Trevor Plouffe's low number of RBI's from his 18 homeruns brings to mind a similar performance from another young right-handed Twins batter who wore #24 - Tom Brunansky. In 1982, Brunansky hit 20 homeruns while only driving in 46 - which at the time I thought was an interesting stat. Brunansky batted third most of that year behind #9 hitter Lenny Faedo, leadoff hitter Bobby Mitchell and #2 hitter Ron Washington, none of whom got on base with great frequency. Bruno also was followed by Hrbek, Gaetti, and Ward in the batting order who cleaned up their opportunties nicely, all driving in 80-90 runs.

 

(While Brunansky's is the season that immediately springs to mind for high HR-low RBI numbers, Kevin Maas had an even more disproportionate HR-RBI season (1990) for the Yankees when he hit 21 and only drove in 41.)

 

My question: Is there a better way for the Twins to capitalize on Plouffe's home runs? Would dropping him to 7th or 8th in the order instead of the 5th or 6th he's been hitting as of late give him more RBI opportunities? Or, is the low RBI to HR ratio just an anomaly based on a not-so-large and somewhat-flukey data set?

.196 risp----.148 runners on base vs. 330 w/bases empty.

Also 17/35 for a .486 BAve 1.138slgg on the first pitch

Nice to be picky about him tho

.196 risp----.148 runners on base vs. 330 w/bases empty.

Also 17/35 for a .486 BAve 1.138slgg on the first pitch

Nice to be picky about him tho

Yup, it's clearly just a statistical anomaly.

 

However if he continues to hit like this you def need to figure out a way to move him up in the lineup regardless.

Historically speaking I believe that an average MLB homerun yields about 1.6 RBI

 

18*1.6 = 28.8 RBI

 

Plouffe only has 20RBI from his 18 Homeruns (truly astonishing), so he is about 9 shy of where he "should" be.

I can see how a player might be more comfortable batting with no one on base... no pressure to come up with the big hit to drive in the runners on base, more relaxed. I feel the same way when batting in softball sometimes. If someone can come up with a stat that measures psychological factors like a player's comfort level/body language in certain situations that would be interesting.

I was just looking at his numbers and searched for a thread about this.

 

What really gets me is not just the .196 risp but also the .148 with runners on period. 16 out of 18 of his jacks have been solo shots. Weird statistical anomoly but certainly something to track throughout the rest of the season.

Interesting article (and comment) on RBI per HR

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/2632

He looks like a different player with RISP. 31 RBI with 18 HR is amazing.

It's not just the lack of Home Runs, like Crotalo said he looks like a different player. Normally, I would say it could be a matter of small sample size because we're looking at a small sample of at bats with RISP extracted from a relatively small sample size of at bats on the season but when you watch him in those situations he looks overmatched. I'd be fine if he was hitting the ball hard, working the count but just not getting any hits to land but that's just not very often the case.

 

bases empty: 1.169 OPS

runners on: .488 OPS

RISP: .593 OPS

RISP/2 outs: .309 OPS

Bases loaded: .495 OPS