A surprising stat

[NetShrine]

Originally posted by mainsr
I should stop here to say that I'm supposed to helping my wife clean up the house today. Man, this forum is getting my butt in trouble.

You have no idea how deep the martial doo-doo is for me on that one. My wife thinks that my PC and I have some sort of a love connection going on..............common lament in most married households, from what I understand.

[gyb13]

I randomly found this thread as I was searching for something completely unrelated.

But it's a great read, so I'm pushing it up. Enjoy!

[Fuzzy Bear]

I had posted a somewhat related thread, discussing Hack Wilson's mark of 190 RBIs in a season.

Not since Lou Gehrig has anyone made a serious run at the single-season RBI record. That was back in the 1930s.

I would suspect that the reason for a decrease the ratio of RBIs to HRs is that everybody hits HRs these days. We expect the middle infielders to have 15-20 jacks. Strength training, thin handled bats, emphasis on bat speed (as opposed to bat control) have resulted in power up and down the lineup.

Conversely, baseball has fewer table-setters in lineups at the present moment. The 1980s were the decade of the leadoff man; leadoff skills came to the forefront, there was a discovery of the value of walks and the emerging view of a walk as something the batter does, rather than something the pitcher does. The 1980s were the heyday of not only Henderson and Raines, but Brett Butler, Bill Doran, Steve Sax, and a number of other players that were "table setters". (Tony Phillips learned his craft in the 1980s before emerging as a top leadoff hitter in 1990.) All this has faded; the new leadoff star is the very un-80s Alfonso Soriano.

As a result, there are probably more solo HRs than ever before, but fewer men on base for the power guys. (If Soriano hits a HR, what is the likelihood Giambi will get anything other than a one run shot?)

If the power surge in the middle of the lineup continues, but the art of table-setting makes a comeback in baseball, I suspect that then we MAY see a challenge to Wilson's record.

[pwdennis]

Moreover, the improvement in defensive play, particularly infield play, has resulted in fewer runners on base. Shortstops Aparicio and Smith stood out because they were so much better than their contemporaries. Today, Luis and Oz might still be the best but the gap between them and many of their contemporaries would be fairly small

[Alan Smithee]

Originally posted by Fuzzy Bear
I had posted a somewhat related thread, discussing Hack Wilson's mark of 190 RBIs in a season.

Not since Lou Gehrig has anyone made a serious run at the single-season RBI record. That was back in the 1930s.

I would suspect that the reason for a decrease the ratio of RBIs to HRs is that everybody hits HRs these days. We expect the middle infielders to have 15-20 jacks. Strength training, thin handled bats, emphasis on bat speed (as opposed to bat control) have resulted in power up and down the lineup.

Conversely, baseball has fewer table-setters in lineups at the present moment. .

bingo. if we could jump in the way wayback machine, kidnap ashburn and stanky in their prime, drop them in the lineup in front of helton , he would challenge for 200 rbis assuming everyone had a good year and stays helathy.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Originally posted by Alan Smithee
bingo. if we could jump in the way wayback machine, kidnap ashburn and stanky in their prime, drop them in the lineup in front of helton , he would challenge for 200 rbis assuming everyone had a good year and stays helathy.

It would probably take something like that; string singles hitters in Coors Field in front of Helton. (Would Boggs have hit .400 at Coors in HIS prime?)

I wonder what the conditions were at the time that enabled Wilson to drive in 190 runs. Records in baseball tend to be broken when conditions of the game change. Records in baseball tend to become out of reach for the same reason.

[Alan Smithee]

Originally posted by Fuzzy Bear
It would probably take something like that; string singles hitters in Coors Field in front of Helton. (Would Boggs have hit .400 at Coors in HIS prime?)

I wonder what the conditions were at the time that enabled Wilson to drive in 190 runs. Records in baseball tend to be broken when conditions of the game change. Records in baseball tend to become out of reach for the same reason.

1. good park to hit in.
2. exterme hitters season
3. good team ( 90 wins for the cubs finished second. if hornsby had been healthy they would ahve won it all. )
4. Hack was at the top of his form 30 and in his 5th seaosn as a regular. he would ha
have only one more good year but at this point he owned the world.
5. great table setters. Woody english had 214 hits , 100 walks but only 14 homers. he scored 152 runs, Fooyise blair had 158 hits 20 walks, six homers and scored 97 runs. Cuyler had 228 hits, 72 walks and only 13 home runs. Riggs stephenson batted second sometimes and he could get on base if nothing else.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Originally posted by Alan Smithee
1. good park to hit in.
2. exterme hitters season
3. good team ( 90 wins for the cubs finished second. if hornsby had been healthy they would ahve won it all. )
4. Hack was at the top of his form 30 and in his 5th seaosn as a regular. he would ha
have only one more good year but at this point he owned the world.
5. great table setters. Woody english had 214 hits , 100 walks but only 14 homers. he scored 152 runs, Fooyise blair had 158 hits 20 walks, six homers and scored 97 runs. Cuyler had 228 hits, 72 walks and only 13 home runs. Riggs stephenson batted second sometimes and he could get on base if nothing else.

All true. For some reason, it doesn't seem to explain it all, although maybe it's my association of the word "Cubs" with the word "mediocrity", and not taking into account that the Cubs of that period weren't so terrible. The table setting for Wilson was extraordinary, so maybe that, combined with the 1930 offensive juices really were enough.

[mainsr]

I think it was Bill James who said recently that some team is going to exactly what you suggest with a hitter like Helton - put him behind three single/double/walk OBP guys - and watch him hit 200 RBIs, thereby starting a trend.

One of the great things about being a baseball fan today is the way that real research is having an impact on the game. Call it the ascendency of empricism. Look, back in the 1980s, the only people who thought Darrell Evans was a Hall of Famer and Raines was more valuable than Dawson were us statheads for whom the biggest day of the year was the day James' Baseball Abstract hit the stands. Now, GMs like Beane build their teams based on the concepts of OPS, secondary averages, replacement value, etc.

That being said, I don't know that we will see the situation James described in the first paragraph, at least not until the sport does something serious about steroids. The top OBP guys are almost ALL sluggers. This year, of the top 30 OBP guys, only 7 had slugging averages below .500:
Suzuki .425
Dunn .454
Alfonoso .459
Spivey .476
Olerud .490
Bernie W. .493
Luis Gon. .496
Put another way, the only batters in the top 30 for OBP with fewer than 25 home runs were Suzuki, Spivey, Alfonso, Bernie, Abreu, Olerud, and Sweeney. Tablesetters are nice, but if you can get high-OBP guys who also can hit 'em out, obviously, you have to go for the latter. Of the top 40 OBP guys, there are only six classic top-of-the-order guys: Suzuki, Alfonso, Spivey, Vidro, Durham, and Jeter. There just aren't enough of 'em anymore to create what James envisions, it seems to me.