Padding the totals: highest percentage of low-leverage RBI
Here’s a very quick post that I still think you’ll find interesting. I found the top 100 players of all time in terms of RBI from low-leverage situations. Hank Aaron is #1, as you might expect, since he’s pretty much #1 in anything RBI-related. Then, I calculated the fraction those low-leverage RBI represented of their total career RBI. Let’s call this the “Alex Rodriguez RBI” stat, since he’s so often accused of driving in runs when they don’t really matter.
Click through for the large table of how these 100 guys stack up.
This table shows the player’s rank in raw total low-leverage RBI, followed by his name, his raw low-leverage RBI total, his raw overall RBI total, and the percentage of low-leverage RBI.
rank player llRBI RBI % 48 Jim Edmonds 376 1199 31.4% 80 Derrek Lee 333 1078 30.9% 77 Vinny Castilla 340 1105 30.8% 2 Alex Rodriguez 598 1950 30.7% 30 Graig Nettles 400 1314 30.4% 64 Steve Finley 355 1167 30.4% 93 Shawn Green 325 1070 30.4% 7 Sammy Sosa 503 1667 30.2% 85 Mark Teixeira 331 1101 30.1% 32 Paul Molitor 391 1307 29.9% 100 Mo Vaughn 318 1064 29.9% 40 Andruw Jones 380 1289 29.5% 92 Norm Cash 325 1104 29.4% 35 Ivan Rodriguez 389 1332 29.2% 28 Dwight Evans 404 1384 29.2% 17 Mickey Mantle 440 1509 29.2% 4 Frank Robinson 525 1812 29.0% 58 Bernie Williams 363 1257 28.9% 39 Carlton Fisk 383 1330 28.8% 22 Luis Gonzalez 414 1439 28.8% 38 Paul Konerko 384 1336 28.7% 42 David Ortiz 380 1326 28.7% 3 Barry Bonds 571 1996 28.6% 98 Frank Howard 319 1119 28.5% 9 Jim Thome 484 1699 28.5% 25 Albert Pujols 408 1434 28.5% 63 Derek Jeter 356 1254 28.4% 89 Rocky Colavito 327 1159 28.2% 69 Carlos Beltran 350 1243 28.2% 18 Jeff Bagwell 430 1529 28.1% 6 Ken Griffey 515 1836 28.1% 16 H Killebrew 444 1583 28.0% 10 Reggie Jackson 477 1702 28.0% 79 Ellis Burks 337 1206 27.9% 26 Eddie Mathews 406 1454 27.9% 41 Carlos Lee 380 1363 27.9% 33 Robin Yount 390 1406 27.7% 15 Chipper Jones 450 1623 27.7% 44 Orlando Cepeda 377 1365 27.6% 54 Mike Piazza 368 1335 27.6% 51 Darrell Evans 373 1354 27.5% 12 Frank Thomas 469 1704 27.5% 57 Al Oliver 364 1326 27.5% 37 Jose Canseco 386 1407 27.4% 5 Willie Mays 522 1903 27.4% 47 Johnny Bench 376 1376 27.3% 60 Pete Rose 358 1314 27.2% 72 Gil Hodges 347 1274 27.2% 99 Craig Biggio 319 1175 27.1% 81 George Foster 333 1239 26.9% 1 Hank Aaron 614 2297 26.7% 66 Ruben Sierra 353 1322 26.7% 75 Miguel Tejada 342 1282 26.7% 97 Lance Berkman 320 1200 26.7% 62 Todd Helton 357 1345 26.5% 8 Rafael Palmeiro 485 1835 26.4% 53 Juan Gonzalez 370 1404 26.4% 70 Duke Snider 350 1333 26.3% 83 Edgar Martinez 331 1261 26.2% 52 Mark McGwire 371 1414 26.2% 23 Al Kaline 414 1582 26.2% 55 Jason Giambi 367 1405 26.1% 19 Harold Baines 425 1628 26.1% 76 Larry Walker 341 1311 26.0% 86 Paul ONeill 330 1269 26.0% 29 Fred McGriff 402 1550 25.9% 87 Tino Martinez 329 1271 25.9% 84 Scott Rolen 331 1287 25.7% 24 Mike Schmidt 410 1595 25.7% 43 Billy Williams 378 1474 25.6% 74 Gary Gaetti 343 1341 25.6% 73 Bobby Abreu 345 1349 25.6% 11 C Yastrzemski 471 1844 25.5% 20 Gary Sheffield 425 1676 25.4% 90 Moises Alou 326 1287 25.3% 56 Jim Rice 366 1451 25.2% 13 Dave Winfield 462 1833 25.2% 36 Willie Stargell 388 1540 25.2% 82 Ted Williams 332 1324 25.1% 45 Jeff Kent 377 1518 24.8% 78 Garret Anderson 339 1365 24.8% 67 Andr Galarraga 353 1425 24.8% 50 Carlos Delgado 373 1512 24.7% 21 Cal Ripken 418 1695 24.7% 14 Manny Ramirez 451 1831 24.6% 27 Tony Perez 406 1652 24.6% 65 Joe Carter 354 1445 24.5% 34 George Brett 389 1596 24.4% 94 Ron Santo 324 1331 24.3% 59 Vlad Guerrero 361 1496 24.1% 88 Chili Davis 329 1372 24.0% 91 Brooks Robinson 325 1358 23.9% 61 Dave Parker 357 1493 23.9% 71 Rusty Staub 348 1466 23.7% 49 Andre Dawson 375 1591 23.6% 46 Ernie Banks 377 1636 23.0% 95 Yogi Berra 321 1431 22.4% 68 Stan Musial 353 1698 20.8% 31 Eddie Murray 396 1917 20.7% 96 Willie McCovey 320 1556 20.6%
So, wow, A-Rod really does rank pretty close to the top in terms of low-leverage RBI. Jim Edmonds, a guy often accused of show-boating, steals the top spot.
Hank Aaron, despite having the most llRBI of all time, finished middle of the pack.
It is killing me that Joe Carter has a very low percentage–just about a dozen spots from best.
This is pretty interesting, I think–what do you think?
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Must be why the Yankees want Derek Lee.
Very interesting, both in concept and execution. It would also be interesting to see how this correlates with high-scoring environments and low-scoring environments. Hypothesis: low-scoring environments produce more close games and more high-leverage RBI.
I was thinking something similar Birtelcom. Just looking at Edmonds and McCovey (the first and last players on Andy’s list), Edmonds had 44.1% of his PAs in low-leverage situations. McCovey only 36.7%. So we may not be seeing a true difference in “leverage performance” only a reflection of underlying PA dynamics. Or something like that.
That was my first thought when I was Willie McCovey at the top of the list, plus you’ve got Brooks Robinson, Ron Santo & Ernie Banks up there towards the top as well. But you’ve also got Norm Cash, Mickey Mantle & Frank Robinson down towards the bottom too. Still, it seems to me fewer runs must play a role. I thought maybe playing on mediocre teams might also be part of it but then you’ve got to explain Yogi & the Man right at the top of the list. Type of hitter maybe? Stretch & the Killer are pretty similar and played in the same era but they’re a long ways apart on the list. You’ve got notoriously impatient hitters like Joe Carter & Garrett Anderson side-by-side with Ron Santo & Ted Williams. Derek Jeter & Edgar Martinez next to Jim Thome & Mark McGwire.
I suspect if someone had enough time that some patterns would emerge but I’m thinking it’s going to take a lot of work & a fair bit of skill to unravel this pattern.
Would a quick and dirty way to assess that be to figure out the ratio of (Low Leverage RBI/total RBI)/(Low Leverage PA/total PA)? That would at least be interesting to compare that list with the list above, without having to get into the huge context of run environment, etc first.
No question. It’s also true that playing for good teams correlates with more llRBI–note Jeter’s name pretty high on the list. And so as Hartvig says below at #4, I think it’s pretty interesting to see the guys who appear at one end of the list but are out of context. Norm Cash is way high up but didn’t play in a high-run environment. Vlad Guerrero is very low on the list despite playing in a high-run environment. Those are the two names that seem the most significant to me.
Well Cash had 42.2% of his PAs in low-leverage situations; Guerrero only 38.8%.
Other guys who, like Carter, have been dissed despite (or because of) being known as RBI guys are also near the bottom of this list, incl. Tony Perez, Dave Parker and Andre Dawson.
Interesting list for sure, and one that includes a few of the most unloved by advanced stats. Never would have occurred to me that Joe Carter isn’t in the top 1000 career WAR.
A side point, I remember when Brett and Schmidt each had 1595 RBIs. Now I see Brett has 1596 (confirmed by BBRef). Anyone know when that happened?
Speaking of which – check out the 1961 AL Runs and RBI leaders:
RUNS BEFORE:
Mantle – 132 (tied)
Maris – 132 (tied)
RUNS NOW:
Mantle – 132 (the leader!)
Maris – 131 (2nd place)
RBI BEFORE:
Maris – 142 (the leader!)
Gentile – 141 (2nd place)
RBI NOW:
Maris – 141 (tied)
Gentile – 141 (tied)
It’s hard to believe that there was a mistake in the record-keeping of a basic stat, of the league-leaders, in my lifetime. I think of those sort of mistakes as happening waaay back, in the era of Hugh Duffy (lost his 1894 Triple Crown) or Napolean Lajoie (his 1901 BA fluctuated from .422 to .405 to .422 to .426), not in the modern era.
Well, at least Jim Gentile is still alive to enjoy his “new” RBI title.
When the 1912 season ended it appeared that Heinie Zimmerman won the triple crown. Years later it was discovered that his RBI total was overstated and accordingly reduced his total from 103 to 99. Thus Wagner was the RBI leader and Zimmerman lost his triple crown.
As I thought, it appears Mantle lost the run scored, which gave him “only” 5 run titles instead of 6. And congratulations to Gentile. I did not know that.
I’ve read that Hank Geenberg “might” have an extra RBI in 1937, giving him 184 for the season and tying Gehrig (1931) as the AL season leader. It was during game two of a doubleheader on June 20th, 1937; he grounded out, a runner scored but it’s not clear if the runner was on second or third.
It has not been certified as “official” yet by either B-R or Elias.
Could there be another hit in Teddy Ballgame’s bat to give him a 3rd triple crown in ’49? That would have made it 3 in 5 years (excluding the war, of course)!
Two more hits in ’32 would have given Jimmie Foxx two straight Triple Crowns (he won in ’33 but lost the BA title in ’32 to Dale Alexander).
Hornsby missed a 3rd triple crown by 2 homers in ’21 when he lead the league in just about everything else. Are you listening in Miguel?
Whoa, yeah I always thought Brett and Schmidt were tied in RBI too, PP.
Chipper passed both of them last year and finished with 1623 RBI, but Schmidt still holds the record for RBI while playing third base at 1419.
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120720&content_id=35283406&vkey=news_atl&c_id=atl
I’m not sure this chart illustrates much of anything, to sound the skeptical note. If a guy comes up with runners on base in a blowout, is he supposed to doff his cap to the opposite bench and do the gentlemanly thing? Sounds more like cricket to me.
Well, it’s certainly true that the data above don’t tell much of a story. Clearly there are many factors that play in. At the very least, though, we can say that certain guys have been more impactful than others in terms of their RBI (although of course something like WPA tells us that already.)
It’s interesting, though, to that McCovey, a guy who doesn’t stack up all that well compared to many other HOFers, does so well in this particular metric.
I think if you compare McCovey and Sosa, whose RBI totals are fairly close but who lie at the opposite ends of the chart as well as having careers in low-scoring and high scoring eras, you can draw some sound conclusions.
Others on the chart? Mantle walked a lot in high leverage situations, often semi-intentionally, so his opportunities for driving in runs in low leverage situations naturally went up, percentage-wise. As others have intimated, there’s a story about many of the guys here.
I agree with others that the era played in seems the dominant variable here.
9 of the 10 worst at the top of this list played in the steroid era, with 8 of the 10 playing a high percentage of their career in this time frame (Molitor played ’til ’98, so he’s an iffy choice).
9 of the 10 best DIDN’T play in the steroid era. The only other guy is Chili Davis, who is similar to Molitor in that he played ’til 1999.
I also think the quality of team has something to do with it as well. If playing on good teams gives you a lot of low-leverage situations, is the same true for playing on really bad teams? Maybe guys who played for middle-of-the-pack squads have an advantage here. Maybe.
You’re right about the bad teams.
I’m no Alex apologista, but:
- 38% of his ABs came in low-lev;
- his high-lev slashes are virtually the same as low-lev;
- leverage index is partly determined by runners on base, so a comparison of his high-lev RBI rate (190 RBI per 500 ABs) to his low-lev rate (71 RBI per 500 ABs) is meaningless.
This might be interesting: I would have guessed that his walk rate would be notably higher in high-lev spots. But it’s not — once you subtract the IBBs, his walk rate in high- and low-lev is the same.
Give Alex this much, though: His HR rate with the bases full is WAY above any other situation.
Sorry to go all non-stats but A-Rod hits mistakes out of ballparks. He is a guess hitter with good plate coverage laterally. If you put him in situations where he can reasonably expect a fastball in the strike zone and the pitcher puts it belt high, it’s probably going to get put in a different timezone.