1878 MLB Season Leaders

1 league · 61 team games · 22 ranking tables

Awards

None of these awards existed yet. The earliest award in this database is from 1911, so a 1878 season has no award to show. That is a fact about the calendar, not about the players on this page.

National League

Led the National League — the first row of every table below.

Batting12 categories

RunsR

1	Dick Higham	60
2	Joe Start	58
3	Tom York	56
4	Cap Anson	55
5	Abner Dalrymple	52
6	Charley Jones	50
7	Orator Shafer	48
8	Joe Gerhardt	46
9	Joe Quest	45
10	Lew Brown	44
10	Bob Ferguson	44
10	Jim O'Rourke	44

HitsH

1	Joe Start	100
2	Abner Dalrymple	96
3	Paul Hines	92
4	Bob Ferguson	91
5	Dick Higham	90
5	Orator Shafer	90
7	Cap Anson	89
8	Cal McVey	83
8	Tom York	83
10	Charley Jones	81
10	Deacon White	81

Doubles2B

1	Dick Higham	22
2	Lew Brown	21
3	Orator Shafer	19
3	Tom York	19
5	Jim O'Rourke	17
6	Billy Geer	13
6	Paul Hines	13
8	Cap Anson	12
8	Jack Burdock	12
8	Bill Harbridge	12
8	Joe Start	12

Triples3B

1	Tom York	10
2	Charley Jones	7
2	Jim O'Rourke	7
4	Lew Brown	6
4	Jack Burdock	6
4	Orator Shafer	6
7	Will Foley	5
7	Andy Leonard	5
7	Joe Start	5
10	Abner Dalrymple	4
10	Paul Hines	4
10	Terry Larkin	4
10	Cal McVey	4
10	John Ward	4

Home RunsHR

1	Paul Hines	4
2	Charley Jones	3
3	Russ McKelvy	2
3	Cal McVey	2
5	Charlie Bennett	1
5	Lew Brown	1
5	Jake Goodman	1
5	Frank Hankinson	1
5	Dick Higham	1
5	Jim O'Rourke	1
5	Jack Remsen	1
5	Joe Start	1
5	Ezra Sutton	1
5	John Ward	1
5	Ed Williamson	1
5	Tom York	1

Runs Batted InRBI

1	Paul Hines	50
2	Lew Brown	43
3	Cap Anson	40
4	Bob Ferguson	39
4	Charley Jones	39
6	Bill Harbridge	37
7	Russ McKelvy	36
8	Terry Larkin	32
9	Orator Shafer	30
10	John Cassidy	29
10	John Clapp	29
10	Dick Higham	29
10	Bill McClellan	29
10	Jim O'Rourke	29
10	Ezra Sutton	29
10	Deacon White	29

WalksBB

1	Terry Larkin	17
1	Jack Remsen	17
3	Cap Anson	13
3	John Clapp	13
3	Orator Shafer	13
6	Joe Quest	12
7	Sam Weaver	11
8	Charlie Bennett	10
8	Bob Ferguson	10
8	Billy Geer	10
8	Jack Manning	10
8	Deacon White	10

Wins Above ReplacementWAR

1	Bob Ferguson	3.6
2	Orator Shafer	3.4
3	Paul Hines	3.1
4	Abner Dalrymple	2.9
5	Lew Brown	2.6
6	Charley Jones	2.4
7	Tom York	2.2
8	Jack Burdock	2.2
9	Joe Start	2.1
10	Dick Higham	2.0

Batting Averagemin 189 PA

1	Paul Hines	.358
2	Abner Dalrymple	.354
3	Bob Ferguson	.351
3	Joe Start	.351
5	Cap Anson	.341
6	Orator Shafer	.338
7	Dick Higham	.320
8	Deacon White	.314
9	Charley Jones	.310
10	John Peters	.309
10	Tom York	.309

On-Base Percentagemin 189 PA

1	Bob Ferguson	.375
2	Cap Anson	.372
3	Orator Shafer	.369
4	Abner Dalrymple	.368
5	Paul Hines	.363
6	Joe Start	.355
7	Deacon White	.340
8	John Clapp	.337
8	Terry Larkin	.337
10	Dick Higham	.332

Slugging Percentagemin 189 PA

1	Paul Hines	.486
2	Tom York	.465
3	Orator Shafer	.455
4	Lew Brown	.453
5	Charley Jones	.441
6	Joe Start	.439
7	Abner Dalrymple	.421
8	Dick Higham	.416
9	Jim O'Rourke	.412
10	Bob Ferguson	.405

On-Base Plus Sluggingmin 189 PA

1	Paul Hines	.849
2	Orator Shafer	.824
3	Joe Start	.794
4	Tom York	.793
5	Abner Dalrymple	.789
6	Bob Ferguson	.781
7	Lew Brown	.777
8	Cap Anson	.775
9	Charley Jones	.761
10	Dick Higham	.749

Pitching10 categories

WinsW

1	Tommy Bond	40
2	Will White	30
3	Terry Larkin	29
4	John Ward	22
5	The Only Nolan	13
6	Sam Weaver	12
7	Bobby Mitchell	7
8	Tom Healey	6
8	Harry Wheeler	6
10	Jim McCormick	5

SavesSV

1	Tom Healey	1

StrikeoutsSO

1	Tommy Bond	182
2	Will White	169
3	Terry Larkin	163
4	The Only Nolan	125
5	John Ward	116
6	Sam Weaver	95
7	Mike Golden	52
8	Bobby Mitchell	51
9	Jim McCormick	36
10	Harry Wheeler	25

Innings PitchedIP

1	Tommy Bond	532.7
2	Terry Larkin	506.0
3	Will White	468.0
4	Sam Weaver	383.0
5	The Only Nolan	347.0
6	John Ward	334.0
7	Mike Golden	161.0
8	Jim McCormick	117.0
9	Tom Healey	113.0
10	Tricky Nichols	98.0

Complete GamesCG

1	Tommy Bond	57
2	Terry Larkin	56
3	Will White	52
4	Sam Weaver	39
5	The Only Nolan	37
5	John Ward	37
7	Mike Golden	15
8	Tom Healey	12
8	Jim McCormick	12
10	Tricky Nichols	10

ShutoutsSHO

1	Tommy Bond	9
2	John Ward	6
3	Will White	5
4	Terry Larkin	1
4	Jim McCormick	1
4	Bobby Mitchell	1
4	The Only Nolan	1
4	Sam Weaver	1

Wins Above ReplacementWAR

1	Tommy Bond	17.5
2	Terry Larkin	16.7
3	Will White	15.0
4	Sam Weaver	12.6
5	John Ward	10.4
6	The Only Nolan	10.2
7	Mike Golden	4.8
8	Jim McCormick	3.5
9	Tricky Nichols	2.9
10	Tom Healey	2.6

Earned Run Averagemin 61 IP

1	John Ward	1.51
2	Jim McCormick	1.69
3	Will White	1.79
4	Sam Weaver	1.95
5	Tommy Bond	2.06
6	Bobby Mitchell	2.14
7	Terry Larkin	2.24
8	Tom Healey	2.39
9	The Only Nolan	2.57
10	Harry Wheeler	3.48

Walks and Hits per Inningmin 61 IP

1	Sam Weaver	1.02
2	John Ward	1.02
3	Terry Larkin	1.07
4	Bobby Mitchell	1.09
5	Will White	1.11
6	Tommy Bond	1.13
7	The Only Nolan	1.19
8	Jim McCormick	1.22
9	Tom Healey	1.28
10	Harry Wheeler	1.53

Fielding Independent Pitchingmin 61 IP

1	Bobby Mitchell	2.10
2	Will White	2.13
3	Tommy Bond	2.16
4	Terry Larkin	2.18
5	John Ward	2.26
6	Sam Weaver	2.27
7	Jim McCormick	2.31
8	The Only Nolan	2.34
9	Tricky Nichols	2.35
10	Mike Golden	2.59

How this page is built

The qualifying line for 1878 is 189 plate appearances and 61 innings pitched. It comes from the length of the schedule — 61 games per team, measured from the season files themselves — at the official rate of 3.1 plate appearances and one inning per team game. Batting average, on-base, slugging, OPS, earned run average and WHIP all use it; a player who came to the plate twice and got two hits does not appear at the top of the batting average table, which is exactly what that line is for. Counting statistics such as home runs and strikeouts have no minimum, because none is needed.

How the rankings were made

Wins above replacement in these tables is ours rather than the source database's, so it will not match a published figure exactly. Also: why every ranking stops at one league, and why some categories are missing on purpose.

Every ranking on this page is worked out inside one league. 1878 is counted as a single league, National League, and a player is ranked only against the men in his own. Leading the American League and leading baseball are different claims, and the one we can make from these files is the first. There is no combined table anywhere on this page, because adding two leagues together would produce a number that no record book recognises.

There are 22 ranking tables here, 16 places deep. Players tied on a value share a place, so a table can run past ten rows when the tenth spot is shared, and a league with fewer than ten qualified players in a category is left out rather than shown as a top ten that is not one. A player who did none of the thing is not ranked in it either — a shutout table lists the pitchers who threw one, not the hundreds who threw none tied on zero. Some categories are missing on purpose: nobody leads a league in strikeouts at the plate, in losses, or in home runs allowed. A ranking is meant to mark an achievement, so only achievements are ranked.

Wins above replacement on this page is ours, not the source database's. The hitting and pitching files carry a WAR column that we compute here from the same season lines you see, using park factors and a run environment worked out per season. Published versions elsewhere use different methods and will not match ours exactly. Every other column is the record as the database supplies it.

Names on this page lead to that player's own record. Most of them open a full career page with every season he appeared in. Some open a summary screen instead — we pre-build pages for the players people look for, and everyone else is assembled on demand from the same files, so the numbers are identical either way even though the address looks different.

Data for 1871 to 2025: Lahman Baseball Database 2025, compiled by SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) and licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported. Negro Leagues data licensed from Seamheads.com and included under SABR major-league recommendations (2021-02-11, 2024-06-03). This page ranks the 1878 season lines published on this site, league by league, with WAR worked out here. — the WAR columns are computed here — and they are published under the same CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported licence, as ShareAlike requires. That database is published once a season is complete, so the 2026 figures on this site come from a different place: the MLB Stats API, whose notice reads “Copyright 2026 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. Use of any content on this page acknowledges agreement to the terms posted here http://gdx.mlb.com/components/copyright.txt”. Those numbers are MLB Advanced Media, L.P.’s, not SABR (Society for American Baseball Research)’s, and they carry that notice rather than the CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported licence above. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Major League Baseball or any of its clubs.