RBI Men

The other day on MotownSports, there was a discussion about the RBI statistic. It is still one of the most popular stats among mainstream baseball media and fans. It's not a useless statistic as most players with a lot of RBI are good hitters. However, the number of RBI a player aggregates is dependent on the number of opportunities his team gives him. Certainly, a hitter in the middle of the Yankees line-up will have more opportunities to drive in runs than a hitter in the middle of the White Sox line-up. A clean-up hitter will generally have more chances than a number two hitter.

If it is power hitting you are trying to measure than slugging percentage or isolated power are better measures. If you are trying to measure the ability to score runners on base when a batter is up at the plate, one simple way is the RBI percentage stat invented by David Pinto (Baseball Musings). RBI% is the percentage of runners on base that a player drives home in his at bats. It is calculated as follows:

((RBI-HR)/runners on)*100

Table 1 shows the Major League leaders among the 180 players with 300 or more runners on base in their 2007 at bats. Magglio Ordonez tops the list with a percentage of 21.85. When I presented this statistic in the past, people commented on how low the numbers were. That just gives you an idea of how difficult it is to get runners home. Major League RBI leader Alex Rodriguez finished 11th with a 19.25 percentage.

Table 1 - RBI Percentage Leaders in 2007

Player	Runners	RBI	HR	RBI%
Magglio Ordonez	508	139	28	21.85
Matt Holliday	476	137	36	21.22
Chase Utley	385	103	22	21.04
Ryan J Braun	302	97	34	20.86
Vladimir Guerrero	479	125	27	20.46
Sammy Sosa	349	92	21	20.34
Victor Martinez	449	114	25	19.82
Miguel Cabrera	433	119	34	19.63
Nicholas Markakis	454	112	23	19.6
Raul Ibanez	430	105	21	19.53
Alex Rodriguez	530	156	54	19.25
Mike Lowell	521	120	21	19
Aramis Ramirez	395	101	26	18.99
Mark Teixeira	396	105	30	18.94
Frank Thomas	370	95	26	18.65
Michael Young	456	94	9	18.64
Brad Hawpe	467	116	29	18.63
Jim Thome	328	96	35	18.6
Carl Crawford	371	80	11	18.6

Table 2 shows where the Tigers rank on this statistic. After Ordonez, the next two Tigers are Carlos Guillen (37th) and Placido Polanco (52nd). The worst ranking Tiger was Gary Sheffield at 149th but his low ranking illustrates a flaw in the statistic: Players who draw a lot of walks are penalized because they don't usually knock in runs when they walk. Of course, the RBI statistic does not give credit for walks either. So, RBI% is not a perfect stat but I think it tells more about the ability to get runners home than the aggregate statistic RBI.

Table 2 - RBI Percentages for Tigers

Player	Runners	RBI	HR	RBI%	Rank
Magglio Ordonez	508	139	28	21.85	1
Carlos Guillen	461	102	21	17.57	37
Placido Polanco	350	67	9	16.57	52
Brandon Inge	362	71	14	15.75	83
Curtis Granderson	324	74	23	15.74	84
Ivan Rodriguez	336	63	11	15.48	91
Sean Casey	323	54	4	15.48	90
Craig Monroe	330	59	12	14.24	118
Gary Sheffield	392	75	25	12.76	149