A surprising stat

[BuzzBuzzard]

In looking at the single season HR leaders since 1900, the top 4, 5 of the first 10, and 8 of the top 20 single season leaders came in the 1990s. No big shock.

This is where I was surprise. For the same time period, there is only 1 player sho ranks in the top 20 single season RBI leaders. Manny ranks 12th all-time for single season RBIs.

Oddly enough, he was not one of the HR guys from the '90s mentioned above. Maybe that is the point. That HRs and RBI really aren't that well correlated. I don't know. Just kind of surprised me.

[NetShrine]

HR hitters walk and K a lot. Hard to drive in runners that way.

[BuzzBuzzard]

I was thinking about this last night. If Mac average 2 RBI pre HR when he hit 70, all he would have needed was 51 RBI in his other 82 hits that season to tie the mark. I don't think that averaging 2 RBI per HR is a big deal. Only 29 RBI to get into the top 10.

Oddly enough, he only had 147 RBI for the season, so he was clearly under the 2 RBI per HR average I thought was reasonable.

[NetShrine]

Rob Mains and I went into this last year:

http://express-stats.com/ShowArticle...File=91000.HTM

You have to read into it a bit to find the HR/RBI thing.

I thought the same thing last year. It is a strange thing.

[BuzzBuzzard]

No answers, but a good read. Thanks.

[NetShrine]

Originally posted by BuzzBuzzard
No answers.

Not even where Rob wrote(?):

Here's the thing with guys who hit a lot of home runs: They will ALWAYS have a low ratio of RBI to HR. Take a simple example: Today, Sammy Sosa comes to the plate 5 times: once with the bases empty, once with a runner on first, once with a runner on second, once with first and second, and once with the bases loaded. Assume he has a good day: 3-for-5, 2 HR and a single.

If you do the math (which I think I did right), there are 30 possible combinations of 2 homers, a single, and the 5 base situations I listed. Sosa will average 5.6 RBI with his two homers and a single. So his RBI/HR ratio is 2.8, and he drives in 3.6 guys not named Sammy Sosa.............

[BuzzBuzzard]

A 2.8 ratio compared to 2.0 over a 50 HR season is 40 RBI. That is nothing to scoff at. I don't see 2.8 as being particularly low. If Mcgwire had had a 2.8 ratio, we are talking 196 RBI.

[NetShrine]

Where's Rob? I know he'd have something to say on this. I'll send him a note.

[ChrisCary]

I'm going with the "size of the park" theory.

Smaller parks mean more homers but also means that on other hits, their is less room for a ball to find a hole and less room for t to get to the wall, fielders get to the ball and get it back faster, runners score less.

[NetShrine]

Chris - interesting theory.
Coors should be looked at - given it's a HR park and it's a big park (meaning more hits). I wonder what the HR/RBI is there?

[mainsr]

Sorry for the snooze, there.

Let me do a bit of digging. A couple facts off the top of my head:

1. The average RBIs per HR is under 2. I hope I can dig up the supporting stats. If memory serves, something like 65% of ABs occur with nobody on base. That pretty much dictates less than 2 RBI per HR.

2. The recent offensive explosion has largely been driven by home runs. There are two keys to RBIs: Having runners on base, and driving them in. The best predictor of a batter having runners on base is on-base percentage. All other things (i.e., a batter's hits, doubles, triples, and homers) being equal, a batter playing at a time when OBP is high will have more RBIs than a batter whose teammates don't get on base as often.

If you compare Hack Wilson 1930 (his 191 RBI year), Lou Gehrig in 1931 (184), and McGwire and Sosa 1998:
Wilson: .361 league OBP, .378 team OBP
Gehrig: .345 league OBP, .383 team OBP
McGwire: .334 league OBP, .343 team OBP
Sosa: .334 league OBP, .339 team OBP

A couple more:
Ruth 1927: .352 league OBP, .383 team OBP
Maris 1961: .332 league OBP, .332 team OBP

Clearly, the reason Wilson, Gehrig, Ruth and their contemporaries got more RBIs per HR (and per H) than Sammy and Mac is that they came to the plate with more guys on base. Period. The comparison among McGwire, Sosa, and Maris is much fairer:
McGwire: 61 1B/21 2B/0 3B/70 HR = 147 RBI
Sosa: 110 1B/20 2B/0 3B/66 HR = 155 RBI
Maris: 78 1B/16 2B/4 3B/61 HR = 142 RBI
Given that they all played on teams with roughly similar OBP, I don't find those RBI totals to be significantly out of line with one another. In fact, I'd say that McGwire getting 147 with only 142 hits is the most remarkable of the three. (His not getting the MVP in 1998 is one of the worst award rip-offs of all time, but that's another story.)

Bottom line: They got more RBIs in the 20s and 30s because they had more RBI opportunities.

[NetShrine]

Originally posted by mainsr
Bottom line: They got more RBIs in the 20s and 30s because they had more RBI opportunities.

Rob - thanks for a great post.
Wonder how much the "more opps" had to do with the way pitchers were handled back then?

No RP specialists - and, they say, pitchers would just throw strikes and only start "pitching" when they had a runner on second.

[BuzzBuzzard]

Makes sense to me. Begs the question, though, in today's era, what is a 'good' RBI to HR ratio for guys hitting 40+ HR? In my mind, 2.5 is the bottom end of a 'good' ratio and 3.0 is 'pretty good'. Maybe it is meaningless to even get at, but am curious what your thoughts are.

[NetShrine]

Originally posted by BuzzBuzzard
Makes sense to me. Begs the question, though, in today's era, what is a 'good' RBI to HR ratio for guys hitting 40+ HR? In my mind, 2.5 is the bottom end of a 'good' ratio and 3.0 is 'pretty good'. Maybe it is meaningless to even get at, but am curious what your thoughts are.

Agree - - for me, 2.5 is the line between acceptable and unacceptable - - with 3.0 to 3.25 being pretty good - - again, in today's game.

[mainsr]

Hey, getting back to McGwire - I haven't found an exact number, but I've run across a couple items suggesting that about 50% of at bats occur with nobody on base. For the sake of argument, let's say that 30% occur with one on, 15% with two, and 5% with the bases loaded. (I'll bet it's more like 35-12-3, but it's not that important.) Then the weighted average of guys on base is:

0 x .5 + 1 x .3 + 2 x .15 + 3 x .05 = 0.75

So in an average at bat, there are 0.75 guys on base, so a homer should result in 1.75 RBI.

(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.)

Here are McGwire's totals for 1998
0 on - 33
1 on - 27
2 on - 8
3 on - 2
So he got 119 RBI on HR compared to an expectation of 70 x 1.75 = 122.5 - pretty close.

As to how many RBIs a guy who gets 40 dingers should have - I'd say that depends largely on two other factors:
1. His team's OBP
2. The number of non-homer hits he gets.

Examples:
Two players have 23 HR. One has 83 RBI, one has 57. Is one a stiff? Or two players with 22 HR - one has 83 RBI, one has 54. What's going on?
A 23 HR, 83 RBI, 61 1B, 21 2B, .366 team OBP
B 23 HR, 57 RBI, 42 1B, 11 2B, .330 team OBP
C 22 HR, 83 RBI, 68 1B, 18 2B, 2 3B, .360 team OBP
D 22 HR, 54 RBI, 35 1B, 21 2B, .328 team OBP
In each pair, the first player has more RBIs - but he plays for a team that has far more runners on base, and he's been more productive in his non-HR at bats. But does that mean that the second player's worse? I think that's a stretch. Put another way - if you took away 5 HR each for B and D and turned them into doubles, their RBI/HR ratio would improve, but would they be better hitters? Clearly not.

The answer to the question of what the "right" ratio is of RBI to HR is, it depends.

Oh, almost forgot - A is Juan Gonzalez, B is Carlos Delgado, C is Bret Boone, and D is Troy Glaus. The most immediately apparent differences are that Gonzalez and Boone play for teams that are 1-2 in AL OBP, and their BA is 80 points (Boone) - 98 points (Gonzalez) higher than their counterpart. Interestingly, that's not true of OBP, where Delgado is ahead of Gonzalez (.395-.391) and Boone's not far ahead of Glaus (.365-.358). But RBI situations are NOT a case where "a walk's as good as a hit."