The RBI

In assessing a league’s MVP, no statistic is looked at more closely than the RBI: what wins games is runs, and he produces – i.e., drives in – the most runs must be the most valuable. But looked at more closely, the rbi, like many of baseball’s treasured stats, is somewhat suspect.
One, not all rbi’s are equal. The run batted in late in a close game surely should be valued more than an rbi in a blowout. Specific rbi situations could be assigned specific values – like the elements of a gymnastics floor exercise – but they aren’t.
Two, rbi opportunities are not spread around equally. Except for rbi’s via the homerun, they depend on having teammates already on the bases, preferably “in scoring position” – i.e., standing on second or third. The cleanup hitter usually leads his team in rbi’s, not only because he is inherently the best rbi-man, but because he typically bats after the teammates with the best on-base percentage. Statistically, he will have the greatest rbi opportunities on the team. A leadoff hitter, by contrast, will have the fewest, because he leads off the game and thereafter bats after the weakest-hitting teammates. A more accurate assessment of rbi value should require that the number of rbi’s be divided into the number of rbi opportunities presented. What that last figure itself should be is debatable, but let’s say it’s men-in-scoring-position for a start.
The above, of course, gets us into a bit of a chicken-and-egg debate. Is the cleanup hitter the team’s best rbi-man because he is the cleanup hitter? Or is he the team’s cleanup hitter because he is the best rbi-man? This will never be answered unless and until the stat is refined as suggested above.
P.S. The mention of “men-in-scoring-position” brings to mind a relatively new stat that has been prominently mentioned in connection with the Twins this year (2008), because they lead the majors in batting average with runners in scoring position (“risp”). The underlying basis for keeping such a figure is that, of course, runs win ballgames and hits with risp produce runs. Why this is not necessarily a valid assumption was illustrated, not for the first time, in yesterday’s Twins 6-4 loss to the Tigers. The Twins were 4-for-12 in risp situations, a healthy .333 average, well above their league-leading .311 mark. Of those 4 hits, though, one was Joe Mauer’s single in the first with two men on; the lead runner, Denard Span, was held at third. In the 9th, Alexi Casilla bunted safely, again with two men on. No run scored in that inning. The Twins, because of all their banjo hitters, undoubtedly also lead the league in hits with runners in scoring position that do not produce runs. Again, for this statistic to have real meaning, it should be tweaked, to reduce, if not eliminate, the value of hits that don’t produce runs.
The flip side of this statistic, of course, was shown in how the Tigers won the game: two homeruns with, in each case, a man on first. No hits with a runner in scoring postion, but four runs.
September 2008