Second Base Citizen

Dave Paisley

Most of you know that we, the strikethree.com staff, are based in Seattle. Inevitably, we're Mariner fans, and we try not to let it show - just once in a while. It's pretty difficult to ignore the hometown team right now, though, because the Mariners are now 45-12 and in some pretty historic territory as far as fast starts go. The 1912 Giants, the '39 Yankees. The '53 Yankees, the '07 Cubs, the '02 Pirates (99 years ago, not next year's Pirates - trust me...) all started in this same territory. At 32-12 the Mariners looked pretty good. One 13 game winning streak later, a sensational season has turned into a romp of epic proportions.

What's even more surprising is that this isn't a monster payroll team. It's by no means a cheap team, but there are no $15M players on the team at all. One of the more remarkable stories this year has been the performance of second baseman Bret Boone. Monday's game saw him grab seven RBIs on two three run homers to overtake Manny Ramirez for the American league lead. Boone's reputation to date is that of a middling hitter with a little pop, but not much patience and a penchant for striking out hacking. So far this year, nothing much has changed. If anything he's walking less while striking out about the same. What about power? He's hit 13 so far, on a pace to hit about 36 homers, roughly 50% more than his career best. And oh, by the way, 8 of those 13 have been at Safeco, a place that a certain right handed hitting shortstop didn't feel was a hitter's park.

Before we get embroiled in any big RBI analysis, let me say that I believe RBIs to be very overrated by traditional baseball analysts and fans. On the other hand, they are tremendously undervalued by statheads. I believe that runs scored and RBIs together tell a pretty good story of a player's contribution. Leadoff guys tend to score a lot of runs. As you work down the order the bias tilts to RBIs. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just the way things work.

But let's break down the numbers compared to his big RBI rival, Mr. Ramirez.

Here's Boone's totals and splits for bases empty, runners on and runners in scoring position:

Boone	AB	BB	H	HR	R	RBI	Avg	OBP	SLG	OPS
Total	217	12	72	13	36	64	.332	.363	.576	.939
None on	96	6	30	6	6	6	.313	.365	.563	.928
Runners on	121	6	42	7	30	58	.347	.360	.587	.947
Scoring Pos	86	6	26	4	24	51	.302	.327	.512	.839

And here are the numbers for Ramirez.

Ramirez	AB	BB	H	HR	R	RBI	Avg	OBP	SLG	OPS
Total	215	28	83	19	39	62	.386	.461	.721	1.182
None on	107	11	40	10	10	10	.374	.432	.692	1.124
Runners on	108	17	43	9	29	52	.398	.488	.750	1.238
Scoring Pos	70	12	27	4	21	40	.386	.488	.657	1.145

Of course, there's no comparison in overall OPS. Ramirez is simply having a monster season and is certainly the current front-runner for the MVP award. However, the RBI numbers a re comparable, as are the runs scored. Boone's had 121 AB with runners on and driven in 58 runs. Ramirez has had 108 AB and driven in 52. Those rates are within a fraction of each other - Ramirez having a less than 1% advantage in RBI per AB with runners on. The difference is, of course, that Boone has had 12% more opportunities.

And why might that be, I hear you asking yourself. And I'd say, "Well, duh! He's hitting behind two veritable on base machines." Yes folks, hitting fifth behind Edgar Martinez and John Olerud is not going to hurt your RBI numbers in any way, shape or form. As of Monday, they were .448 and .444 respectively. That translates into, first of all, not getting out, so Boone tends not to lead off innings as much, and second, they're on base to drive in a whole bunch of the time. It doesn't hurt that the leadoff batter, Ichiro, has been pushing a ,400 OBP and the revolving door at the #2 spot has also been pretty good overall.

By comparison what does Manny have to work with, hitting out of the cleanup slot for Boston? The three main guys ahead of him (in reverse order) have been Carl Everett with a .359 OBP, Jose Offerman at .368 and Trot Nixon with .346. It makes you realize why Manny's monster season isn't even better and why the Sox offense is merely good instead of spectacular.

Still, I don't believe it takes anything away from Boone at all. The bottom line is that he's in a position where the onus is on him to produce, and he has responded very well. At age 32 this isn't likely to be a new level he's reached, and I doubt he'll head the RBI leaderboard for long, but he will still end up having a career year and he's been worth every penny to the Mariners and then some. And he'll probably never have another two months like this, whereas Manny has several whole years of this kind of production.

So there you have it. Bret Boone isn't likely to be the next Jeff Kent, but he's certainly no Joey Cora.

about the author

While Dave Paisley's RBI numbers are looking pretty sad this year. That's Real Beers Imbibed, by the way. Why not ask him where to send that case of microbrews by dropping him a line at drdjp@strikethree.com.