The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad 100-RBI Season

Depending on your perspective, you might think that Eric Hosmer had a career season. After all, he wasn’t just an All-Star, he was the All-Star Game MVP! He hit 20 homers for the first time — his 25 dingers were six more than his previous season best. And he drove in 104 runs — 11 more than his previous best. And yet, for the third time in his career, he was a replacement player or worse in terms of WAR. Did Eric Hosmer just have the worst 100-RBI season on record?

The answer is no. But he’s definitely in the conversation. Let’s take a look.

What this table, and subsequent research, first reveals is that Ray Pepper had a weird career. What else it reveals, however, is that Hosmer escapes the bottom thanks to the truly awful seasons authored by Sierra, Bichette and Carter. As luck would have it, I’ve actually written about Bichette’s unbelievable 1999 season before. Hosmer’s season takes place in a far different environment; the offensive environment is not as super-charged, and Hosmer’s ballpark is nowhere near as extreme as Coors Field was in 1999. As you can see, Hosmer’s offense, at least by wRC+, is one of the better seasons here. Also, his defense wasn’t the worst of the group, which is why his WAR is in the middle of this dreadful almost-dozen.

Still, his poor fielding is a large part of why Hosmer had such a bad season. When he first came up, Hosmer had trouble with his defensive range. He got himself on better footing and his range was neutral from 2013-2015, but this season his range problems crept back up. As August discussed back in June, part of that may have been that he’s had a bunch of tough plays to make. That might be fair, but I want to focus on the “likely” plays.

Inside Edge classifies all batted balls into specific buckets. “Likely” batted balls are those that they say should be turned into outs 60-90% of the time. Tougher than routine, but certainly not impossible. Hosmer was one of 25 first basemen to see at least 10 such batted balls, and his percent converted was by far the lowest in the game.

That’s pretty bad, but I know what you’re thinking: it’s a small sample. Two points: first, sometimes seasons turn on small samples. This isn’t necessarily a reflection of his true talent, but merely what happened as best as we can quantify. Second, his percentage equates to him having converted six of those 13 plays, but even if he had made 50% more, i.e. nine of them, he’d still be ensconced in the bottom half of that list. Simply put, Hosmer’s defense just wasn’t very good this season. If we break down those 13 Inside Edge “likely” plays a little more, we can see some evidence of the lack of range.

As you can see, Hosmer had trouble with medium-hit “likely” ground balls. He missed five of the eight plays that fall into that bucket, including two that were hit “straight up or at” him. He missed six of the 10 plays in which the contact was “medium” or “well hit” — which, again, suggests that he was too slow to cover the ground necessary to make the play.

Hosmer was also slower than ever on the basepaths. This is somewhat troubling, given that Hosmer isn’t really that old — this was his age-26 season. Of the 92 players age 26 or younger this season who tallied at least 300 plate appearances, only 15 had a worse speed score (Spd) than Hosmer, and three of those 15 were catchers. Of those 92 players, he was one of just nine to finish below replacement in all three base-running component metrics: UBR, wGDP and wSB. We’ll call them “three negatives” base-runners.

And again, two of these nine players — McCann and Perez — are catchers. I’m tempted to quote Dean Wormer here, but that just seems cruel.

For the game as a whole, he finished with the 10th-worst BsR. The ages of those who finished below him: 37, 33, 40, 33, 28 (catcher), 36, 33, 29, and 33. The point, in case it wasn’t yet clear is that Hosmer is really slow, especially for his age.

Lots of players have driven in 100 runs in a season before. Twenty-two players did so this season, Hosmer included. These players aren’t always good — RBI is more a function of who hits in front of a batter and that first player’s ability to get on base. RBI, as a counting stat, is also largely aided by the ability to stay in the lineup all season. Of course, players who (a) bat behind a talented on-base guy and (b) stay in the lineup all season — they’re usually pretty good. So it’s a surprise when one is so bad. Consider: a simple average of the WAR figures for this year’s 22 different 100-RBI players produces a result of 4.0 WAR. Hosmer’s -0.2 WAR is the worst by a full win. As it turns out, his season put him on the short list for worst 100-RBI season ever. He wasn’t the worst, but the fact that he’s on the list is worrisome, and you really couldn’t blame the Royals if they non-tendered him this winter.

(header photo via Keith Allison)