What If RBIs Were An Accurate Stat?

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 13, 2008 12:00 PM EDT Comment 4 comments

I'll spare you the anti-RBI rant, as we've all heard it before. But what if RBIs actually reflected a player's offensive production? To answer that question, I took Justin's runs-above-replacement stat (RAR, which is BaseRuns-derived linear weights with park and league adjustments) and found the best-fit equation with RBI:

deserved RBI = 17 + 1.6*RAR

So, if RBIs were useful, here's how the leader board would look. I've basically just taken RAR and translated it onto the RBI scale.

Hitter	dRBI
Albert Pujols	143
Lance Berkman	126
Manny Ramirez	126
Mark Teixeira	120
Grady Sizemore	118
Hanley Ramirez	112
Alex Rodriguez	110
Chipper Jones	107
Aubrey Huff	107
Jason Bay	106
Nick Markakis	102
Carlos J Quentin	101
Matt T Holliday	101
Adam Dunn	99
Milton Bradley	98
Ryan Ludwick	97
Xavier Nady	97
Chase Utley	95
Justin Morneau	95
David A Wright	95
Jose Reyes	94
Curtis Granderson	93
Dustin L Pedroia	93
Brian Roberts	92
Raul Ibanez	90

I don't know about you, but I love the idea that Brian Roberts could have more RBI than Raul Ibanez.

Here are the trailers, with a minimum of 400 plate appearances:

Hitter	dRBI
Khalil Greene	2
Jeff B Francoeur	3
Freddy Sanchez	6
Michael R Bourn	6
Jeff S Keppinger	12
Melky Cabrera	12
Ross Gload	16
Carlos A Gomez	17
Yuniesky Betancourt	17
Willy Taveras	17
Pedro Feliz	17
Bobby Crosby	18
Jack Hannahan	18
Bill Hall	19
Gary Matthews Jr.	19
Emil Brown	21
Jason Varitek	21
Bengie Molina	22
Daric W Barton	24
Edgar Renteria	24
Jose Castillo	24
Miguel Tejada	24
Jason Kendall	24
Mark T Teahen	25
Robinson Cano	26

Uh, single-digit RBI totals? Yes, those guys have been just that awful. Remember when Luis Castillo couldn't pass the 40 RBI mark? Yeah... And did anyone predict that the Yankees would have two of the worst full time hitters this year?

How about the hitters who are most overrated by RBI?

Hitter	dRBI-RBI
Ryan J Howard	-72
Jeff B Francoeur	-62
Bengie Molina	-61
Jose Guillen	-61
Garrett Atkins	-52
Mark A Reynolds	-51
Freddy Sanchez	-44
Ryan F Garko	-43
Mike Jacobs	-41
Chris B Young	-40
Bobby Crosby	-39
Carlos Delgado	-39
Emil Brown	-38
Brandon Phillips	-37
Bill Hall	-35
Melvin Mora	-35
Robinson Cano	-35
Josh H Hamilton	-34
Michael Young	-34
Miguel Tejada	-34
Miguel Cabrera	-34
Pedro Feliz	-34
Hunter A Pence	-33
Khalil Greene	-33
Garret Anderson	-33

That list is pretty much dominated by low-walk, middle of the order hitters. I'd make fun of Ryan Howard, but it's really just sad how far he's fallen in two years.

And, finally, who are the hitters most underrated by RBI?

Hitter	dRBI-RBI
Hanley Ramirez	50
Albert Pujols	45
Brian Roberts	39
Jose Reyes	38
Chipper Jones	37
Curtis Granderson	36
Grady Sizemore	34
Ichiro Suzuki	33
Brian Giles	28
Lance Berkman	26
Milton Bradley	24
Johnny Damon	23
Manny Ramirez	22
Nick Markakis	21
Matt T Holliday	20
Chone Figgins	19
Ian M Kinsler	18
Dustin L Pedroia	16
Alex Rodriguez	15
Ivan Rodriguez	15
Fred D Lewis	15
J.D. Drew	12
Akinori Iwamura	10
Adam Dunn	10
Xavier Nady	10

And here you've got a whole bunch of high-walk leadoff hitters, plus some huge bats having phenomenal years. Matt Holliday underrated? Crazy.

To be completely forthcoming, I used RAR data through September 5th and RBI totals through September 9th. Considering the depth of research in this post, I didn't think that would be much of an issue. Thanks to The Hardball Times for supplying the stats Justin uses for his calculations.

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