The Decline and Fall of Todd Helton.....

[hiaspire]

And people wouldn't be laughted out of the room if someone invented the RBI stat today because that is how the game is played. Still.

Almost every manager still puts his offensive strategy together to create RBI opportunities for the guys who get PAID huge money to drive runs in. Nobody really cares how many RBIs your leadoff hitter has behind the pitcher, but you sure do hear talk about RBIs for #3 and cleanup hitters. Why? Because that's the strategy of the game. Those are the opportunities you try to create. Get guys on base ahead of them, and have those big bats drive them home. Baseball still values that measurement, because that still remains the primary strategy offensively. Teams pay the most money and have the highest value on players who they can feature in the middle of their lineups for those purposes. Everything offensively leads up toward your best bats and giving them the best chances to knock a run in for you.

Since they are paying top dollar for those top bats at the center of their offensive strategy to get those runs home, it wouldn't be all that odd that they would want to make sure that was happening statistically.

[HoyaRoxFan]

Originally Posted by hiaspire

Almost every manager still puts his offensive strategy together to create RBI opportunities for the guys who get PAID huge money to drive runs in.

No offense, but if any manager is doing this, a commission should be set up to out them immediately that they might be made fun of profusely. Almost every manager still puts his offensive strategy together to create opportunities to score runs, regardless of the RBI opportunities for any group of players on their team...

Name one player in baseball who has a clause in his contract stating he's getting paid "huge money to drive runs in." No such clause would exist, because... again... RBIs are highly dependent on what everyone around him is doing... The stat tells you nothing about a particular player, so you're not going to pay him for his RBIs.

[GerryInCS]

Any guy who has an escalaotr clause or bonus tied to dirctly to how many RBIs he gets in a season. I'm fairly confident that there are more than a couple of guys out there that have that type of language in their contract.

[HoyaRoxFan]

I'm more happy to be proven wrong, if you can name one, but my own searches come up empty, yielding more contracts concerning termite removal than baseball players... Aren't incentives typically tied to situations or statistics a player has some control over... hence incentivizing him to play for it?

[BigRapidsJackass]

Hoya, do exterminator contracts have an "escalator clause?"

Does that mean that damage to escalators is excluded? Just wondering. The internet can teach us many things.

[TheIncredibleRox]

It's illegal under the CBA to have performance bonuses....

You can have playing time bonuses, or awards bonuses.... but not for # of HR or RBI or Wins.

[John Cocktoston]

Originally Posted by TheIncredibleRox

It's illegal under the CBA to have performance bonuses....

You can have playing time bonuses, or awards bonuses.... but not for # of HR or RBI or Wins.

True. The same is true of winning the pennant or world series, also. Curt Schilling's first contract from the Red Sox had a clause that he asked for with a series of bonuses (and I believe a trigger locking in an option year) contingent upon the team winning the world series. That was struck down as well.

Individual awards, such as all-star, MVP and silver sluggers are all kosher, of course. As is plateaus such as innings pitches, plate appearances or games finished.

Sort of a fine line between participation and performance sometimes...

[HoyaRoxFan]

Originally Posted by BigRapidsJackass

Hoya, do exterminator contracts have an "escalator clause?"

Does that mean that damage to escalators is excluded? Just wondering. The internet can teach us many things.

Well, Jackass, apparently, Rigid Board Insulation foam board, henceforth known as RBI, is prone to infestation by wood destroying organisms like termites. The termite industry uses this and other excuses to limit their liability by introducing escalator clauses into your contract, charging you more and more if the termites return... I wish I were making that up; thank you Internet...

Incredible has granted me a reprieve to stop looking this stuff up by answering the question definitively...

Thus, the tangent comes back to the question - if the players union and the termite industry collectively agree that realize RBI is a dummy stat and don't want their pay tied to it, why would "almost every manager" base their offensive strategy around increasing RBIs for a couple guys on the team? I like traditions as much as the next fan. But I'm still trying to understand why that's a good idea.

[TheIncredibleRox]

I don't think thats the issue, Hoya... I think they want to avoid controversy over things like a player being benched for the last week of a season when nearing his RBI escalator quota, etc.

[hiaspire]

Originally Posted by HoyaRoxFan

No offense, but if any manager is doing this, a commission should be set up to out them immediately that they might be made fun of profusely. Almost every manager still puts his offensive strategy together to create opportunities to score runs, regardless of the RBI opportunities for any group of players on their team...

Name one player in baseball who has a clause in his contract stating he's getting paid "huge money to drive runs in." No such clause would exist, because... again... RBIs are highly dependent on what everyone around him is doing... The stat tells you nothing about a particular player, so you're not going to pay him for his RBIs.

That's not what I was saying in the least bit. The objective in the game isn't to accumulate RBIs for an individual for his fictional contract clauses. It is to score runs for your TEAM.

Most teams don't have all-stars at every spot in the lineup, and not every hitter is equal in terms of ability with the bat. So each hitter plays a role within the overall offensive strategy, and you want to try to give the best opportunities to your best players. You don't want your weak #8 hitter coming up the most often in those situations if you can help it. You try to work things where your #3 and #4 guys get the prime at bats to make things happen with guys on base. Doesn't always work that way, but that's the strategy in putting your best table-setters in front of them and hoping that scenario clicks for you a couple of times to create those chances every game for your best bats.

I have no idea where a contract clause for RBIs came from, but not from me. However, when teams evaluate run producers on the open market the number of times they successfully get the job with runners on base and create those RBIs is certainly part of the picture they look at. Certainly not the whole picture. No stat is the whole picture of anything. That run producing is what they are getting them for and going to hit them cleanup to do. If you don't think the team doesn't look at that, then you've never heard a press conference introducing a top run producer addition to a team.

[BigRapidsJackass]

Hoya and IR, never again will I sound ill-informed when talking about escalator clauses, be it in termite or MLB contracts.

[HoyaRoxFan]

Originally Posted by TheIncredibleRox

I don't think thats the issue, Hoya... I think they want to avoid controversy over things like a player being benched for the last week of a season when nearing his RBI escalator quota, etc.

I doubt that's the reason such an escalator doesn't exist. And my reasons for doubting it are exactly my point:

In that hypothetical baseball league in which escalator quotas exist for things like hits or home runs, you could bench a player when he's getting close, because every time he has an AB, he might do it - a la Bonds and his quest to beat Aaron.

You couldn't bench a player indiscriminately if he was nearing an RBI escalator quota, however, because you wouldn't know in any given game how many RBI would be available to the player. As Aspire says, we're talking about a few situational "prime at bats," or AB w/ RISP, I presume. You'd be benching your player when the bases are loaded, and that's just ridiculous - not because that player is good at getting RBIs, but becuase he's a good hitter period, or at least a good hitter w/ RISP.

It's a nuance, but an important one. You don't care if he's good at getting RBIs; you care that in those key situations, he doesn't kill an inning by getting out.

Aspire, I'm with you 100% on the lineup issues - I'm more a traditionalist in that sense. But in building that lineup, I'm not looking to pick up guys who get a lot of RBI as the part of the picture, nor any part of the picture for that matter. RBIs tell you that the guy was in the right place at the right time and he didn't waste the AB, as explained above. So what? Since the year 2000, the Rockies had the NL leader in RBIs in three different seasons. So what? Are we proud of ownership for going and getting those RBIs? Doubtful. Having an RBI leader did not mean we produced a ton of runs and won a lot of games.

If two guys have identical OPS, OBP, identical walks, equal SLG power, (whatever other stat you want to use) only one guy has more RBI than the other, that stat doesn't reveal him to be a better player nor is he worth more money nor should he be the guy you necessarily get to complete your lineup; that's absurd. More information is needed, and is undoubtedly used by scouts and GMs around the league.

Also, being a media man myself, I wouldn't go looking for truth and reason in what is said at press conferences and media announcements, and I certainly wouldn't use it to prove or disprove a claim... sorry.

P.S. Glad to be of service, Jackass.

[hiaspire]

Originally Posted by HoyaRoxFan

Having an RBI leader did not mean we produced a ton of runs and won a lot of games.

If two guys have identical OPS, OBP, identical walks, equal SLG power, (whatever other stat you want to use) only one guy has more RBI than the other, that stat doesn't reveal him to be a better player nor is he worth more money nor should he be the guy you necessarily get to complete your lineup; that's absurd. More information is needed, and is undoubtedly used by scouts and GMs around the league.

Also, being a media man myself, I wouldn't go looking for truth and reason in what is said at press conferences and media announcements, and I certainly wouldn't use it to prove or disprove a claim... sorry.

It certainly means that the PLAYER himself produced a lot of runs. He has the hits and runners driven in to prove actual runs contributed. Not just that theoretical stuff.

We are in agreement about the "more information is needed". That's always true. I'm just saying traditional stats aren't the GARBAGE that intellectuals often claim them to be. It represents actual times doing your job with runners on base for you to drive in.

And I didn't say truth or reason was to be found in press conferences. I just said that ACTUAL teams talk about those kinds of contributions. They do and that's absolutely true and you'll hear that everyday in the game, even if not from the stat-heads.

That stat absolutely has its limitations with things that have to be kept in mind in terms of context, but getting a hit to drive in a run isn't garbage. Nor is accounting for that.

[Roxpert]

I start this thread with a critique of Todd Helton, and now I see it has evolved into a full blown debate on the merits of the RBI stat, escalator clauses, and termites. Usually, I don't like threads getting too far off-topic, but this is pretty amusing.

As for the RBI stat, it is a worthless "counting stat" that means very little without the "denominator", a stat that isn't widely available.....OPPORTUNITY.

In other words, if Player A got 75 RBIs but did so with 350 at-bats and 225 runner on base, he has been more productive than Player B who got 100 RBIs in 600 ABs with 500 baserunners to drive in. It STILL doesn't mean that Player A was a better hitter, only a more productive hitter in his more limited at-bats.

So, RBI in isolation tells you nothing. RBI as a function of RBI opportunities would tell you a lot more, but still wouldn't be predictive of future hitting prowess, and certainly wouldn't be as helpful as the hitter's trends in OBP, SLG, OPS, or HF's ABR stat.

In short, "RBI" is a "hangover" stat from a bygone era that is used more out of tradition and habit by those who care not to dig deeper into hitter production, sort like the W/L record of starting pitchers. Nice relics of pre-sabermetric thought. I must plead guilty myself in using this stat against Helton in talking about his poor RBI production as a clean-up hitter. Sometimes it's easy for even functionally literate baseball fans to fall into bad habits!

[hiaspire]

Originally Posted by Roxpert

It STILL doesn't mean that Player A was a better hitter, only a more productive hitter in his more limited at-bats.

I wouldn't say "only" about being more productive. That's a good thing. That's also something that teams would reasonably want to look at in comparing very similar players otherwise amongst the other measurements.

People like to be precise here with numbers, but I believe that when people talk about RBIs in real life they are not ignoring opportunities all that much. Those usually come up in comparisons of comparable players in similar positions. Most fans do not compare RBIs for a full-season player and one who missed a big chunk of the season. Most do not compare RBIs between a big cleanup hitter and a speedy leadoff hitter. Most understand that a hitter on a horrible team with vastly fewer runners on base for him wouldn't be fairly compared in RBI terms to a hitter on the best offense with tons of baserunners.

There is consideration of opportunity, and even performance measurements with runners in scoring position usually mentioned along with it, even if it is sometimes more of an approximation than needing exact numeric conclusions in order to make up one's mind.