Can RBIs Matter?
Last week, I woke up to a bit of a Chicago-area Twitter kerfuffle based on some things Cubs outfielder Ian Happ said on local sports radio about how RBIs are a skill and not based on luck. Let’s face it: When wins and RBIs are praised, somebody somewhere is going to get worked up about it.
Happ said these things on Dan Bernstein and Leila Rahimi’s morning show on 670 AM The Score, and based on the tweets, it sounded like an argument, which surprised me. Dan is a thoughtful guy who has been in fixture in Chicago sports radio since years began with a 1. Like most sports talk hosts, people love him or hate him, but he’s not your standard run-of-the-mill screamer. He’s smart about baseball, exceptionally clever, and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
After hearing the conversation, it was clearly overblown on social media (as to be expected when Twitter is involved). The most intriguing part of the argument, though, was probably about the 2012 AL MVP voting. Happ insisted that Miguel Cabrera deserved his award based on winning the Triple Crown, with Rahimi agreeing with him; Bernstein went with Mike Trout, based on overall value. I’m with Dan. Cabrera and Trout were roughly equal players offensively, but the latter easily surpasses the former once you factor in defense and base running.
Still, this wasn’t a mud-slinging battle. Dan was respectful throughout the whole conversation, and Happ is a regular on the radio in Chicago. “You can talk wRC+ with [Happ], and he understands it,” said Bernstein. “I think more players understand these kind of numbers now that they know the correlation between the math and how they get paid. A lot of players are past statistics because they’re into so much more measurement now. They want to know about their Rapsodo data and exit velocities.”
The whole situation left me wondering about a couple things — some more serious — in terms of why anyone cares about how players see statistics. But on a more fun and silly level, I wondered if you could make a case where RBIs would matter.
Here’s a thought exercise. Let’s go back to 2012 and create a fictional player; call him Ciguel Mabrera. He’s a bulky third baseman for the Tigers, and the majority of his value comes from his bat. Ciguel is a unique individual. He’s the only player with indisputable proof that clutch exists. On the downside, he’s useless when not in clutch situations; just withers away and has no ability whatsoever. In 2012, Miguel Cabrera had 622 at-bats, with 174 of them coming with runners in scoring position. My fictional friend Ciguel got those exact ABs and hit a remarkable 1.000 with runners on but somehow went 0-for-458 when hitting with the bases empty. Using Miguel’s extra-base rates with runners on, our made-up best friend Ciguel finished the season hitting .279 with 34 doubles, 25 home runs and a .454 slugging percentage. That’s a pretty damn good player, but certainly not the kind that would generate MVP votes.
But what about that clutch part? All of Ciguel’s hits came with runners in scoring position. He extended big innings and, using the real Miguel’s RBI/hit ratio in such situations, drove in 250 runs, eclipsing Hack Wilson’s long-standing record by more than 30 percent. Ciguel isn’t going to find himself near the top of any WAR leaderboards, but he probably kicked some major ass in terms of WPA, and his value to the team was amazing. He deserves MVP votes.
Ciguel is probably going to have a 2013 projection similar to 2012 in terms of OPS and WAR, but the 250 RBIs change the tenor of the conversation, or at the very least, him constantly getting hits with runners in scoring position does. We’re not talking about projecting anything based on what happened, or any sort of measurement of value based on bases and outs. We are talking about what actually happened to generate wins, and while RBIs play no factor in WAR (nor should they), they mattered in terms of winning baseball games for the Tigers. By racking up 250 of them, Ciguel was the MVP despite having a merely good season in terms of any traditional sabermetic measurements.
Am I crazy? There are plenty of smart people here at FanGraphs, so I got their thoughts.
Ben Clemens
For me, he’s absolutely an MVP candidate. The V stands for value, after all, and it’s hard to be more valuable when it comes to winning games (the relevant metric) than someone who never made an out with a runners in scoring position. We can’t see his WPA in this instance, but I’m positive it would lead baseball. Offensive statistics are best used in a context-neutral sense for projection, but ignoring context is harmful when it comes to explanation of what happened. If you drive in 250 runs, you’ve almost certainly added the most value to your team, whatever your slash line is. This split is comically extreme to the point where I’d want to see what he was doing differently with runners on, though. You can yell sample size and stabilization point all you want, but 172-for-172 is meaningful.
Brendan Gawlowski
This is a new spin on an old discussion: Debates on the value of clutch hitting, WAR versus WPA, and so on follow a similar thread. In this case, I suspect that, particularly if the manager noticed the pattern and began strategically replacing our ephemeral slugger in certain bases-empty situations, this player would provide a lot of value. Even if much of that surplus production came in non-critical situations, there’s a real benefit to bolstering a modest lead — and like with everything else, Dave Cameron once had an article about that. The more mathematically inclined can tease out the details here, but as it relates to WAR and the business of helping win games, I’d buy that this player deserves down-ballot votes.
There’s a caveat in there though. A philosophical question requires an answer in kind, and this hypothetical slugger puts a bad taste in my mouth. The flip side of a player with the power to elevate his game in the clutch is one who cannot sufficiently motivate themselves when the adrenaline isn’t flowing; given the dramatic splits, it’s tempting to say they are not even trying at all most of the time. This smacks of the guy who slinks away from kickoff calls and meetings and mundane spreadsheet work only to reappear in full view and loud voice when the boss swings around to inspect the final product. A player who only performs in big moments is antithetical to the rhythms of the game, and for that reason, I’d probably leave him off my ballot.
Jay Jaffe
Leaving aside the extreme split for a moment, if an elite defender (catcher or shortstop) put up those kind of numbers with exceptional defensive metrics, he could plausibly wind up in an MVP discussion, particularly if the softer factors were in his favor (i.e., on a playoff-bound team that was perhaps a surprise or in a tight race) as well. That’s not to say he’d win against somebody with big power numbers. As for the splits, while I’m averse to using RBIs as a measure of value, I certainly think it’s fair game to bring contextual stats into an MVP discussion. If I have a ballot, I’m not only looking at multiple flavors of WAR and their defensive inputs but also WPA-flavored stats, and this guy would probably light it up in that category to go with his record-setting RBI total.
David Laurila
This is a no-brainer, right? Not only would this player be an MVP candidate, he would be the prohibitive favorite (assuming no one else put up absurd, unprecedented numbers). Intuitively, his WPA would be notably higher than that of his contemporaries, and contributing to a team’s efforts to win games is ultimately how value should be judged. Going back to a time where statistical knowledge was much more rudimentary — and where WPA numbers weren’t available — Hack Wilson was unofficially voted NL MVP in 1930 after driving in 190 runs, with 119 of them coming with runners in scoring position. Wilson had a markedly higher OPS with RISP than Bill Terry, a .401 hitter who had a higher WAR. Intuitively, voters recognized that Wilson was the more deserving of the two. While RBI totals can be misleading, they’re meaningful when taken in context.
Jake Mailhot
I think the novelty of a player who can only succeed with runners on base and the gaudy RBI totals would win over a number of BBWAA voters. Does that make him an MVP candidate? Perhaps. But his overall, context-neutral production is still fairly lackluster, probably around 10–15% better than league average. That doesn’t come close to being an MVP candidate in my eyes.
Meg Rowley
Ah jeez.
Dan Szymborski
These theoretical questions are always tricky since they offer starker comparisons than in real life. I think in an extreme situation like this, I’d have to consider the context quite highly in any type of award voting. In most cases, you can largely dismiss this an outlier, but this would be an outlier so extreme that the odds of this happening by random chance are absolutely astronomical. While I wouldn’t give extra credit for the RBIs — the player’s personal stats already reflect his high-leverage supremacy — I think you’d have to look at WPA-type stats at this point, which I would if I was voting on this particular award when this craziness happened. It does make me wonder the best way to utilize a player with characteristics this extreme. Perhaps you’d maximize value by never putting them in the starting lineup but bringing them in for the rest of the game, pinch-hitting at the first high-leverage, men-on-base situation.
Tony Wolfe
It feels very weird to say no, but I still think I’m going to. The most valuable player, to me, is the player who performs the best regardless of context. Whether the team is ahead or behind, in the light of day or under a full moon, they can perform at a high level under any circumstance. This hitter would be the opposite: His success is entirely dependent upon context. I don’t know if he engaged in some sorcery that guaranteed him this binary outcome and removed all free will from the occasion, or if he knows exactly how to come up with a hit at any given moment and simply chooses to tap into that only when he knows he can drive in a run (to which I would ask, why?). But whatever the reason, his results are predetermined by what the teammates in front of him do. And if this isn’t something that’s within his control, then he’s just a good-not-great hitter whose results got randomly distributed in a completely preposterous way. In that case, this would be best chalked up as the most astonishing fun fact in the sport’s history. And as they’re fond of saying on Effectively Wild, “all fun facts lie.”
***
For me, Ciguel is the clear MVP; for others, not as much; and for all of them, on some level, the RBIs matter. Mission accomplished?
Kevin Goldstein is a National Writer at FanGraphs.
I loved this article with it being theoretical and input from all the writers. Thanks for writing this!
I strongly agree. I will read basically any article that is the equivalent of a “roundtable discussion” between the writers like this.
Great to hear. I’ll keep this in mind for future stuff. I agree that the participation of the group is what really made the piece, and the comments have made it even better.
Fully agree — one of the best parts about baseball’s sample size.
Count me in with Gawlowski. So, Mabrera had a bunch of meaningless hits with runners on second in 5-0 games but he couldn’t get a leadoff single in the ninth inning of a 1-0 game? Hard pass.
Not all RsBI are clutch.
Love to *have to* pinch hit for my MVP with a runner on first in the bottom of the ninth in a game I’m losing by a run.
You just need a pinch runner who can steal second when everybody knows it’s coming. Which probably nets you a higher success chance than a normal MVP at the plate even if he gets thrown out half the time. The break-even rate on a SB is a lot lower when a success is a guaranteed run.
With the bases empty, though, you’ll need to find a pinch hitter who will always get a hit with the bases empty but strike out with men on.
I appreciate it when somebody helps me remember all the Dave Roberts love that I will always carry with me.
Filihok has returned!
I would add…what happens if said player never comes to the plate with a runner in scoring position? They’d go hitless for the entire season. So their “skill” – to the extent that this is a skill – is 100% dependent on what their teammates do ahead of them.
Rushed my comment a bit. Would probably be better saying that their VALUE is 100% dependent on what their teammates do. Personally I’d have a hard time voting for someone like that as MVP.
…how did no one mention RE24, haha?
WPA is fluffy nonsense that tells us nothing about a player’s contribution to winning – a 2 HR in a 2-1 game is precisely as valuable if it takes place in the top of the 1st with 0 outs as if it occurs in the bottom of the 9th with 0 outs.
WPA disagrees, because it’s not designed to measure performance.
RE24 actually does measure players’ in-context contributions to run-generation, relative to the league average, and is, in fact, on the exact same scale as wRAA, making it very easy to calculate a RE24-based WAR, come awards season, that measures value created for the team, rather than pure individual performance.
This is very much what I came here to say. WPA’s only real use is for gambling; it is a game-level statistic. Beyond that, it is just a quantification of how exciting a game is, which is fun for articles on Fangraphs but not so useful for determining value.
I get really annoyed when otherwise very smart people try to use WPA to measure value because it clearly is not very good at that. In this specific case, WPA is useful insofar as it correlates with RE24.
Yep. There’s a reason Tango came up with RE24, and it’s for this exact question, haha.
Ryan Howard wasn’t *that* bad of an MVP choice in 2006!
Justin Morneau was a horrible one – Jeter adds 20 runs of offense, when you factor in context.
Also, at least he didn’t use the “clutch” stat. That is where things go completely off the rails.
Yep – “Clutch” and “WPA” only measure how intense a moment is to watch…although the latter *can* be helpful for in-game gambling.
As a counter point to this argument: There are lots of games with a 1st inning 2 run HR. Very few of them finish 2-1.
So yes, if you know the score final score is 2-1, then they have that same value. But that is very few games in the 1st case, and all of the games in the 2nd case.
But the HR in the first inning just gives you the information that the away team is scoring at least two runs – their probability of winning is higher than it was before the homer, but they still have lots of time left to blow that lead. All WPA is doing is adding in the specific context.
I don’t think WPA is worse or better than RE24 – they are measuring different, but related, things.
This is exactly why WPA is worse than RE24 for this purpose. WPA tells you the value of the offensive performance based on what we think the context is in that specific moment, as the hit occurs. But it’s just a probabilistic guess. RE24 tells you the value of the offensive performance within the actual context. WPA is good at the exact moment it is recorded, but progressively becomes less useful as the full context becomes known.
What WPA measures is “How much this play changed our expectations of the game’s result.”
What RE24 measures is “How much this play helped this player’s team offensively.”
WPA is fun.
A stat that can prefer a RoE to a grand slam offers less than nothing in terms of evaluating a player’s performance.
Sure.
But why is hitting a grand slam with two outs more meaningful than hitting a one run HR with no outs in evaluating a players offensive performance? They can’t control the number of runners on base, or the number of outs when they come to the plate – so a stat which cares about the timing of a HR offers less than nothing in terms of evaluating a player’s performance?
I think if the context of “number of outs, number of runners on” matters, then considering the score, and what inning it is are also valid considerations.
The reason that the inning doesn’t matter is because a run scored in the first counts just as much as one scored in the 9th.
For me, wRAA vs. RE24 is like FIP vs. RA9 – it’s totally valid to prefer the former, in terms of pure player evaluation, but the latter correlates more strongly to value-produced.
Scoring first may influence the final score as well as any pitching or positional/pitching changes that need to be made. Also, a pitcher or a defense staked with a lead may make different pitch type or defensive decisions.
Let’s not forget that RE24 for pitchers solves the issue of responsibility for inherited runners when a pitching change is made (instead of giving all the blame to the guy who let the runner on).
What a fun read! I tend to agree with the writers who would look at WPA. Has anyone done a study looking to see what kind of link WPA and WAR have??
There’s actually a stat specifically designed to assess how much these guys impacted real-world run creation:
RE24.
It does not get mentioned.
I think there’s always been a disconnect between how players see RBIs vs the analyst/smart fan. I don’t think players view game events like we do. In the grind out there on the field driving someone in is EXTREMELY important and in the moment that is a huge moment for the team. Even if it’s a broken bat single that falls just out of the reach of the second basemen, the players are celebrating that. To the objective viewer that is seen as a lucky break. We write off RBIs as merely happenstance of good hitters have runners on base in front of them, while players remember each one as a run on the board for the team. Just my thoughts! I could definitely be off base. Interesting article and thought exercise.
One of the really fun things during Ryan Howard’s heyday was to look at the gap between his RE24 and his wRAA – in terms of real runs generated relative to the average, WAR underrates him by about 8 wins!
…which means all the “But look at his Ribbies!” guys actually had a point!
Sometimes its better to be lucky than good. I’d rather an at bat for a player that gets a bloop single driving in a run than a the hardest hit line drive of the year that is caught in the outfield on a spectacular diving catch. The exit velocity might have been great and they were robbed by the defender, but the bloop single got results that actually helps the team win.
Alright, but you can’t just go “well this guy is lucky”. The line drive may have been unlucky, but the hit result puts the team with a better chance.
We agree on that.
My concern as a voter would be: is this skill replicable? If I vote for Ciguel for MVP based on his performance, and then it turns out that he can do this literally every year, how many years do I vote for him before I take a public vow of hypocrisy and vote for someone else?
Even if, say, he finishes his career batting .900 with RISP and .100 without, you gotta worry about a whole generation of players losing MVP and All-Star votes that could help them into the Hall someday.
While I agree with many others here that the “contribution to winning” part leaves out the actual game score (which seems important if you are going to use contribution to winning as a justification), I think this question is already kind of answered by the premise. This guy’s skill is real, by definition, because the scenario demands it. Therefore, he should get credit for RBIs. You can’t really compare him (on RBIs) to other players because we only know that his RBI skill is real, not others. But the mere fact that we can treat his RBIs as real vaults him pretty strongly into the MVP discussion regardless of his numbers.
Ah, another reframing of the timeless debate of “valuable” vs “best.” To which I say, did Ciggy’s team make the playoffs? Because it’s nonsense to have a MVP from a losing team. Or some such hogwash. Anyway, I’d put him at the top of my MVP ballot, but I wouldn’t be too bothered if somebody else didn’t.
I love these thought experiments with extreme splits, though. I want to see somebody take all the absurd hypothetical players from FG articles over the years and figure out a lineup of “average” players that completely breaks baseball.
Meg with by far the best answer. That being said I don’t know if I could hold that lack of production in non-RBI situations against someone who batted 1.000 with RISP and drove in every run possible. That’s incredibly valuable. I wonder how often he would get intentionally passed once it became obvious all he does is drive in runs?
This. I imagine Mabrera wouldn’t get anywhere near 250… around midseason, he’s just getting intentionally walked automatically with RISP. Still somewhat valuable, but why let a guy batting 1.000 swing?
No way he gets walked any sooner than the following season. At midseason, opponents would still be citing SSS and counting on regression. 😉
Not necessarily on topic for this article but still in the realm of RBI discussion… I’ve seen lots of articles about bad players with 100 RBIs because his teammates were awesome, and some articles about awesome players with only 60 RBIs because his teammates were bad.
But I’m curious about what teams in history have had the most even RBI distribution. A team where if even everyone was Ciguel none of them would get 100 RBIs because they were all good with RISP.*
* I understand that technically all the Ciguels would have 0 RBIs because they’d all be 0-for-infinity, but I’m sure you get my point. However the fact that a team of Ciguels would create 0 runs puts me in the camp of he’s not very valuable really.
I loved the theoretical and the input from all the writers!
Love the concept of this article. It shines a brighter light on what people consider for the MVP award and what matters to them. For me it is always about how much you Actually help your team win. How much does one contribute to Actual win totals.
I don’t care how great a player is if they aren’t helping to get Ws in the end. An MVP helps to push the team over the top and get them to a level they were not on before as a team. And in baseball scoring runs helps the team win, so driving in runs (RBIs) is an important part of that, unless they are mostly meaningless RBIs.
Ciguel would have a slash line of something like 279/336/454 with ob figured in. That’s basically Maikel Franco last year, also at 3B. (Franco had 1.3war, 64th ranked position player for the season), or if 2020 is a wash due to the small number of games, it’s Avisail Garcia from 2019 w/ the Rays (1.9war, 93rd ranked overall for position players), though in the outfield. Neither Garcia nor Franco landed a single vote for MVP in their respective years, and more, neither were able to land a contract with their same team in the following offseason. Now, suppose Avisail Garcia had 250 RBIs for the Rays in that 2019 season, is he suddenly an MVP candidate?
Second, single season records are often ignored in MVP voting. Of all the major single season records, only Walter Johnsons win total and Bond’s homer total in 2001 coincided with MVP awards. And i guess you can add in Hack Wilson’s for 1930. Not Ichiro for hits, Nolan for K’s, not McGwire for his 70 homers (but Maris did win in 61), not the single season leader for doubles or triples, not Ricky for steals. Not Rogers Hornsby, the modern single season batting average leader at .423 in 1928.
Back to Garcia; 250 rbi’s would be awesome and would probably also capture major national attention towards the end of the season. For that, it, probaby would attract MVP votes. Ted Williams famously DIDN’T win the MVP in 1941 despite hitting .406 as Joe D’s hitting streak (and .357 average) captured the nation’s attention.
Avisail Garcia chasing 250 RBI would be bigger than McGwire vs Sosa.
Looks like he spent the offseason preparing fir the challenge.
This is a good piece. It reminds me of the type of stuff that was on here back in halcyon days with Dave, Jeff, Eno, and Carson.
I think we can answer this with another hypothetical. When Ciguel reached free agency, what would he make?
I think it’s pretty clear – assuming his particular skill was well-known to be innate and unchangeable – that he would be the most desired player in baseball history. The ultimate weapon. Is that really disputable? Instant runs at your choosing! In a sense, he’s the ultimate sabermetric test in that he gains his value in nonexpected, nontraditional ways. He’s a singular talent, capable of providing value in a way no one else could! His contract would be massive.
To me that’s a much easier question to ask than awards voting, but it’s a helpful a fortiori argument – if his salary would be so high – and I don’t think you could reasonably argue it wouldn’t be – how could he not be considered MVP material?
What Meg said.
Great thought exercise! To take it a step further, you could do this with runs as well. I’ve always been fascinated why this discussion always covers RBI and not R. Someone’s gotta be there for Ciguel to drive in, right? If you take this discussion to its next logical extreme, if the three guys in front of Ciguel have a combined .000 OBP, he never has anybody to drive in.
An entire team of Cigels would be terrible. They would, almost, never score (there could be the rare two base error that would score a run or a few).
Someone more knowledgeable than me needs to do the math and see how much having this player on your team would actually impact the team’s scoring.
This was great, I liked getting the staff input, and I read Meg’s comment exactly in her podcast voice.
I, for one, am with Meg.
Let me put it this way: if you ask 30 GMs which guy would they rather have for one season: the guy that goes 172/172 w RISP and drives in 250 runs (but puts up pedestrian numbers), or a guy worth 10 WAR? 30 for 30 would take the guy who drove in 250 . It’s a no brainer. That’s an offense that just scored 1000+ runs. That’s real in terms of wins. Doesn’t matter how fluky or sticky it is. Outcomes matter too, and all 30 would take that outcome at the end of the day.
Hmmmm….the 2012 Tigers scored only 726 runs with Miggy driving in 139 of them. Adding another 111 RBI’s to Miggy’s total wouldn’t have gotten the Tigers anywhere near 1,000+ runs. Of course, we also have to account for the fact that, in this scenario, Miggy’s OBP is a lot lower than it was in the real world. Which means he would have scored fewer runs. So maybe this hypothetical Miggy gets the Tigers up to 800 runs scored. Maybe. Though I suspect that if we ran 1000 simulations, we’d find that they’d score (on average) fewer than 800 runs. Either way, the idea that a team would automatically score 1000+ runs with this hypothetical player is clearly false.
I also think the idea that 30 out of 30 GMs would prefer the RBI machine over a 10 WAR player is also false. We see a diversity of opinions among the Fangraphs writers with an n of only 9. Why would we not expect to see a similar diversity among GMs, particularly with 21 more voices added to the mix?
I’d have him pinch hit with RISP once a game, from the 3rd inning on. Hopefully get another at bat with RISP later on. If not, average would be around .500. 160ish RBI. Catch the upside of “clutch” and reduce downside of flopping without RISP.
Rbi are definitely partly a skill but dependent on opportunity. So maybe do something like RBI/opportunity
I have always thought that RBI/Opportunity is one of the best measures of a hitter. Occasionally it is mentioned, usually when there is a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs, but while the stats for all situations are there to be found, it requires some deep digging to find them.
I can’t find it now, but in the weeks after the 2012 MVP award announcement there was an article that included a quote from Billy Beane (or someone else representing Billy Beane) that stated that the A’s valuation of the Cabrera’s and Trout’s defensive was a lot closer than others. Since then I think the argument about it kind of silly. Defensive metrics just vary wildly sometimes.
Defensive metrics vary wildly ALL the time.
This was a very intriguing and entertaining article, but I am surprised that it is a question in the first place. Of course RBI’s matter and clutch hitting is a skill. Teams can’t win without them, and (good) players change their approach when hitting with runners in scoring position. In theory, Ciguel’s slash line is not MVP level, but if we lived through this season, everyone in baseball would completely freak out at a 1.000 hitter with RISP.
I wonder how much of the confusion, if that’s the right term, is related to conflating discrete events with statistics better suited to continuous processes.
One summer that kid of mine never mowed the lawn. But he did re-shingle the roof, rebuild the back deck and finish out the basement. He never did anything close to that ever again. But, wow – that was one helluva productive summer! Unfortunately, this is a hypothetical analogy.
No.
“RBI’s” is incorrect. Runs Batted In is already plural.
I remember near the end of a season, I think it was 2016, about being asked in the Rockies dugout by Ryan Spilborghs how Arenado could be a Gold Glove third baseman, hitting around .300 while being tops in the league in home runs and RBIs, yet still not be in the top 10 in third baseman in fWAR. It can’t all just be Coors. Cory Sullivan and Jeff Huson were around too. I talked a bit about how RBI are more a function of a lineup and opportunity, and Ryan said something to the effect of “Batting with runners on base is a stressful situation. Driving in one runner is hard and you feel like you let your team down if you don’t. Imagine how stressful it would be to get enough opportunities just to be able to drive in 100? ” You could just see the look of exhaustion on Sullivan and Huson’s face as they thought about how hard it would be for the team to depend on them that many times, guys who had multi-year baseball careers and felt that stress. They felt if they had batted cleanup, they wouldn’t have been able to do it.
RBIs are mostly a function of the lineup, but that human element is hard to measure and also hard to properly value. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist though.
Love the article. He’s the deserving MVP without doubt, for the same reason that Tom Glavine is deservingly in the Hall of Fame. Awards for past production should be based on just that—the past production. Don’t base future projections on it, but that isn’t the point of MVP awards and HOF elections. Never expect someone who is described as a “young Tom Glavine” to be anything but crap. Don’t expect anyone to do this hypothetical. But that doesn’t change the historical facts. And driving in 250 runs in just absolutely bat-sh!t insane. Yes, in the hypothetical, the defense is a negative factor, but it can’t make up for the value he gave as a batter. You can call it lucky, but, hey, someday we may figure out how or why he did it. Baseball predictive stats get better all the time.
I’d be interested to hear the writer’s takes on a player who was 15-20% better than the next most valuable player in the league (by WAR and/or WPA) but played on a team who lost 120 games. Would he still be a lock for the MVP?
I mean it seems obvious to me… The only reason we don’t care about whether a players was clutch in a certain year is because we think being clutch is pretty much random chance. If being clutch was a true skill, we would absolutely care about RBIs. And in this extreme of an instance, it’s pretty clear it’s not just random chance. He clearly has something mystical figured out, and has led to him helping his team win more than any other player has, so duh, he’s my MVP.
Future Topic: Which Better Measures the Value of a Shutdown Closer (say Giovanny Gallegos) to a team.: fWAR or WPA?
I was involved in an epic smackdown on this issue a few years ago on VivaElBirdos. My argument: Context is everything when deploying relievers so while context neutral stats are maybe more predictive of future performance. If you trying to figure out the value of a Giovanny Gallegos in free agency, then maybe WPA is more relevant than it otherwise would be.
Since you have direct front office experience in evaluating this kind of question it would be interesting to hear your take.
Can’t believe some of the replies by Fangraphs’ writers. I’m 100% with David Laurila – this is a no-brainer. Ciguel is the clear overwhelming choice for MVP.
This strikes me as a very lazy player. If he can always get a hit in high adrenaline situations then he it should be easier to get hits in non adrenaline situations. Maybe he needs Ritalin!
I get it that the math says there are very few or no clutch hitters, but there are both many remarably good and remarkably terrible numbers for career stats with the bases full which may reveal that some hitters are easier to pitch around than others. Sammy Sosa hit zero with bases juiced at one point long into his career.
A guy who knocks in the most runs is absolutely a valuable player. That’s the goal of baseball, is to get as many hits as you can when you have runners on base or in scoring position.
Disputing whether or not RBI’s are valuable is like debating whether the air you breathe is valuable.
Without RBI’s, you can’t win the game.
To trivialize or penalize this seems silly.
I know this doesn’t address the question specifically but I feel like adjustments teams have made recently (especially the Dodgers) tends to support the value of being able to drive in runs. The move towards good contact skills (see Mookie Betts trade) for Dodgers and Houston (see Brantley) were largely to address offensive shortcomings that came to light in postseason against good pitching. While not addressing RBIs in particular…it was certainly to address situational hitting. Is that not what RBIs are?
Is there a way to measure, when someone is on base and the player moves them over or get an RBI? I do think that should be part of WAR. In the end, the team with the most runs win. On defense, WAR includes stopping a run from scoring. On offense, it should include, hits (more likely to score runs, extra base hits are better), moving the runner over (more likely to score from 2nd or 3rd base), and RBI. The RBI and move runners over should be a percentage of opportunities – that makes it more fair to the people on the bad teams. Look at 2019 White Sox, it seemed like every time Leury García got on base, José Abreu got him in. If I remember correctly, this was discussed on Effectively Wild, especially how weird it was. You win games by scoring runs and not giving up runs. In the end, that is what we want our teams to do, win games! OK, and entertain us.
Great article, really enjoyable.
And Ciguel is clearly the MVP, a 1.000 average with RISP would be the #1 story in baseball. A 250 RBI season would be mind blowing. You’d want to watch every one of his at bats. Slash line doesn’t matter with something this extraordinary.