Doubling up runs with RBI

Posted by Andy on November 25, 2009

I got curious to see what players have had a lot of RBI without scoring all that many runs. Here is a list of players since 1901 to have more than double the number of RBI as compared to runs scored, ranked by most RBI in a season.

Rk	Player	RBI	R	Year	Tm	G	PA	AB	H	2B	HR	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Vic Wertz	103	45	1960	BOS	131	487	443	125	22	19	.282	.335	.460	.796	*3
2	Terry Kennedy	98	47	1983	SDP	149	612	549	156	27	17	.284	.342	.434	.776	*2/3
3	Bengie Molina	95	46	2008	SFG	145	569	530	155	33	16	.292	.322	.445	.767	*2/D
4	Bengie Molina	81	38	2007	SFG	134	517	497	137	19	19	.276	.298	.433	.731	*2
5	Shanty Hogan	77	36	1932	NYG	140	529	502	144	18	8	.287	.323	.378	.702	*2
6	Earl Sheely	77	30	1931	BSN	147	586	538	147	15	1	.273	.319	.314	.633	*3
7	Bill Dickey	71	35	1941	NYY	109	397	348	99	15	7	.284	.371	.417	.788	*2
8	Larry McLean	71	27	1910	CIN	127	455	423	126	14	2	.298	.340	.378	.718	*2
9	Sherm Lollar	70	33	1957	CHW	101	403	351	90	11	11	.256	.342	.393	.736	*2
10	Danny Walton	66	32	1970	MIL	117	455	397	102	20	17	.257	.349	.441	.790	*7
11	Chief Meyers	62	25	1910	NYG	127	422	365	104	18	1	.285	.362	.342	.704	*2
12	Sid Bream	61	30	1992	ATL	125	426	372	97	25	10	.261	.340	.414	.754	*3
13	Spud Davis	60	28	1935	STL	102	354	315	100	24	1	.317	.386	.416	.802	*2/3
14	Jesus Flores	59	23	2008	WSN	90	324	301	77	18	8	.256	.296	.402	.698	*2
15	Chris Truby	59	28	2000	HOU	78	279	258	67	15	11	.260	.295	.477	.772	*5
16	Dan Meyer	59	28	1982	OAK	120	409	383	92	17	8	.240	.271	.363	.634	3D/975
17	Bob Oliver	59	23	1974	TOT	119	402	379	92	11	8	.243	.271	.340	.612	*35/9D7
18	John Bateman	59	23	1963	HOU	128	434	404	85	8	10	.210	.249	.334	.583	*2
19	Spud Davis	59	24	1936	STL	112	402	363	99	26	4	.273	.342	.388	.730	*2/5
20	Darrin Fletcher	57	28	1994	MON	94	325	285	74	18	10	.260	.314	.435	.749	*2

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/23/2009.

It's unsurprising that none of these guys had big HR totals. If a player hits 30-40 HR, he automatically scores 30-40 runs and, when adding in other runs scored will usually get a pretty decent total.

What I found somewhat more surprising is how many of these guys are catchers. Of the top 20 seasons, 13 of them saw the guy play significant time at catcher.

I know what you're thinking---duh Andy, catchers are usually slow and slow players don't score as many runs. While it's true that catchers are slow, I wonder why their plodding path around the bases causes fewer runs to be scored. I don't think it's just because slower runners take the extra base less often and therefore score less often. I think it has more to do with where these guys bat in the lineup. The fastest guys on the team, as long as they are decent at getting on base, usually bat leadoff. The 2-5 hitters are usually good hitters and fairly rarely are very slow. But if a manger has a good hitter who is slow, I think he tends to put that guy in the 6th or 7th hole more often. That means that he has the weakest hitters in the lineup following him, and that means he scores fewer runs.

Here's what I'm trying to say by way of example. Let's imagine two identical hitters except that hitter A is an average runner (speed-wise) and hitter B is a slow runner. If they both bat 3rd in the same lineup over the course of 150 games, my guess is that hitter A would score 10-20 more runs. So maybe he finishes with 100 RBI and 80 runs scored, while hitter B finishes with 100 RBI and 60 runs scored. I don't think this is enough of a difference to account for the performances we see on the list above. But in reality, a manager wouldn't bat hitter B in the 3-hole unless he was an incredibly good hitter, like Mike Piazza. Instead, the decent but slow hitter bats 6th or 7th, has fewer RBI chances but scores MANY fewer runs.

That's my guess--anybody have a different theory?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 7:01 am and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

8 Responses to “Doubling up runs with RBI”

badenjr Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Just a thought, but it goes along with your theory that it depends on where guys bat in the lineup. Only Bob Oliver on this list played in the AL after 1973 when he accomplished this "feat". It probably helps a lot to have the pitcher batting behind you.

I don't know if this matters or not, but even the most durable catchers need a fair amount of time off. I'd imagine that in addition to getting more games off than players at other positions, they probably also leave games early more often than at other positions. That may not sound like it matters much, but if these guys were generally very durable starting catchers - as it appears many of them were - perhaps they got their rest in the form of late inning substitutions. That would mean that while they spent most of their at bats with the pitcher hitting behind them (since they were the starters), their replacements would have had the benefit of having a pinch hitter filling the 9 hole in many occasions.

It seems logical that to get this kind of combination you need relatively good "on base" guys in front of you in the lineup and relatively poor hitters behind you. Spending the vast majority of your at bats with pitchers hitting behind you is a good way to get it done.
DavidRF Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 8:36 am
How often were these guys pulled for pinch runners? In the late innings of a close game, a catcher is often allowed to hit but is often pulled for a pinch-runner if he reaches.
JDV Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:37 am
DavidRF already mentioned my thought, and it definitely plays some role. I checked on Bengie Molina who appears high on the list twice. In 2007, he was removed for a pinch-runner eight times and four of those guys (there's that word again) scored. In 2008, he was removed for a pinch-runner 15 times and six of them scored. While it might not seem like a lot, if he had scored even half of those runs himself, he would not have made this list either year. If nothing else, particularly in 2008, Bengie apparently got on base a lot in the late innings of close games.
Ebessan Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
It's worth noting the obvious, in that most of these guys were terrible at getting on base (a third of of them couldn't even vault past the Bowa Barrier).
gerry Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I'm sure Bill James brought up Terry Kennedy's numbers in one of the old Abstracts. Also, you might want to look at Smoky Burgess, 1965. He doesn't make the list, since he didn't have that many RBI, but he had 24 RBI and scored only 2 runs. He also had only 89 PA in 80 games, so I'm guessing he did a lot of pinch-hitting and was lifted for a pinch-runner when he got on base.
gerry Says:
November 26th, 2009 at 6:49 am
Found it! The 1984 Abstract, the section on catchers, starting on page 192, James' comment on Terry Kennedy begins, "Has there ever been a regular player before who drove in twice as many runs as he scored? I don't know of one.... Kennedy didn't score any runs because the people behind him didn't hit...." Then, after a paragraph about Doug Gwosdz, he writes, "Late note - found one. Vic Wertz in 1960 scored 45 runs and drove in 103."

I bet you could go through the old abstracts and find hundreds of facts that James sweated over that nowadays are a couple of clicks away at PI and other sites.
Andy Says:
November 27th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Nice catch with the pinch-running.

As far as the PI goes, Gerry, I'm sure you're right. Of course, James probably found tons of other things that weren't quite what he was looking for when he did all his manual searching. The PI is like any computer--it only finds exactly what you tell it to find and is therefore far more elegant but much less artful.

I wonder what tools James uses today. I would think he has access to his own searchable database, but one wonders to what extent he might still prefer manual searching and analysis. I'm sure the Red Sox have spent plenty on computerized systems.
JohnnyTwisto Says:
November 29th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I have nothing much to add except that the Vic Wertz season is unbelievable, and I can't believe I never noticed it before (that I recall).

Actually, Wertz often drove in a lot more runs than he scored. For his career he had 1.36 RBI per run. Only 29 other players since 1893 had a ratio of at least 1.35 (min 3000 PA). Oddly, Gabby Hartnett had 1 more RBI than Wertz, with the same number of R, to be the RBI leader among that cohort. (Has there been a post on this before? It seems familiar now.)

BTW, am I correct that while we can search for particular ratios, we cannot sort by the ratio? Or am I missing something? I'm too lazy to throw the numbers in Excel but eyeballing it, it appears the all-time champeen is the notoriously slow Ernie Lombardi at 1.65 RBI per R for his career. He doesn't appear on the single-season list above, but he had seasons of 85/43 and 51/19 (!).

My god, the season he scored 19 runs, he hit 10 HR. He was on base via hit/BB/HBP 99 times and scored 9 runs.

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