Twins Tidbit: Hitter Performance with Runners in Scoring Position

Repeat after me:

RBI’s are analytically insignificant! 

As an old school guy, it begs a question or two about the new numbers.  If RISP is such an important stat and means a lot for run production, why is RBI more and more obsolete as an important stat?  Doesn't one lead to the other quite a bit?  

I would even submit RBI's is more accurate, because you can drive in runs by putting balls in play that are outs, but score someone in the process.  That out reflects in your RISP numbers, but produces a run.  Just wondering how others feel about the two stats and their importance.  

Love this analysis. It’s nice to see the data proving what you think your eyes are telling your brain.

A couple of observations:

1. Love to see improvement in OPS RISP. But as the saying goes shouldn’t some key Twins players should learn to walk before they even try to run? There should be a new stat: MRO - Moving the Runner Over (with less than two outs). We scored an incredibly important run last night because Polanco moved the runner on second over to third on a groundout behind the runner followed by Arraez’s bleeder through a drawn in infield. That, my friends, is called BASEBALL.  Buxton’s and Correa’s MROs are probably about 0.100 each.  It’s actually fairly pathetic. Forget OPS - this team could improve dramatically just by raising their MRO.

2. Think about the data above. Now think about this: Correa, Kepler, Sano, and, yes, even Buxton - $67MM.

I was an avid baseball fan in the 60s to 1971. Then attention followed by interest went away due to 'life'. Now retired have begun following Twins again. I can't watch them on TV as live on east coast abd choose not to have cable.

Some stats are new to me and am learning them. At risk of sounding as an old grump, I question if there is improvement on two of the old basics. RBI and runs scored. I came to believe, and still think so, that these as an aggregate are rhe best indicator of offense contribution from a player.

I 

19 minutes ago, wornsmooth said:

I was an avid baseball fan in the 60s to 1971. Then attention followed by interest went away due to 'life'. Now retired have begun following Twins again. I can't watch them on TV as live on east coast abd choose not to have cable.

Some stats are new to me and am learning them. At risk of sounding as an old grump, I question if there is improvement on two of the old basics. RBI and runs scored. I came to believe, and still think so, that these as an aggregate are rhe best indicator of offense contribution from a player.

I 

Welcome to the site worn smooth. I too am an old retired guy. I started getting into analytics a couple years ago and once I knew a little more about them, I came to appreciate them as one tool to help evaluate players but certainly not “the” way to evaluate them. I still check RBI’s and ERA’s and other traditional stats when looking at players. To me, analytics have increased my enjoyment of the game, though the current trend of home runs or strikeouts has taken a lot of the strategy out of the game. Again, welcome!

Not gonna lie, Sanchez and Polanco having such high OPS numbers kind of surprises me. I must only be remembering when they fail.

RISP means zip if there if there is not a rbi; -- I.e." Player k has 78 risp at bats, he has 10 rbi -- bench him."

Interesting article. I think you have to look over several years to get meaningful data here. The sample sizes are just too small within one season.

I think it explains how a team might be underachieving in a given year when their best players have poor results with RISP/RISP-2. But, it doesn’t say much about how those same players will perform (relative to their norm) in those situations over their careers. 

0-14 with RISP tonite and ended up loosing a very winable game. I think I used up a weeks worth of cuss words.