key stat? or "by-product"?

[Appling]

Many in this forum argue that RBI is not a useful stat -- that it often is just a matter of luck -- are there men on base when you get your hits?

Most of the time, the RBI leader is also the league leader in Batting Average -- or Total Hits -- or (most often) the league Homerun leader. In these cases it might be argued that his high Runs-Batted-In total is just a "By-Product" of these other hitting results.

For the last 105 years of Major League Baseball (* 2 leagues = 210 MLB seasons) I counted 95 times (50 AL and 45 NL) when the RBI leader was not also the league leader in one of these three key hitting departments:

AMERICAN LEAGUE -----------------NATIONAL LEAGUE
1902 Buck Freeman ---------------- 1902 Honus Wagner
----------------------------------- 1903 Sam Mertes
----------------------------------- 1904 Bill Dahlen
1906 Elmer Flick ------------------- 1907 Sherry Magee
1910 Sam Crawford ---------------- 1912 Honus Wagner
1914 Sam Crawford
1915 Crawford / Veach
1916 Del Pratt --------------------- 1916 Henie Zimmerman
1917 Bob Veach -------------------- 1917 H Zimmerman
1918 Bobby Veach ------------------ 1918 Sherry Magee
------------------------------------ 1919 Hy Myers
------------------------------------ 1923 Irish Meusel
1924 Goose Goslin ------------------ 1924 George Kelly
------------------------------------ 1926 Jim Bottomley
1927 Lou Gehrig *
1929 Al Simmons -------------------- 1929 Hack Wilson
1930 Lou Gehrig --------------------- 1932 Don Hurst
1936 Hal Trosky
1937 H Greenberg ------------------- 1938 Joe Medwick
1939 Ted Williams
1941 Joe DiMaggio * ---------------- 1942 Johnny Mize
1944 Vern Stephens
1945 Nick Etten -------------------- 1945 Dixie Walker
------------------------------------ 1946 Enos Slaughter
1950 V Stephens/W Dropo ---------- 1950 Del Ennis
------------------------------------ 1951 Monte Irvin
1952 Al Rosen ---------------------- 1953 Roy Campanella
1955 J Jensen/R Boone -------------- 1955 Duke Snider
------------------------------------ 1956 Stan Musial
1958 J Jensen *
1959 J Jensen ---------------------- 1959 E Banks *
1960 Roger Maris * ----------------- 1960 Hank Aaron
1963 Dick Stuart
1964 Brooks Robinson * ------------- 1964 Ken Boyer *
1965 Rocky Colavito ---------------- 1965 Deron Johnson
------------------------------------1967 O Cepeda
1968 Ken Harrelson
1971 H Killebrew
1974 Jeff Burroughs * --------------- 1974 Johnny Bench
------------------------------------ 1975 Greg Luzinski
1976 Lee May ----------------------- 1976 George Foster
1977 Larry Hisle --------------------- 1979 Dave Winfield
1980 Cecil Cooper
1981 Eddie Murray
1982 Hal McRae --------------------- 1982 Dale Murphy *
------------------------------------ 1983 (Tie) Dale Murphy *
1985 Don Mattingly * ---------------- 1985 Dave Parker
1986 Joe Carter
1987 George Bell * ------------------ 1988 Will Clark
1989 Ruben Sierra ------------------- 1990 Matt Williams
1992 Cecil Fielder -------------------- 1992 Darren Daulton
1993 Albert Belle
1994 Kirby Pucket -------------------- 1994 Jeff Bagwell *
1995 (Tie) Mo Vaughn *
1996 Albert Belle --------------------- 1997 Andre Galarraga
1998 Juan Gonzalez ------------------ 1998 Sammy Sosa *
1999 Manny Ramirez
2000 Edgar Martinez
2001 Bret Boone --------------------- 2001 Sammy Sosa
------------------------------------- 2002 Lance Berkman
2003 Carlos Delgado ------------------ 2003 Preston Wilson
2004 Miguel Tejada ------------------- 2004 Vinny Castilla
2005 David Ortiz

One item worth noting is that most of these are familiar names. In other seasons they may have led the league in batting average or homeruns, but in the seasons listed above they led only in RBI, without benefit of also leading in hits, or homeruns, or batting average. And in fifteen of these seasons (9 AL and 6 NL -- noted by * asterisk after the name) the RBI leader was also voted the league MVP -- even though he did not lead in hits, homeruns or Batting Average.

Sometimes this high RBI season may be a signal of a really great season coming up -- as it was for Hack Wilson in 1929 and Roger Maris 1960.

The MVP voters seem to like big RBI hitters, even when someone else outdoes these players in other hitting stats: Lou Gehrig 1927, Joe DiMaggio 1941, Jackie Jensen 1958, Roger Maris 1960, Don Mattingly 1985, Mo Vaughn 1995, Ernie Banks 1959, Ken Boyer 1964, Dale Murphy 1982 and 1983, Jeff Bagwell 1997 and Sammy Sosa 1998 -- all were voted MVP without leading in any of these other hitting departments. Most of them had other seasons with league-leading numbers in other areas, but why were they voted MVP in these seasons? Doesn't that prove that the MVP voters put high value on RBI totals? (And aren't these voters the most knowledgeable when evaluating player performance?)

I realize I left out at least one major item: where did the TEAM finish in that MVP season? But it still seems significant that so many players had timely hits that led to high RBI, even though they did not lead in these other hitting departments.

[leecemark]

--Yes, MVP voters place a high value on RBI. No, they are not the most knowledgeable group at evaluating players.

[Ubiquitous]

This would be a time to look at say there grey ink. How many players were in the top ten in one category or more? What was their Z-score? How did they place with runners on and how many runners they had?

Often times the leaders in RBI place fairly high up on the list with runners on. For instance Joe Carter had I believe a couple of years where he led the league with the highest batting average with runners on and had one of the higher amount of AB's with runners on.


Batting AVerage, Homers, and Hit leaders help but if you don't have the runners in front of you it is doesn't mean a hill of beans.

How many times was a lead-off hitter or #2 hitter the leader in hits or batting average? Probably a good bit right? But there RBI totals were way low.

[Murderers Row]

I wouldn't exactly say that RBI are over-rated. But MVP voters do sometimes over value them.

[Appling]

Often times the leaders in RBI place fairly high up on the list with runners on. For instance Joe Carter had I believe a couple of years where he led the league with the highest batting average with runners on and had one of the higher amount of AB's with runners on.

Batting AVerage, Homers, and Hit leaders help but if you don't have the runners in front of you it is doesn't mean a hill of beans.

Yes, someone in another thread convinced me that BA with runners in scoring position is a key indicator of RBI success. You can't get an RBI if the bases are empty unless you hit a homerun -- and if no one is in scoring position you need at least an extra-base hit. Most RBI occur when there are runners in scoring position. But the hitter still needs to get a hit in that situation. Some guys (like Jackie Jensen -- or Joe Medwick or Juan Gonzalez or Sammy Sosa) seemed to thrive with RISP.

[leecemark]

--Do they really thrive with RISP or did they just come up with RISP alot? Most RBI champs hit in the middle of the order for good/great offensive teams.

[csh19792001]

--Do they really thrive with RISP or did they just come up with RISP alot? Most RBI champs hit in the middle of the order for good/great offensive teams.

Look at Joe Carter and Juan Gonzalez' career splits in RBI situations. They perfect instantiations of RBI's being largely a function of having men on base- as their hitting with RISP is certainly not outstanding, yet their RBI and RBI/G totals are legendary.