How Many Players Would Have 95 RBI in Ryan Howard’s Opportunities?

Posted by Neil Paine on August 16, 2011

Here's a fun exercise to follow up on Sean's NYT piece about Ryan Howard (and his radio interview today)...

It seems to me that the core question in the Howard debate is this: how many RBIs would other players have if they got to hit behind players who got on base as frequently as Howard's teammates do?

Well, a quick and dirty way to answer that is to look at how many RBIs a player has relative to the number of baserunners (BR) aboard when he's at the plate. Based on their 2011 rates of RBI per BR (and min. 350 PA), here are players who would also have 95 RBI if afforded Howard's 375 BR:

Player	Tm	Pos	Lg	G	PA	AB	HR	RBI	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+	BR	RBI w/ RH's BR
Nelson Cruz	TEX	9	AL	101	420	386	26	77	0.267	0.321	0.534	0.855	123	260	111
Ryan Braun	MIL	7	NL	110	461	409	23	78	0.328	0.397	0.579	0.976	163	271	108
Josh Hamilton	TEX	7	AL	84	374	340	14	66	0.300	0.345	0.515	0.860	126	231	107
Curtis Granderson	NYY	8	AL	117	519	440	33	94	0.273	0.366	0.580	0.946	149	331	106
Mark Teixeira	NYY	3	AL	118	522	450	32	88	0.249	0.343	0.507	0.850	125	311	106
Lance Berkman	STL	9	NL	106	429	355	28	76	0.293	0.406	0.583	0.989	175	269	106
Michael Morse	WSN	3	NL	107	410	374	20	69	0.321	0.371	0.556	0.927	153	247	105
Matt Holliday	STL	7	NL	94	396	335	18	63	0.313	0.417	0.561	0.978	173	228	104
Justin Upton	ARI	9	NL	120	520	461	25	75	0.306	0.379	0.564	0.943	154	272	103
Chipper Jones	ATL	5	NL	89	363	323	10	53	0.272	0.344	0.449	0.793	118	197	101
Jose Bautista	TOR	9	AL	109	483	383	34	77	0.311	0.447	0.632	1.079	191	295	98
Adrian Beltre	TEX	5	AL	100	421	388	20	76	0.276	0.318	0.505	0.823	115	292	98
Jacoby Ellsbury	BOS	8	AL	118	539	488	20	74	0.314	0.369	0.508	0.878	136	286	97
Albert Pujols	STL	3	NL	108	477	427	29	75	0.288	0.352	0.541	0.893	148	290	97
Carlos Gonzalez	COL	7	NL	102	432	384	18	66	0.281	0.350	0.492	0.842	115	257	96
Prince Fielder	MIL	3	NL	122	517	427	27	89	0.304	0.416	0.564	0.980	165	348	96
J.J. Hardy	BAL	6	AL	89	387	356	23	58	0.267	0.311	0.514	0.825	124	227	96
Ryan Roberts	ARI	5	NL	108	417	360	16	50	0.264	0.357	0.458	0.815	122	197	95
Ryan Howard	PHI	3	NL	118	511	444	26	95	0.257	0.344	0.495	0.840	127	375	95
Ben Zobrist	TBR	4	AL	116	507	437	15	68	0.277	0.368	0.492	0.860	145	269	95
Brian McCann	ATL	2	NL	93	382	341	19	56	0.302	0.372	0.513	0.885	143	222	95

Somewhere in an alternate universe, Michael Morse is the Phillies' 1st baseman and is being trumpeted for MVP consideration because of his league-leading 105 RBI.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Insane ideas, Sabermetrics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

112 Responses to “How Many Players Would Have 95 RBI in Ryan Howard’s Opportunities?”

joekiddluischama Says:
August 18th, 2011 at 11:23 am
@92

... intriguing. This "matrix" doesn't account for the speed of the base runners, but otherwise, the concept certainly makes more sense than simply examining the quantity of base runners. Yes, Howard's status an elite RBI man largely stems from circumstance, but also from the home run and extra-base power that renders him a prime RBI threat even with no runners in scoring position or on base at all. And to account for this dynamic, the "quality" of the RBI situation, not just the quantity of base runners, needs to be recognized. As I've written before, driving-in a runner from third is much easier than driving-in a runner from first (especially with less than two outs) and the two situations should not be deemed equivalent.

If you enjoy the chance, you should copyright and present your tables and formulas.
joekiddluischama Says:
August 18th, 2011 at 11:26 am
@100

... there should be an "as" between "an" and "status" ... lazy proof-reading on my part.
joekiddluischama Says:
August 18th, 2011 at 11:34 am
@87

... interesting percentages, but how did you derive them? I'm guessing that your formula is different from the one employed by Mr. Paine in his table.
joekiddluischama Says:
August 18th, 2011 at 11:42 am
@87/102

Okay, your rates seem to for the 2006-2011 span, not just this year. But they are useful in judging Howard's career value as an "RBI man." As I noted in response to another Howard column, he wasn't merely eking-out 100 RBI seasons from 2006-2009.
Jesus Says:
August 18th, 2011 at 11:46 am
@102 and 103 I apologize. The figures are from 08-11, I purposely left off 06 and 07 so not to "boost" his stats. If I added those two years into the figures then he is even higher and for that matter so is Pujols, although he would still be second to Howard.

@102 Paine only used this year and I used 08-11 for my calculations. Every player had well over 1600 opportunities for RBI's and Howard came out on top of the players I listed.
Johnny Twisto Says:
August 18th, 2011 at 10:20 pm
Wow. Just ran Curtis Granderson through my RBI matrix. An average player in his opportunities would have driven in 62 runs this year. So he is +33, +.062 per PA.

Too bad no one's reading this anymore to give him his rightful MVP!
Johnny Twisto Says:
August 18th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
Odd thing about Granderson. He hasn't had a single PA this season with 0 outs and runners on 2nd and 3rd or bases loaded, a couple pretty good RBI opportunities. David Ortiz and Jason Bay have both had 10 such PA, and it looks like at least 30 players have had at least 5.
Fitz Says:
August 18th, 2011 at 10:28 pm
what exactly is this rbi matrix? I'm pretty in tune with most of the stats, but have no clue how to use this website for sorting and such.
Johnny Twisto Says:
August 18th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
Fitz, it's not on the site. See my post 92 and let me know if you have questions.
Johnny Twisto Says:
August 19th, 2011 at 12:56 am
I should have run Nelson Cruz, since he's on top of Neil's chart in the intro. He is +30, and +.070 per PA, the latter of which is easily the highest of the 4 big RBI guys I've calculated.
Fireworks Says:
August 20th, 2011 at 3:15 pm
I am going to be so butthurt when Grandy finishes the year strong and still doesn't get MVP.

Anyway, Howard is overrated by the casual fan because the casual fan lacks the willingness or patience to do more than superficial analysis. Now, don't get me wrong--no one is saying anyone has to be a saberhead. You just can't argue with one if you're dismissive of their points without an understanding of what the hell they're talking about.

For the same reason if I merely listen to Fox News or CNN yak about some bill or something and you read article after article from a variety of sources, and I don't know half of what you're talking about, but I'm still dismissive... we're a lot little (very little sadly, but still, a little) less tolerant of that sort of thing. But baseball? "DON'T YOU TELL ME SOMETHING DIFFERENT FROM WHAT I ALREADY KNOW I CAN READ STATS YOU SABERDUMMY GEEZ GO BACK INTO YOUR SABER-LAB AND MAKE MORE LIES, HATER!"

@86 Duffgita

100% right. I've had the same conversation with my fellow Yankees fans about Mark Teixeira and they stick with Mark. "Mark's great!" "Mark already fits in!"

Occasionally I show them just how ridiculously awesome Pujols stats are, show them his career, show them the .330 career average and the slugging and the homers and the good baserunning and very occasionally they say, "wow!"

And then they say, "I like Teixeira."

They just don't want to upset the apple cart.
Fireworks Says:
August 20th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
-lot. Didn't proofread well enough.

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