Troy Glaus had a hit and an RBI in five attempts during a 4-1 Atlanta win over Philly today. So he's clutch, right? After all, he got a hit with runners on base in a close game. This is why we revere RBIs; they denote an ability to drive in runs.
Except, as copious research has demonstrated, there's virtually no relationship between RBIs and "hitting in the clutch," almost regardless of how you define it.
RBIs correlate quite highly with RBI opportunities, i.e., players with lots of RBIs tend to bat with lots of guys on base -- in fact, in scoring position. Anytime you see two players with similar production but disparate RBI totals, check your knee-jerk assumption of clutchness at the door and assume instead that one player had many more chances to drive in runs than the other.
Which is how Glaus hooked and reeled in an RBI today. In his five trips to the plate, the bases were stuffed with 11 baserunners -- bases juiced once and two on each of the other four occasions. Glaus whiffed twice and left nine men on base until the ninth, when his shallow outfield poof dropped in and scored a runner from third.
Was Glaus "clutch?" Ha! He almost single-handedly ran the Braves' aground, overcoming the consistent achievements of his fellow batsmen, like Chipper Jones. Jones reached base four out of five trips to the plate, but collected no RBIs. Perhaps he wasn't "clutch,", or perhaps he did exactly what he was supposed to do, and just had fewer opportunities. He stranded a single runner all game.
Ryan Howard, whose gargantuan contract rests in part on his enviable annual RBI totals, left four runners on base in the same game. Batting in that lineup, in the number four position, in that ballpark, with that power, is a perfect RBI storm. Howard can strand four runners here and there, because there will be four more to knock in on other nights.
b
No comments:
Post a Comment