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First look
By egrissom | January 19, 2010
Earlier this month I wrote about how important it was for Phillies pitchers not to walk a batter with the bases empty. Phillies hitters also drive in a lot more runs in their chances to hit with runners on base than in their chances with the bases empty. If you had asked me who the Phillies hitters whose rate of driving in runs increased the most last year when they come to the plate with a runner on first instead of with the bases empty, I would have said that it’s the home run hitters because when they hit a home run with a man on first it drives in twice as many runs as when they hit a home run with the bases empty.
I would have been wrong, of course. In terms of their RBI per plate appearance it’s the guys who hit very few home runs with the bases empty who saw their rate of RBI per plate appearances rise the most when hitting with a man on first base.
Here’s the rate of RBI per plate appearance with the bases empty for the eight Phillies regulars for 2009 as well as the rates for Ben Francisco and Greg Dobbs:
Bases Empty |
|
| Player | RBI per PA |
| Ibanez | .066 |
| Francisco | .065 |
| Howard | .060 |
| Werth | .056 |
| Utley | .054 |
| Dobbs | .042 |
| Rollins | .023 |
| Ruiz | .022 |
| Feliz | .014 |
| Victorino | .014 |
Since you’re going to run into a lot of problems if you try to get an RBI with the bases empty without hitting a home run, you would probably think that the list should be just about the same as the list of the number of home runs per plate appearance. And it’s pretty close, but not identical. Ibanez, Francisco, Howard, Werth and Utley are the top five in the list above. For the same ten players the leaders on the list of plate appearances per home runs (regardless of who was on base) for 2009 went Howard, Ibanez, Werth, Francisco, Utley. Among players that had more than 50 plate appearances last year, none of those guys was the leaders in home run rate. Guesses? It might take a while, but the best rate for the year was John Mayberry. Mayberry hit four home runs in 60 plate appearances or one every 15 times he came to the dish. Had he gotten Howard’s 703 plate appearances and hit home runs at that rate he would have hit about 47 (Howard hit 45). There’s a chance that might not even have happened.
Here are the rates for RBI per plate appearance with a runner on first for 2009 for the same ten players:
Man on first |
|
| Player | RBI per PA |
| Ibanez | .179 |
| Howard | .174 |
| Ruiz | .143 |
| Utley | .142 |
| Francisco | .136 |
| Werth | .117 |
| Rollins | .091 |
| Feliz | .086 |
| Dobbs | .074 |
| Victorino | .049 |
Everyone’s rate is up. Overall for the team the average rate for RBI per plate appearance was .036 with the bases empty and .101 with a man on first. .101 is about 2.8 times as much as .036.
The point, though, is that some rates are up a whole lot more than others. The chart below shows, for each of the ten players, the rate of RBI per plate appearance with a runner on first compared to the player’s rate of RBI per plate appearance with the bases empty.
| Player | RBI per PA with man on 1B/RBI per PA with the bases empty |
| Ruiz | 6.40 |
| Feliz | 6.03 |
| Rollins | 3.97 |
| Victorino | 3.52 |
| Howard | 2.89 |
| Ibanez | 2.72 |
| Utley | 2.63 |
| Francisco | 2.11 |
| Werth | 2.10 |
| Dobbs | 1.76 |
So, for example, Carlos Ruiz got about 6.4 times as many RBI per plate appearance when he was hitting with a man on first last year as when he was hitting with the bases empty. At the bottom of the list, Greg Dobbs got just 1.76 times as many. Generally speaking, it wasn’t the guys who hit a lot of home runs who saw their RBI per plate appearance jump the most with a man on first. It’s the guys whose rates of getting RBI with the bases empty were tiny. The top four guys on that list were at the bottom of the list of RBI per plate appearance with the bases empty.
The Phillies avoided arbitration with Chad Durbin. Durbin and the Phils agreed to a one-year, $2.125 million contract. Victorino, Blanton and Ruiz are the team’s three remaining arbitration-eligible players.
Topics: offense |
January 19th, 2010 at 9:49 am
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January 19th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
I’m having a little trouble with this one. Seems pretty counterintuitive. I don’t recall Feliz and Ruiz suddenly becoming monsters with a man on base but not in scoring position.
Some things that might help make sense of it:
- # and % of times this situation occured for each batter. Maybe it’s a small sample size and subject to a high degree of variance? If you come up with a man on first 7 times and hit a triple once, that doesn’t mean you’ll always get .143 rbi’s / PA.
- most frequent runner on first for each batter. Say, Ruiz always has Vic on first, but Rollins is stuck with a pitcher or Ruiz on first.. that will mess with the numbers quite a bit.
- relatedly, how often was the run-scoring hit a double/triple/HR for each batter.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
I think there’s definitely a case for it all being luck.
For both Ruiz and Feliz their home run rate was way higher with a man on first than with the bases empty in 2009, which was almost surely the biggest factor. Feliz hit four in 116 plate appearances with a man on first and five in 350 PA with the bases empty. Ruiz hit three in 56 PA with a man on first and five in 224 PA with the bases empty.
That could definitely be a coincidence. For their careers, Ruiz’s rate of hitting home runs with a man on first is higher (about 3.4% of PA) than with the bases empty (1.9%), but Feliz it is about the same (about 3.2% for each).
I agree that all three pieces of additional information would help. The first one should be easy to get, but I’m not as sure about the other two.
Finally, I don’t think the huge difference in their numbers with the bases empty and a man on first mean that either was a monster in that situation last year. Feliz was eighth of the ten players in RBI per PA with a man on first, the comparison of that rate to his rate of RBI per PA with the bases empty was just very high.
January 20th, 2010 at 8:42 am
The home run rates for Feliz/Ruiz with men on first/bases empty makes sense in theory. For most (all?) of his career, Ruiz has batted 8th. Theoretically, the pitcher is less likely to “groove” a pitch with nobody on base and the pitcher up next. However, with somebody on base, you don’t have as many options. Feliz has not been batting with the pitcher next, so his rates should be roughly equivalent.
January 20th, 2010 at 9:54 am
I think you’re right about hitting in the eighth spot. Ruiz has about 120 PA in his career hitting seventh, but has hit eighth almost exclusively.
I’m not sure that there is any conclusion that should be drawn. The number of runs a player drives in with men on first depends so much on how many HR he hits and even for big HR hitters there are a very small number of HR hit with men on first. My guess would still be that if you looked at enough data it would prove to be the players who have tiny rates for RBI per PA with the bases empty that have a bigger jump than the home run hitters when when hitting with a man on first.
January 20th, 2010 at 11:50 am
So, move along, nothing to see here, then
Time to move to more interesting topics, like how to coax Mitch Williams out of the MLB Network studio and pitch some bullpen innings for us. I mean, *someone* has to pitch them..
January 20th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Apparently Mitch wasn’t up for it and the Phillies thought that Eric Gagne was the guy.