of data on this site by year, see our data coverage page

Appearances on Leader Boards, Awards, and Honors

Stats are Year-Value-Rank · Glossary

MVP (yr lg (rk, shr))
1983 AL (11, 10%)
1984 AL (16, 2%)
0.12 Career Shares (859th)

Defensive WAR† s c a p y
1987 AL  1.5 (6th)

Slugging % s c a p y
1983 AL  .515 (6th)

On-Base Plus Slugging s c a p y
1983 AL  .887 (6th)

Games Played s c a p y
1982 AL  160 (6th)
1983 AL  160 (6th)

Runs Scored s c a p y
1983 AL  99 (8th)

Total Bases s c a p y
1983 AL  298 (6th)

Triples s c a p y
1983 AL  7 (9th)
1984 AL  9 (5th)

Home Runs s c a p y
1983 AL  27 (9th)

Runs Batted In s c a p y
1983 AL  104 (8th)

Runs Created s c a p y
1983 AL  113 (6th)

Adj. Batting Runs s c a p y
1983 AL  29 (10th)

Adj. Batting Wins s c a p y
1983 AL  2.9 (10th)

Times On Base s c a p y
1983 AL  243 (8th)

Offensive Win % s c a p y
1983 AL  .693 (6th)

Intentional Bases on Balls s c a p y
1982 AL  8 (10th)
1984 AL  14 (4th)

Caught Stealing s c a p y
1987 AL  11 (9th)

Power-Speed # s c a p y
1983 AL  14.6 (9th)
1984 AL  13.1 (8th)

Situ. Wins Added (WPA/LI)† s c a p y
1983 AL  3.3 (7th)

Putouts† s c a p y
1982 AL  1,438 (1st)
1983 AL  1,294 (3rd)
1984 AL  1,246 (5th)
1986 AL  1,314 (2nd)

Def. Games as 1B s c a p y
1982 AL  155 (1st)
1983 AL  159 (1st)
1984 AL  151 (2nd)
1986 AL  154 (3rd)
1988 AL  144 (5th)

Putouts as 1B s c a p y
1982 AL  1,438 (1st)
1983 AL  1,294 (3rd)
1984 AL  1,246 (5th)
1986 AL  1,314 (2nd)

Assists as 1B s c a p y
1982 AL  101 (2nd)
1983 AL  117 (2nd)
1984 AL  103 (4th)
1985 AL  104 (5th)
1986 AL  131 (3rd)
1987 AL  127 (3rd)
1988 AL  102 (4th)
Career  799 (79th)

Errors Committed as 1B s c a p y
1982 AL  17 (1st)
1983 AL  21 (1st)
1984 AL  14 (4th)
1988 AL  12 (1st)

Total Zone Runs as 1B s c a p y
1985 AL  8 (2nd)
1986 AL  7 (3rd)
1987 AL  14 (1st)
Career  35 (26th)

Range Factor/9Inn as 1B† s c a p y
1986 AL  9.55 (4th)

Range Factor/Game as 1B s c a p y
1982 AL  9.93 (3rd)
1986 AL  9.38 (4th)

Fielding % as 1B s c a p y
1986 AL  .992 (5th)


† Statistics like WPA, REW and RE24 are computed from play-by-play data which is only complete from 1974 to the present. From 1950-1973, the data is incomplete, though for most seasons only less than 20 games per season total are missing. Please see our page on data coverage for a full view of the data used to create these leaderboards.

Hall Of Fame Statistics

Player rank in (·)

Gray InkBatting - 18 (1077), Average HOFer ≈ 144
Hall of Fame MonitorBatting - 6 (1491), Likely HOFer ≈ 100
Hall of Fame StandardsBatting - 9 (1669), Average HOFer ≈ 50

Similarity Scores

Explanation of Similarity Scores
Similar Batters 
 View Similar Player Links in Pop-up
 Compare Stats to Similars
  1. Michael Tucker (936)
  2. Travis Lee (933)
  3. Dan Ford (930)
  4. Bernard Gilkey (928)
  5. Gary Ward (925)
  6. Bob Skinner (925)
  7. Kevin Young (924)
  8. John Briggs (923)
  9. Gary Matthews (923)
  10. Lyle Overbay (922)
Most Similar by Ages 
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  1. Steve Bilko (966)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C
  2. Nick Johnson (966)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C
  3. Earl Torgeson (960)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C
  4. Wally Joyner (951)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C
  5. Earl Torgeson (955)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C
  6. Earl Torgeson (949)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C
  7. Pete O'Brien (943)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

Transactions

The transaction information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by RetroSheet. We attempt to update transactions throughout the season.

Salaries

Salaries may not be complete (especially pre-1985) and may not include some earned bonuses
Year Age Team Salary Sources Notes
198326Toronto Blue Jays$200,0002/21/83 TSN
198528Toronto Blue Jays$730,0001985 USA Today survey
198629Toronto Blue Jays$940,0001986 USA Today survey
198730Toronto Blue Jays$940,0001987 USA Today survey
198831Cleveland Indians$900,000USA Today, 4/1/88
Career to date (may be incomplete)$3,710,000
Salary Data (about) courtesy Doug Pappas, and the Society for American Baseball Research.
Salaries for mid-season call-ups or traded players may not be shown.

Other Resources & Links

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Viewed 13,313 times through February 10, 2012.
Name and misspellings: Willie williw Willie wille wilie wee Clay willy Upshaw

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