Joe Carter: Clutch hitter or RBI Vulture? (Part II)

Dave Paisley

The debate over Joe Carter's propensity for driving in 100 runs a season, and its value to a team, continues to rage. In the first installment, I showed that Carter's RBI numbers are significantly in excess of what can be expected from his individual performance, based on OPS. In this segment, I'll dig into the numbers behind his performance, ranked against his peers over the last five years. For this segment, I've added another twenty players to the comparison, for a total of 54 - all American League regulars over the last five seasons.

Before we dive into Carter's performance, let me digress a second on the subject of RBIs. As one of the triple crown stats, it holds a revered place in baseball history. Lately, however, many of the more modern stat-hounds have started bad-mouthing it as a totally worthless statistic, as it depends so much on teammates getting on base ahead of the hitter. True, it does depend on that to a degree, but as we shall see, not as much as you might think. Also, part of their beef is that runs scored has been undervalued, and that is also true, but discarding RBI isn't the answer. Scoring runs requires two elements - getting on base, and then being driven home. Only the home run achieves both with one fell swoop, which is one of the major reasons we revere our long ball hitters.

Back to our RBI debate. The accompanying table tells the story, but a little explanation may be necessary: For each batter, we see his primary batting order position over the last five years, total at bats, RBI, OPS and RBI/AB. Then we have the same data for runners in scoring position (RISP), denoted with the 'r' suffix. These are the basic raw data.

Then we have the percentage of at bats with RISP, and percentage of RBIs obtained with RISP. This is pretty informative, as the average shows that 26% of at bats occur with runners in scoring position, and that they result in 72% of RBIs.

Next, there's the ratio of the player's OPS with RISP compared to total OPS, which I think of as a performance index. This is the factor that is somewhat within the player's control. Then there's the ratio of at bats with RISP to total at bats. This is the part that's really dependent on the player's position in the batting order and the quality of the players in front of him. I think of this as an opportunity index.

We've seen that 72% of RBIs are generated with runners in scoring position, but there's another contribution that's easy to calculate. That number is the RBIs generated from home runs hit by the player without runners in scoring position. We know the player receives an RBI for the run he scores himself on those home runs.

Adding those to RBI with RISP and subtracting from total RBIs results in RBIrem, shown in the next to last column. The final column shows RBIrem as a fraction of total RBIs. Surprisingly, this is only 8% on average. These RBIs can result only from a single runner on first being driven in by an extra base hit - a double, triple or home run. Remember, we already counted the RBI generated by the hitter on these home runs. This is where a possible runner on first gets accounted for.

So, after all that, what does it tell us about RBIs?

First, let's look at the performance index (ratio of OPS with runners in scoring position to total OPS.) The top five players are:

B.J. Surhoff - 1.14, Dan Wilson - 1.14, Ruben Sierra - 1.12, Tino Martinez - 1.12, and Cal Ripken Jr. - 1.12. Joe Carter is seventh with 1.09 ratio, pretty good, but no outrageously so.

Of course, one can argue that these players perform worse without runners in scoring position, but when you have three times the chance of getting a run home, I tend to think that these guys are definitely clutch players. Interestingly enough, none of these guys are widely regarded as clutch players. Ruben Sierra has the opposite reputation, in fact. One common factor is that their average overall OPS is around .800, so there is plenty of room for it to improve with runners on.

Bottom of the list:

Dean Palmer - 0.86, Jim Edmonds- 0.91, Ed Sprague - 0.91, Brady Anderson - 0.93, Ivan Rodriguez - 0.94.

Interesting bunch. Palmer has never impressed me at all, nor has Sprague. And all of a sudden, it's clear why Jim Edmonds is reknowned for his defense.

Next up: the opportunity index. Here's the top five in ratio of at bats with runners in coring position:

Robin Ventura - 1.14, Jay Buhner - 1.14, Juan Gonzalez - 1.14, Jim Leyritz - 1.12, Jose Canseco - 1.12. Joe Carter is eighth, with a 1.09 ratio.

No surprise here. The top three guys bat behind some serious OBP material. Ventura behind Thomas, Buhner behind Edgar Martinez and Griffey, Gonzalez behind Greer and Ivan Rodriguez. Leyritz and Canseco have bounced all over the known universe, but have usually batted in the heart of the order. All of these guys are in the key 3-6 spots in the order.

Bottom five in opportunity index:

Kenny Lofton - 0.76, Chuck Knoblauch - 0.79, Brady Anderson - 0.81, Joey Cora - 0.81, Tony Phillips - 0.83.

Gee, all of these guys bat leadoff. I wonder if that's got something to do with it?

So, between motive and opportunity, where does Carter stand in this bunch? Multiplying the performance and opportunity indices, we get a total RBI vulture ratio. That's the way the table is ordered, and we see Mr. Carter is fourth on the list, with an 18% better than average index, behind Tino Martinez, Ruben Sierra and Juan Gonzalez. Note the top four all bat cleanup.

Overall, Carter's success is making the most of what he's got. He has a significant gift for hitting better when there are RBI opportunities, but it isn't out of line with other players. He has also been fortunate to have more of those opportunities than average, but again, not outrageously so. Is he Hall of Fame material? I doubt it, personally, but those RBIs and the World Series winning home run may persuade the voters when the time comes. If he gets in, I don't believe he'll be the worst selection ever.

And as for the Orioles signing him this year? If there is a hill, Joe is significantly over it, and their $3M would have been better spent elsewhere. That's a hell of an expensive DH platoon they've got.

- OH MY GOD IT'S ENORMOUS (the incredible table) -