Remember1969: Another Baseball Stat?

 

ANOTHER baseball stat???

There was some commenter interest piqued this week by a line in Reese's "Sometimes the Hitters are ahead of the Pitchers" piece.  Reese lamented that the one downside of Brandon Nimmo's spring was having only one RBI.   This led to discussion about RBI opportunities, and in particular Bill Metsiac wanting to have a Left On Base stat of some nature. 

It is quite odd that the number of men left on base is a column in the daily box score, but it doesn't seem to be aggregated into any larger body or kept an official stat.     You can find and cut data a million ways in Baseball-Reference, but LOB is not among it. 

What does exist in the 'Splits' section of each player is detail plate appearance data broken down by each of the eight combinations of runners on base - no runners, runner on first, runner on second, runner on third, runners on first and second, runners on first and third, runners on second and third and bases loaded.

From this, I invented my new stat called  "Run Production Ratio" or RPR.   The intent is to find the percentage of runners that were on base when that batter came to the plate that actually scored.   The inverse (1.00 - RPR) is the LOB percentage.    
I calculated 3 different RPR values :

* Net RBI for Total Runners on Base.   This is all plate appearances where the bases are not empty, but without regard for how many or where the runners are placed.

* Net RBI for Total Runners on Base when at least one of them is in scoring position.   As defined,  this is the scenario where there has to be a runner on either second or third base, but could be both, and could also have runners on first.

* Net RBI for Total Runners on Base when at least one of them is on third base.   This could be first and third, second and third, third by itself, or bases loaded. 
I have considered this only with the 'total runners' concept.   There is no apparent way to tell exactly which runners scored.  For example, there is a stat line for all plate appearances with runners on first and third, with his RBI's in that situation.   It cannot be known how many of those RBIs were just the guy on third or whether he also drove in the guy that was on first. 

The "Net RBI" concept is the total RBIs in each situation minus any home runs hit - a home run is an RBI, but that runner was not on base to start the plate appearance.  

With all of this, I calculated the career values for Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso, and Franciso Lindor.

Nimmo:

Has come to the plate 477 times with runners on base with a total of 663 runners. In those situations, he has 91 RBI with 9 homers for a Net RBI of 82 and an RPR of 82/663 or 0.124

Has come to the plate 288 times with at least one runner in scoring position with a total of 474 runners. Here he has 83 RBI with 6 homers for a Net RBI of 77 and an RPR of 77/474 or .162

Has come to the plate 110 times with at least one runner on third base with a total of 223 runners. Here he has 46 RBI with 2 homers for a Net RBI of 44 and an RPR of 44/223 or .197

Alonso:

Has come to the plate 434 times with runners on base with a total of 597 runners. In those situations, he has 116 RBI with 30 homers for a Net RBI of 86 and an RPR of 86/597 or 0.144

Has come to the plate 238 times with at least one runner in scoring position with a total of 401 runners. Here he has 87 RBI with 18 homers for a Net RBI of 69 and an RPR of 69/401 or .172

Has come to the plate 103 times with at least one runner on third base with a total of 203 runners. Here he has 52 RBI with 7 homers for a Net RBI of 45 and an RPR of 45/203 or .222

Lindor:

Has come to the plate 1349 times with runners on base with a total of 1860 runners. In those situations, he has 313 RBI with 40 homers for a Net RBI of 273 and an RPR of 273/1860 or 0.147

Has come to the plate 826 times with at least one runner in scoring position with a total of 1337 runners. Here he has 267 RBI with 21 homers for a Net RBI of 246 and an RPR of 246/1337 or .184

Has come to the plate 355 times with at least one runner on third base with a total of 680 runners. Here he has 171 RBI with 9 homers for a Net RBI of 162 and an RPR of 162/680 or .238


So, with runners on base, in all situations, Lindor > Alonso > Nimmo for driving in runners over their careers.   I guess this makes Nimmo an ideal leadoff man?    

 
Since these were the first three players I ever calculated this for, I don't know what the gold standard for these numbers might be.  

I thought Hank Aaron, the all time leader in RBI might provide some insight.
As guessed, Hank Aaron outhit all of our current favorites:

All situations with runners on base: Aaron's RPR is .170 (1498 net RBI for 8806 runners)

With runners in scoring position: RPR = .216 (1249 net RBI / 5795 runners)

With a runner on third: RPR = .260 (688/2650)

In summary, this does not consider HOW the runners were driven in, whether base hit, walk, sac fly, safety squeeze, hit by pitch, or ground out (can there be any others?), but just simply states what percentage of runners on base scored for all plate appearances by the batter.   It also does not tell what percentage of the time a batter drives in a runner on third base.    

Lastly, these splits are available by season as well as for full careers.  If I get more time, I may go through somebody like Lindor to see how consistent the RPR number holds through the career. 

Unfortunately, these splits do not exist for spring training games, so we cannot determine how many runners Nimmo has left on base with his current .000 RPR.   His lone RBI was a solo homer. 

What do you think?    

I could probably spend a lot of the summer generating RPR stats for a lot of hitters.   I simplified it somewhat by pasting numbers in a spreadsheet and creating some formulas, but I'd need a full program to do much more.  I'll try to do the current team and some other players over time and see if anything stands out. 

Also, I'll figure out how to create a table in a Mack's post which would make things much more readable.