Again, it's been over a year since my last post. While my passion is unending, unfortunately my time is not, and I simply find myself too busy with work and school in order to post regularly. But what better day than today, July 4th, to write about our beloved Kansas City Royals. This post is going to be another look into the stat that I developed a few years ago, RBI Efficiency, or as I have now named it, RBIe. I'll link to my previous post at the bottom, but let's take quick look at the stat itself once again.
RBI as a stat has long been a dubious way to determine a player's performance. At best it is misleading and at worst it can be completely unreliable. I have set out to alleviate this problem. By taking a look at a player's POSSIBLE RBI in every given plate appearance and then comparing that to their ACTUAL RBI numbers, it is possible, in my estimation, to determine exactly how effective a player is at driving in runs. For further reading, see my previous blog post.
On to the actual numbers. This will be a breakdown of each Royal's RBIe. We'll be looking at every Royal with at least 50 plate appearances as of the morning of July 4th, 2012. Here we go:
11.3% - Betancourt - 0.112840
9.4% - Butler - 0.09375
8.7% - Moustakas - 0.087044
7.3% - Hosmer - 0.072727
7.3% - Quintero - 0.073077
6.6% - Pena - 0.065789
5.9% - Falu - 0.058823
5.4% - Maier - 0.053846
5.1% - Giavotella - 0.051282
4.8% - Gordon - 0.048059
4.7% - Francouer - 0.047059
4.6% - Getz - 0.045977
4.2% - Escobar - 0.042105
2.2% - Dyson - 0.021807
Just for comparison's sake, let's look at the top 8 RBI leaders in MLB:
1) Josh Hamilton - 14.1% - 0.140927
2) Miguel Cabrera - 10.9% - 0.108888
3) Jose Bautista - 11.2% - 0.111888
4) Carlos Beltran - 11.2% - 0.112299
5) Adam Dunn - 11.0% - 0.110497
6) Ryan Braun - 11.0% - 0.110266
7) Josh Willingham - 10.3% - 0.103147
8) Carlos Gonzalez - 11.1% - 0.111324
This stat is not the end all, be all stat of how good a player is. But I believe it can be useful when trying to determine just how well a player is driving in runs. A simple RBI total does not give you all the information. RBIe gives you a better idea of how well that hitter is making use of their opportunities. Thanks for reading.
For further reading, the link to my previous post:
http://www.royalreportcard.blogspot.com/2011/03/rbi-efficiency-understanding.html
