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Creating Lineups

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 1:00 pm 3 Responses »
Jan 242011

We pretty much know what the 25 man roster is going to be at this point, so let’s see what the different lineups will be. Using the latest round of CAIRO Projections from RLYW.net, I’ll put the player’s projected wOBA vs. RHP/LHP next to his name/position.

These projections are a combination of what I think the lineups WILL be:

vs. RHP

1. Jeter, SS .334
2. Swisher, RF .353
3. Teixeira, 1B .381
4. Rodriguez, 3B .382
5. Cano, 2B .379
6. Posada, DH .352
7. Granderson, CF .363
8. Martin, C .333
9. Gardner, LF .336

So against RHP, everyone projects to be at least average, with the middle of the lineup solidly above that mark. The median wOBA is .353. Let’s see what they could do versus LHP; there are a few ways this could go.

Option 1 vs. LHP (Granderson sits, Gardner to CF, Jones to LF)

1. Jeter, SS .364
2. Swisher, RF .367
3. Teixeira, 1B .393
4. Rodriguez, 3B .392
5. Cano, 2B .354
6. Posada, C .358
7. Jones, LF .332
8. Martin, C .357
9. Gardner, CF .310

The median wOBA here is .358. That’s not much of a change from the vs. RHP lineup, but it’s still a slight uptick. If we replace Gardner with Curtis Granderson (and his .297 projected wOBA vs. LHP), the median wOBA stays the same, since his would then be the lowest wOBA instead of Gardner’s. So, quickly, that tells us no matter which lefty outfielder is replaced, there won’t be much of a difference in the lineup. I suspect Joe Girardi will just keep the hot hand in there until he cools. All three outfielders in that shuffle–Granderson, Gardner, and Jones, are good enough at what they do that neither will leave an extraordinarily huge hole when absent from the lineup.

Just about everyone, myself included, sees a bounce back for Derek Jeter. After all, how could we not? Last year was the worst year of his career and there’s almost no way he can be that bad again. I wonder, though, if his slide continues, will Girardi pull him from the leadoff spot? If he does, who takes his place? I say it’s one of Gardner or Swisher. Gardner could work because he sees a ton of pitches, walks, and can steal bases. Swisher could take it because he’s a switch hitter with no drastic platoon split and provides a little more power, which would be useful for those batting behind him. He does strike out a bit more, though, but he showed in 2010 that he can cut back on them.

The rest of the lineup is just fine if you ask me. You could switch Tex/A-Rod if you wanted to, but the difference would probably be negligible. If anything, this lineup gives me confidence that the Yankees can still make the playoffs. Any lineup that features those hitters has more than a puncher’s chance at making it to October. Making it through October with that (current) pitching staff would be a challenge, but this team can definitely make it there. And once you’re there, anything can happen.

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Expectations

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 3:00 pm 5 Responses »
Jan 032011

A new year is upon us and soon, a new baseball season will be upon us. We’re going to have expectations with certain players, as we always do. We have to think of realistic expectations, though. For this post, I’m going to look at each player still on the Yankees from the 2010 team, examine his 2010 wOBA and see if that’s a reasonable expectation for 2011.

Robinson Cano, .389 wOBA

Last year was a career year for Robinson. He ripped the cover off the ball and everything seemed to click for him on offense. He ripped righties and lambasted lefties. He hit for a high average. He hit for power. Expecting another year like that would be unfair, but, Cano is in his age-based-prime and clearly has an incredible talent for hitting. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see a .389 wOBA from him again. Somewhere in the .375-.385 range seems right for Robinson.

Nick Swisher, .377 wOBA

Cutting the fat, yeah, I think this is definitely do-able. His 2009 wOBA was .375, just two points off of last year’s career high mark. He had basically the same year production-wise, he just did it differently. I’m confident that Swisher can definitely put up a .370+ woBA again in 2011. What I’m not sure of is if it will look more like 2009 with a lot of walks and a lot of power or if it will look like 2010, with similar-but-slightly-diminished-power and a higher average.

Mark Teixeira, .367 wOBA

I have no problem saying this: Mark Teixeira will have a wOBA higher than .367 in 2011.

Alex Rodriguez, .363 wOBA

I have no problem saying this: Alex Rodriguez will have a wOBA higher than .363 in 2011.

Brett Gardner, .358 wOBA

This is the most interesting case. Obviously, Gardner proved himself in 2010. He survived the entire year and hit much better than we all expected him to. His super-plus defense made him a huge value for the team . Part of me thinks that Gardner can do it again. Part of me doesn’t. If I’m setting an over/under for Gardner’s wOBA, I’m going to say .340.

Jorge Posada, .357 wOBA

Posada’s another catch-22 of sorts. In one way, we should expect equal or worse performance from Posada in 2011 because he’s getting old. Older players, especially catchers, tend not to hit at .357 wOBAs with regularity. On the other hand, Posada is a good hitter who’s stayed above average in terms of offense for a while. As a full time DH, he’ll be without the physical burden of catching. Because of that, we could see a rise in offense from Jorge. I think .357 is a fair over/under and I think Jorge will be over. I may be in the minority there.

Curtis Granderson, .346 wOBA

Curtis Granderson’s season was a bit odd, wasn’t it? There were some good things–10% walk rate, .221 IsoP–but some bad things as well (most of the season against LHP). All together, it added up to an above average, but not spectacular, .346 wOBA. Call me an optimist, but Granderson will out do that .346 wOBA. I’ll put the over/under at .355 and take the over.

Derek Jeter, .320 wOBA

I have no problem saying this: Derek Jeter will have a higher wOBA than .320 in 2011. Jeter may be getting older and 2010 may’ve been a career worst year, but there’s no way he can hit that poorly again. At least, I hope there’s no way he can hit that poorly again.

Francisco Cervelli, .315 wOBA

This is fair and I expect him to do that again. If he does, with less playing time, I’ll be happy.

Russell Martin, .306 wOBA

His 2009 wOBA was .307 after a .351 wOBA in 2008. Martin’s bat seems to be trending downwards, which is troubling. Despite a super low wOBA though, he was able to put up over 2 fWAR in 2010, thanks to his defense. In the last two years, Martin has had a low BABIP despite relatively high LD%s, so maybe 2011 is when he gets a BABIP rebound. That would definitely cause a wOBA rebound. Given the last two years, I think we should expect around a .310-.315 wOBA for Martin, but he could easily out perform that.

Ramiro Pena, .233 wOBA

Same as Cervelli.

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Alex Rodriguez WAR Projection

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am No Responses »
Dec 012010

Before I get into Jorge, I just want to note that I apparently made a mistake the other day (thanks to Moshe for pointing it out on Twitter) when I calculated Derek Jeter’s projected WAR. I shorted him about .58 WAR. If I had done the calculations correctly (going by this post and this article), it would’ve come out like this:

.344 projected wOBA-.327 LGwOBA = 0.170
0.170/1.15 = 0.0148
0.0148 x 703 projected PAs = 10.3922 runs above average
10.3922 + 7.5 positional adjustment for SS = 17.8922
17.8922 – 5 runs defensively = 12.8922
12.8922/10.5 runs per win = 1.2278 wins above average
1.2278 + 2 (adjusting for replacement level) = 3.2278 projected 2010 WAR for Derek Jeter

So, that’s still about a bit off his career averages in terms of WAR, but it’s still not bad for a 37 year old shortstop.

Let’s jump into the WAR-projection pool with Alex Rodriguez. I reviewed Alex’s seasons in terms of his 2010 ZiPS Projection, and Alex fell just a bit short of that for a few reasons that I touched on. Just based on his talent, along with his numbers from this year, I’m very comfortable in predicting a rebound year for Mr. Rodriguez. Bill Hames is, too.

He projects–very optimistically–a .393 wOBA for A-Rod in 621 PAs. What would that transfer into in terms of WAR? Using the same process as above, and assuming -2.9 fielding (A-Rod’s 3B UZR/150), 5.3562 WAR. That would be one hell of a rebound! When I looked at that, I thought…no way. That’s way too high, even with a projected .393 wOBA. So to check it, I went to the FG wOBA leader-board and looked for any comparisons to A-Rod to see if my projection was really so awful.

I found Adrian Beltre. He wOBA’d “only” .390 in 2010, but his fielding was much better than -2.9. With a .390 wOBA and a +11.8 UZR, Beltre racked up 7.1 WAR. So, in that light, my projection doesn’t seem to be that far off.

However, there are still some factors we need to address.

1. It’s very possible that A-Rod is worse than -2.9 runs on defense.
2. It’s very possible that A-Rod will get some PAs at DH, negatively affecting his positional adjustment.
3. It’s very possible that A-Rod won’t get to a .393 wOBA. That may not be likely, but it’s still possible.
4. This has to do with #3, but James’ projections are notoriously positive. We’ll definitely check back on this projection when the ZiPS and CHONE projections come out.

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A Modest Proposal for Derek

Posted by Steve S. at 7:00 am 12 Responses »
Nov 242010

Some fans have argued that the Yanks are treating Derek unfairly, saying “How can you give all that money to A-Rod and NOT pay Derek?” and they’re right. We should treat both of these players exactly the same. Hence, I would like to propose the following clause be added to Derek Jeter’s contract:

An additional performance bonus of $6 mil plus a $30 mil marketing agreement for each of the following milestones-
-Passes 500 Home Runs
-Passes 600 Home Runs
-Hits HR #714, 755 and 762

Just like Alex.

(h/t to Dirty Pena of RAB)

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Season in Review: Alex Rodriguez

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 2 Responses »
Nov 162010

Continuing my series, here’s my season in review for Alex Rodriguez.

It’s worth noting, though, that as of now, FanGraphs has taken down its 2010 projections. Luckily, I had the first round of 2010 ZiPS projections book marked, so I’ll be able to see one projection system and what A-Rod did.

2010 ZiPS Projection:

.281/.382/.526, 30 HR, 93 RBI, 141 OPS+ in 128 G

2010 Actual:

.270/.341/.506, 30 HR, 125 RBI, 123 OPS+ in 137 G

All in all, that’s not a bad season. Hell, a career line like that could get you very far. But, this is Alex Rodriguez we’re talking about; that’s a rather pedestrian season for him. Alex beat his games played projection which was good.

Perhaps the most disappointing part was that Alex had only a .071 IsoD when he was projected for a .101 IsoD (career .084). His walk rate dipped significantly this year, though. That was due to a four percent jump from 2009′s O-Swing% (21.1% in ’09, 25.3% in ’10).

Moving from swing data to contact data, we see a trend of generally weaker contact from Rodriguez in 2010. A-Rod’s line drive percentage plummeted to 13.8% (!!). His mark in 2009 was 20.0 and his career mark is 17.8. This led to a BABIP of just .274 (career .318). If you want to know why Alex didn’t hit for a high average, there’s your answer. Weak contact, low BABIP, “bad” batting average.

His IFFB% was 8.6, which was below his career average of around 10%, so that goes against my weak-contact hypothesis. His fly ball percentage, 40.2, was actually above his career average (40.0), again poking a bit of a hole in my theory. BUT, we need to note his HR/FB%. For his career, Alex has powered 23.1% of his fly balls over the fences and into the people. His previous career low was 19.3% in 2004. This year, it was all the way down at 17.1%

For some reason, Alex Rodriguez was just not getting much power behind his swings. If I were a doctor and/or hitting coach, I’d explain how and why Alex’s hip was sapping his power. But, since I’m just a blogger, I’ll only allow myself to venture a guess that Mr. Rodriguez’s hip was the culprit for his low line drive and HR/FB percentages.

2010 was not horribly kind to Alex. He put up career lows (for full seasons) in just about every category you could think of. In 2011, let’s hope he’s more healthy and can stay in the lineup more often. A healthy A-Rod is a good A-Rod. A good A-Rod is incredibly valuable to the Yankees. I have full faith in him bouncing back. You can only keep that talent down for so long.

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Take it or Leave it?

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 1:00 pm 5 Responses »
Nov 152010

Let’s play a game here. The Bill James projections for 2011 are out on FanGraphs. They’re a bit rosy for my liking (and everyone’s I assume) but I still wanna take a look at some aspects of them to see if I’d “take it or leave it” for 2011.

The first thing I’ll do is assume that Andy Pettitte is pitching for the Yankees in 2011. The category I’ll go for here is innings pitched. James has Andy pegged for 140 innings pitched, probably because he’s coming off of a season in which he pitched his fewest innings ever (min. 20 games started). Given Andy’s age and health from last year, I would take 140 innings from him. I’d like more, but I’d take what I could get from a guy as old as Andy.

James foresees 42 walks from Robinson Cano. He had 57 total in 2010. However, his previous career high was 39. I’d like to see if Robbie could push it to 60 walks in 2011, but I won’t take my chances. I’d take 42 and be on my way.

A .344 wOBA for Derek Jeter? Oh HELL yes I would take it. Not only would it be a 24 point increase from 2009, it would likely make Derek the most valuable offensive SS in the American League.

144 games from Alex Rodriguez. That’s not a lot, but it’s more than he played in during both the ’09 and ’10 seasons. Like Pettitte, given his age, yes, I’d take that. Expecting more could be greedy.

111 games for Jorge Posada? No, I’ll leave that one. By being able to DH, I think Jorge will be able to crack at least break the 120 games mark for the first time since 2007 (he played in 120 games in 2010, but I’m saying MORE than 120 games for 2011).

A 3.76 FIP in 177 innings for Phil Hughes. Yes. Without even thinking twice. I think Phil CAN break those marks, but I’m not sure if he WILL break them in 2011. He may be able to break the innings mark easily, but that’s a good FIP goal for him.

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Money Savers and Drainers

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 3 Responses »
Oct 262010

As I like to do every season, I’m going to compare the Yankee players’ theoretical fWAR dollars to their actual salaries and see which players gave the Yankees the most value and which players drained the most money. We’ll do batters today and pitchers tomorrow.

We’ll do the list in WAR order (nine highest), then we’ll sum it up at the end.

1. Robinson Cano, 6.4 fWAR worth $25.5MM. Salary: $9MM. Value: +$16.5MM
2. Brett Gardner, 5.4 fWAR worth $21.6 MM. Salary: $0.425MM. Value: +$21.175MM
3. Nick Swisher, 4.1 fWAR worth $16.4MM. Salary: $6.75MM. Value: +$9.65MM.
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3.9 fWAR worth $15.3MM. Salary: $32MM. Value: -$16.7MM.
5. Curtis Granderson, 3.6 fWAR worth $14.3MM. Salary: $5.5MM. Value: +$8.8MM.
6. Mark Teixeira, 3.5 fWAR worth $14.00MM. Salary: $20MM. Value: -6.00MM.
7. Derek Jeter, 2.5 fWAR worth $9.8MM. Salary: $21MM. Value: -$11.2MM
8. Jorge Posada, 2.4 fWAR worth $9.7MM. Salary: $13.1MM. Value: -$3.3MM.
9. Francisco Cervelli, 1.1 fWAR worth $4.4MM. Salary: $0.418MM. Value: +$3.82MM

Value Ranks:
1. Gardner
2. Cano
3. Swisher
4. Granderson
5. Cervelli
6. Posada
7. Teixeira
8. Jeter
9. Rodriguez

Italics means negative value.

This list should really surprise no one. The Yankees’ high priced, older talent had a bad collective 2010. Brett Gardner had what will likely be his career year while making just over the league minimum, so of course he’s going to return great value. And despite our frustrations with him, Frankie Cervelli did give the Yankees a bit of value this year. I think we’ll see the Melky Plan with Francisco: hang on to him while he’s cheap, then jettison him when he starts hitting arbitration and starts making too much money.

It also turns out that the Granderson deal was not some horrid thing that should’ve been undone. Granderson is relatively cheap for next year ($8.25) but goes up a bit in 2012 and ’13 ($10, $13 option) so granting a rebound year, he should return good value next year as well.

Nick Swisher makes only $9.75 next year so assuming he can repeat this year–or do something between 2010 and 2009–he’ll probably return value again, too.

As for the guys in the red, Teixeira is the only most likely to bounce back, considering his relatively young age compared to Jeter and Rodriguez and Posada. He also plays the least physically demanding position of the three and had a down year with the bat. I don’t think we’ll see the aforementioned trio in the black unless they have monster years.

Check back tomorrow when we look at the pitchers, starters and relievers.

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Looking for More Game Two Magic

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am No Responses »
Oct 072010

The 2009 post-season run by the Yankees was obviously fantastic. They swept the Twins ALDS, beat the Angels 4-2 in the ALCS, and then beat the Phillies 4-2 in the World Series. Somehow, it didn’t hit me until last night while watching Game One of the ALDS versus the Twins (moving to the bottom of the seventh as I type this): each Game Two in the playoffs last year had something special.

ALDS Game Two

We all remember this one. The David Robertson escape act. The A-Rod homer against Nathan to tie the game in the ninth. Mark Teixeira’s walk off homer. This was a perfect back and forth playoff game and the Yankees came out on top.

ALCS Game Two.

Another back and forth game, and another game with David Robertson getting the win, and another big homer from Alex Rodriguez. I’ll never forget that homer–down 0-2, to the opposite field, in the rain. I still don’t know why Brian Fuentes put the ball where he did, but I’m not going to complain. The same sentiment goes for Macier Izturis throwing the ball to second on a Melky Cabrera ground ball when he had no shot, which allowed Jerry Hairston to score the winning run.

World Series Game Two

The previous Game Two’s were big, but the Yankees had the luxury of being up one game to zero in those games. There was no such luxury for Game Two of the World Series. The Yankees had just been dominated by Cliff Lee and were in danger of going to Philadelphia down two games to none. They fell behind after an RBI single from Matt Stairs. Teixeira tied the game with a homer off of Pedro Martinez in the sixth inning and Hideki Matsui gave the bombers the lead in the sixth with a dinger of his own. That’s all A.J. Burnett would need as he was brilliant, tossing 7 innings, allowing just 4 hits and 2 walks while striking out 9.

Tonight, the Yankees will look to their lineup and Andy Pettitte to give them yet another memorable Game Two.

The current Twins have hit relatively well off of Pettitte with a .284 average and a .325 on base percentage, but they haven’t hit for much power against him (.405 SLG, .121 IsoP). Pettitte pitched two games against the Twins this season, winning both times.

Game One

In this game, Andy attacked the Twins with mostly fastballs, mixing his four seamer, two seamer, and cutter well. He threw in the occasional curve and dropped two changeups as well. Andy only had two strikeouts in the game, and did walk three hitters, but he allowed just two hits so it’s clear he was keeping Minnesota off balance.

Game Two

Just 11 days later, Pettitte faced the Twins again, this time in Minnesota. Again, Andy didn’t have the strikeout pitch working with just four strikeouts in eight innings while allowing eight hits, but he didn’t walk a batter. In his second time out, he used his changeup more (ten times as opposed to two) and his cutter less. This makes sense as he was facing the team for the second time in less than two weeks. Andy made adjustments and was able to beat the Twins twice in a short amount of time. He hasn’t faced the Twins since then and he’s had a few days to prepare now. I’m very confident in Andy Pettitte to make even more adjustments to prepare himself to beat the Twins.

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A-Rod's Excellent Baseball Instincts

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:00 pm 2 Responses »
Sep 222010


Alex Rodriguez is an amazing baseball player who has put together a fantastic career. He will likely finish his career as one of the top 10 or 15 players in baseball history, and has a chance to take down the all-time home run record. While a lot of his success can be explained by his natural talent, Alex also has a reputation for being a hard worker with an good eye for minor details. His preparation and knowledge of the game are highly regarded, and he frequently does the “little things” that often go unnoticed. A few weeks ago, I cited the following Chad Jennings piece to illustrate this point:

Several weeks ago, Andy Pettitte was talking about Alex Rodriguez and said this:

“He can tell me almost every pitch I’ve thrown throughout the course of a game… He’s always in the game. His head’s up. He’s always prepared. That’s why he’s such a great player.”

Last night, Rodriguez said this: “I chased in the first inning, a slider down, but Westbrook had good stuff. He had us off balance all day. With the exception of a 3-2 fastball away to Jorge, and I think it was a 1-0 changeup to Granderson, he didn’t make many mistakes.”

Pretty much every hitter in the game would have remembered swinging and missing at a slider out of the zone, but I’m not sure how many would have known the count on Posada’s single and Granderson’s home run. Especially not a player who wasn’t close to coming to the plate at the time of those hits.

I bring this up because there was a play in Monday night’s game that really drove home how smart a baseball player Alex is. It was not mentioned by the announcers, and I do not think very many fans noticed it. In the long run, it was a meaningless play, but it was a true illustration of Alex’s baseball savvy.

Alex lead off the 4th inning against Matt Garza in what was a 2-0 game. On a 1-0 count, Alex topped a slider out in front of the plate, slightly to the third base side of home. Most baserunners would have taken off for first, where they likely would have been thrown out. However, Alex realized that the ball had a bit of spin on it, and had a chance of going foul if catcher John Jaso could be prevented from reaching it first. Rather than evacuate the batter’s box and try to beat the very slim odds and make it to first, Alex turned his body so that his width blocked the entire batter’s box, as you can see in the picture above. By doing so, he forced a charging Jaso to go around him in order to field the ball. As it turned out, the ball died a bit and Jaso was able to field it prior to it reaching the foul line, but it was a very heady play by Alex to avoid the natural instinct to go to first base upon making contact and instead try to use the few seconds afforded to the batter occupying the box to impact the play and possibly extend his at-bat.

As I stated earlier, the play was ultimately meaningless, particularly because Alex’s little gambit did not pay off. However, the play provided a clear illustration of his incredible baseball instincts, and displayed an uncommon savvy that is all too often overlooked. You would be hard pressed to find a more instinctual or prepared baseball player than Alex Rodriguez.

Photo courtesy of Daylife.com

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The 100 RBI Club

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am No Responses »
Sep 202010

Over the weekend, Robinson Cano eclipsed the 100 RBI mark for the first time in his career. Chances are we’re going to see Robbie do this multiple times over the course of his career, but since it was his first time, I wanted to examine his RBI numbers against his peers.

Not counting Sunday’s game, Cano has 101 RBI. That’s good for 7th in the league behind Miguel Cabrera (118), Jose Bautista (114), Alex Rodriguez (111), Vladimir Guerrero (107), Paul Konerko (105), and Delmon Young (102). He was tied with Mark Teixeira. What I’m going to do is use the B-R pages of these players, find their RBIs/base runners on and see who was tops in terms of driving in runs in terms of percentage of runners driven in.

Before going any further, let’s clear the air: I’m not a fan of the RBI statistic. It’s very incomplete and is very dependent on the players in front of the batter. If you don’t get up with a lot of guys in front of you, you’re not going to knock in a lot of runs. As for this piece, I’ll be examining runners on, which includes runners on first. It’s obviously very hard to knock in runs from first, unless you hit a homer or a triple. So, some of this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, I think it’s worth looking at since raw RBI is not great. This also doesn’t take into account hit type or if the player got on base some other way; it only tells us how many runners he drove in.

Let’s start from the top:
Miguel Cabrera: 118 RBI in 608 PA. Average MLer w/608 PAs: 66. Actual runners on base: 454. Avg. runners on base: 376. So, Miggy has had a lot more runners on than average. Given those numbers, the average percentage would be 17.55% of runners driven in. Miggy’s at 25.99%, so we’ll call it 26%. So, he’s doing more with more runners.

Jose Bautista: 113 RBI in 616 PA. Avg in 616 PA: 68. Act. Runners: 335. Avg. Runners: 383. Bautista, in the Toronto lineup, has had fewer runners on than the average player could expect. He’s driven in a much higher percentage–33.73–than the average–17.75. This is what happens when you unexpectedly belt over 45 homers.

Alex Rodriguez: 111 RBI, 529 PA. Avg: 58. Act. Runners: 392. Avg. Runners: 327. Shockingly enough, Alex Rodriguez has had many more RBI chances than the average player. He plays on the Yankees. Anyway, his percentage is 28.32% vs the average of 17.74%.

Vladimir Guerrero: 107 in 587. Avg: 64. Act. runners: 420. Avg: 363. Like A-Rod and Miggy, Vlad has had a good deal more runners to knock in than the average. His percentage: 25.48. Average: 17.63.

Paul Konerko: 105 in 584. Avg: 64. Act. runners: 358. Avg. Runners: 361. Konerko’s had a few fewer runners than we could expect, but has excelled in driving them in anyway. Average for 584 PAs is 17.73 (starting to see the pattern here). Konerko’s is 29.33.

I was actually pretty surprised that Delmon Young was on this list. Let’s see how he stacks up: 102 RBI in 553 PA. Average: 60. Actual runners: 417. Average runners: 342. DY%: 24.46. Avg: 17.54. Like everyone else on the list so far, he’s been better than average.

Robinson Cano: 101 in 628 PAs. Average: 69. Actual runners: 426. Average runners: 389. Percentage: 23.71. Average: 17.74.

Mark Teixeira: 101 RBI in 649 PA. Avg: 71. Actual runners: 440. Average runners: 402. Percentage: 22.95. Average: 17.66.

So, we can see that league average is right around 18%, usually coming in just a little less. Let’s re-rank the players, this time in terms of percentage of runners driven in:

1. Jose Bautista: 33.73%
2. Paul Konerko: 29.33%
3. Alex Rodriguez: 28.32%
4. Miguel Cabrera: 25.99%
5. Vladimir Guerrero: 25.48%
6. Delmon Young: 24.46
7. Robinson Cano: 23.71
8. Mark Teixeira: 22.95

We see that the guys who’ve had fewer runners on than expected–but still driven a lot in–are the ones at the top of the percentage list. This makes sense as they’ve done “more” with “less.” Tex has the most PAs and has the smallest RBI total (tied w/Robbie) so it makes sense that he’s on the bottom. Bautista’s homer barrage this year also helps him compensate for the lack of runners on, while Tex’s slow start hurt him. Tex’s slow start–and Alex Rodriguez’s absence–probably hurt Cano a bit, too. Regardless, each one of these guys has been well above the average player in terms of batting runs in. They’ve been given opportunities to drive runs in and they’ve come through. While we may not love RBI as a stat, the runs still do count and having guys who can drive a lot of runs in is always helpful. I’ll end this thought on RBI like I do with wins: most of the times, you’re not a good player because you drive in a lot of runs. You drive in a lot of runs because you’re a good player.

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