18 thoughts on “Nyjer Morgan and runners NOT driven in”

1. nightfly June 11, 2012 at 3:29 pm

   Wow, Burks was off to a hell of a start in the thin air. I wonder how much the offensive explosion of the 90’s really hurt his HoF chances. The raw numbers really aren’t bad at all, and it looks like he has good numbers outside of Coors as well. (I looked at him and Kirk Gibson side-by-side just now… Burks’ numbers compare well, his WAR (and WAR/PA) were better for longer – he just never had an MVP season or a signature “I don’t believe what I just saw!” postseason moment.)

   Burks only made two All-Star teams because everybody and his twin beat the snot out of baseballs during the bulk of his career. Looks like that plus his injury history derailed him. I’d say he probably wasn’t HoF, but 0.4% of the vote seems really low. He was a fine ballplayer.

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   1. Lawrence Azrin June 11, 2012 at 5:50 pm

      Burks’ best MVP season was 1996 (3rd), when he played his most games (156) and had the most AB (685). He had only two other seasons with more than 144 games or 606 AB.

      As you said, he was quite injury-prone, and if he’d had two/three full seasons remotely comparable to 1996, he’d probably be thought of much more favorably.

      His career AIR was 109 ,which means his offensive numbers got quite a boost, esp. from 1994-2001.

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2. Tmckelv June 11, 2012 at 3:58 pm

   I started my love of Baseball Cards in the 1970’s, I played most of my Strat-O-Matic in the 1980’s, I enjoyed the majority of my Fantasy Baseball in the 1990’s and I utilized online SABR/Stat encyclopedia in the 2000’s.

   Lists like this make me smile for different reasons. Buddy Bradford in the Red-stiped White Sox uniform on his baseball card. Pinch Hitting with Andres Mora during a nip-and-tuck Strat-o-Matic game. Wondering how could I possibly draft Chad Krueter for my Rotisserie team. And now reading great lists to learn about the efforts of Scott Hairston. I love baseball.

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   1. Steven Page June 11, 2012 at 10:42 pm

      I was playing Negamco and Statis-Pro during the same period, and had to endure running the Astros during the 1978 Mike Fischlin season….Situations like that make it easier to understand the need some managers feel to consume alcohol

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      1. Abbott June 12, 2012 at 11:14 am

         I played Statis-Pro too! My first year was 1980 (Brad Mills and Matt Alexander were secret weapons in that set. They give you the formulas for creating the cards; now it’s easy to plug everybody’s stats into an Excel spreadsheet, print out the cards, and boom – every year when my brother visits we have tournaments, much to the chagrin of our wives/parents/kids/pets/livers.

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3. GrandyMan June 11, 2012 at 4:42 pm

   Not surprisingly, pretty much all of the guys on that first list have atrocious OPS numbers…except for Fuld, who was OPSing .763 in 111 PA. The 15 runs tell me he was batting leadoff most of the time. I guess the Cubs had a really awful back end of the lineup for that to happen.

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   1. Doug Post authorJune 11, 2012 at 5:03 pm

      In his 22 starts in 2009, Fuld batted eighth 12 times, first 8 times, and second twice. Those starts accounted for 90 of his 115 PA for the season.

      Fuld’s only RBI for the year came on the final day of the season, on a solo HR and a run-scoring groundout.

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      1. brp June 11, 2012 at 5:55 pm

         I remember Fuld was actually playing fairly well, he just never came up with many RBI chances (from what I remember). It was more of a statistical fluke than anything Fuld was doing wrong. However Fuld and Morgan fit the mold for atrocious RBI totals; top or bottom of the order hitters with little to no power.

         The more Morgan/Gomez play for Milwaukee the more I wonder why Aoki isn’t starting…

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4. Richard Chester June 11, 2012 at 5:58 pm

   I found a guy named Lou Camilli who went the first 89 games of his career without an RBI. I believe that is a record, not counting pinch-runners Herb Washington and Allen Lewis.

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   1. Doug June 11, 2012 at 8:26 pm

      Nice find, Richard.

      Camilli’s 89 games were over 4 seasons, which is why he didn’t show up in the streak list (though he is in the RBI=HR list). That first RBI came in career PA 151, compared to Morgan who had 159 PA between RBIs on Sep 20 last season and June 1 this year.

      Camilli also didn’t get his first career hit until his 36th game and 38th PA. A career .146 hitter in 166 PAs, he was used as a pinch-hitter in more than a quarter of those appearances and batted .119 in that role. Poor Cleveland – their bench must have been pretty awful for this guy to be used as a pinch-hitter.

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5. Voomo Zanzibar June 11, 2012 at 7:17 pm

   Maybe that’s why Houston traded Kenny Lofton :>

   Though, Lofton batted leadoff all 18 starts, and he was actually 4 for 8 with a runner on first.

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6. birtelcom June 11, 2012 at 11:48 pm

   Any consideration of RBI futility should not overlook the 1971 season of Enzo Hernandez. 618 PAs and only 12 RBI: fewest ribbies per PA by a qualifying batter since baseball settled on the four ball/three strike standard. The 1971 Padres scored only 486 runs as a team, and Enzo, in his debut season in the majors, was the team’s everyday leadoff guy despite a .295 OBP (which at least least was better than his .250 SLG). Don’t blame manager Preston Gomez too much for batting Enzo leadoff — that .295 OBP was above-average for that club (team OBP: .293)

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   1. Doug Post authorJune 12, 2012 at 1:51 am

      Indeed.

      I didn’t realize how low Enzo’s RBI rate was. He has the only season (min. 502 PA) with RBI < 2% of PAs. He's in a class by himself because the second lowest rate is Goat Anderson in 1907, who had the same number of RBI in 108 fewer PAs! To find a player with a lower RBI rate than Hernandez, you have to drop the threshold below 400 PAs, to pick up Dick Howser with 6 RBI in 377 PAs in 1965.

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      1. Richard Chester June 12, 2012 at 10:26 am

         Hernandez’s RBI/H ratio of 12/122 = 0.098 is the second lowest of batters with > 502 PA. The lowest is 1970 Luis Castillo’s of 17/180 = 0.094.

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   2. tag June 12, 2012 at 2:16 pm

      birtelcom,

      I referenced this season in my reasons for including Enzo on SD’s Mt. Rushmore in a Janus-like pair with Nate Colbert, his opposite in this RBI regard. It remains one of my favorite statistics of all time. I mean, a lot of players get 12 RBI from sac flies alone in that number of seasonal at-bats. I know the Padres were a low-scoring team, but Enzo must have been allergic to batting runs in or something.

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7. Jimbo June 12, 2012 at 1:49 am

   Lol at Matt Stairs 2011. Watching his PA’s it was hard to believe they gave him so many. Any legit fastball was in the catcher’s mitt before his bat got moving.

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   1. Doug Post authorJune 12, 2012 at 1:58 am

      Stairs had only 12 more games after breaking his RBI-less streak. His final “appearance” was being announced as a pinch-hitter and then being pinch-hit for when a new pitcher was brought in.

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8. Doug Post authorJune 20, 2012 at 10:06 pm

   BREAKING NEWS! Nyjer Morgan drove in a teammate today (Jun 20), his first such RBI this season. Morgan had gone exactly 200 PA since he last drove in a teammate, on Sep 20 last season.

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