In Praise of RBI

Dave Paisley

The rise of stat literacy in the past few years has been an interesting phenomenon to see. It seems that even as recently as the early '90s, the vast majority of player evaluation, at least around the water cooler, consisted of triple crown stats (that's batting average, home runs and RBI in case you didn't already know). Bill James can be credited with getting the statistical ball rolling during the eighties, but it took quite a while for momentum to develop for deeper analysis to break into the mainstream.

The rise of stat-literate annuals like Baseball Prospectus and the Big Bad Baseball Annual is tangible proof of that growing body. But perhaps the biggest breakthrough, and the biggest shock, was Peter Gammons touting the merits of OPS (on base average plus slugging average for the uninitiated) earlier this season.

While I commend and applaud the rise of stat literacy, the community of statistically inclined followers of baseball (let's call them statheads for short) has its shortcomings, too. Like many revolutionary movements, they tend to spit on the achievements of the old regime, and there is nothing more detestable to the stathead community than Triple Crown stats. They despise batting average, while home runs are seen as generally good, but perhaps overrated in comparison to the ability to get on base and hit for other kinds of power.

Their most scathing, derogatory and downright vitriolic comments are reserved for the venerable run batted in. If an RBI were lying dying in the gutter, a card-carrying stathead would cross the street to kick it in the ribs. Then he'd get in his car and back over it. Then he'd vandalize the payphone nearby so that no other passerby could call 911. And certainly, no self-respecting stathead would let her brother marry an RBI. You get the idea.

But what is it about RBIs that statheads hate so much? The main culprit in the "we hate RBIs" movement is someone referred to in the stathead community as J** C*****. Famous for managing to accumulate 100 RBIs a season, but with atrocious OBP and minimal slugging, this individual made a career off driving in other players who got on base ahead of him. And this is the crux of the matter. Statheads, generally being fair-minded people (well, most of the time) hate seeing credit go where it isn't due. But don't we all? The player in question of course, is Joe Carter.

I see the issue as not necessarily the fault of the RBI so much as that of not properly valuing runs scored. Let's face it - every RBI results in a run scored, which is good, right? What we don't value as much, at least in the traditional stat world, is the guy that crossed the plate. (Of course, if it was a home run, it's the same guy.)

Carter was widely renowned as a clutch hitter (or RBI vulture in statspeak) because he had 100 RBIs in ten seasons -- seven in a row at one point. In all that time, though, he scored 100 runs only once, ending his career with 1445 RBI and a mere 1170 runs scored. The real story, though, is told by his OPS. Carter was a .259 hitter with a .306 OBP (never broke 50 walks in a season) and a SLG of .464, for a career OPS of .770. Yuck! But the point is that it was his low OBP that resulted in his low runs scored, not that his RBI vulturing somehow caused it.

The point often made about RBIs is that they are not only dependent upon one's teammates on base skills, they are dependent on lineup position, which is true enough. The average hitter leads off an inning just over 20% of the time, whereas a leadoff hitter leads off an inning 40% of the time. And leading off, RBI opportunities are limited to hitting home runs.

Take lifetime leadoff hitter Kenny Lofton, for instance. He has 852 career runs scored prior to this season, but a mere 412 RBIs. We could call Kenny a "run vulture" rather than an "RBI vulture", but why? I'm sure Kenny was more than happy that his team was scoring runs and that there was someone like Manny Ramirez or Jim Thome to drive him home anyway. What's wrong with dividing up the glory?

And that of course is the crux of the matter -- the glory isn't divided. In the traditional world, it all goes to the "RBI guy". We should change that, but the RBI guy still deserves some credit.

Last season, the highest Runs/RBI guys were the likes of Lofton (2.82 RS/RBI), Luis Castillo (2.71), Tony Womack (2.71), Roger Cedeno (2.50) and Mark McLemore (2.33.) In other words, guys with high OBP/SLG ratio, and who were also batting leadoff quite a bit. The lowest Runs/RBI guys were immobile slug(ger)s like Gary Gaetti (.48 RS/RBI), Mo Vaughn (.58), Harold Baines (.60), Rafael Palmeiro (.65), Eric Karros (.66) and Paul O'Neill (.64.) These guys also suffer a little in the runs scored department because they're often lifted for a pinch runner.

The 1999 MVP candidates varied from pretty even (Alex Rodriguez, .99 RS/RBI), to high runs (Roberto Alomar, 1.15) to traditional high RBI (Palmeiro, .65, Manny Ramirez, .79.) A good deal of the variation can be attributed for by lineup slot. Alomar, for instance, bats up the order, where he's more likely to get on base and be driven in than vice versa.

If we focus on just runs scored and RBI, there is one other factor that we miss out on. I'm referring, of course, to the players who move guys along between the getting-on-base and scoring-a-run activities. Say a guy walks. The next batter singles, sending the first guy to third. The next guy hits a sacrifice fly to drive in a run. So guy one gets a run scored, guy three gets an RBI, while guy two gets squat, although he effectively engineered two of the four bases required to score.

If that happened over and over to the same guy, I'm sure he'd get tired of it, but you know what? I'm betting that it gets spread around pretty evenly. And you know something else? That guy's teammates and manager know what he did, and he'd certainly get clubhouse kudos for being the guy that kept the inning going.

So there's an introduction to the defense of RBIs. I'll be revisiting the subject in the next couple of weeks with actual statistical evidence (you didn't think this no-chart thing would last long, did you?) so stay tuned.

about the author

Dave Paisley just got a graph of Jeff Bagwell's seasonal walk rate tatooed on his right pec. Ask to see thim make the years 1994-1996 disappear at drdjp@strikethree.com.