RBI and RBI Opportunities
When it comes to offensive fantasy value one of the key statistics is runs batted in (RBIs). We intuitively equate good offensive production to the amount of RBIs a batter accrues over a season and so one of the strategies to apply when evaluating fantasy talent is figuring out which players will rack up the most RBIs. Generally we like to look at the players who show signs of persistence in racking up the "ribbies" but a more interesting approach, I would argue, is to look at which players may have the most OPPORTUNITY to knock in runs. Namely, which players have teammates with the best on-base percentages and are put in the most positions to knock those teammates in. In order to explore this I decided to look at the Baseball Prospectus RBI Opportunity statistics from this season and look at those with the most RBIs as compared to the leaders in RBI conversion percentage. The latter stat merely divides the total RBIs (excluding driving in yourself with a HR) by the total runs they could have knocked in. As of 4/13 games, here are the top ten RBI guys in baseball:
- Mark Reynolds, 15
- Joe Crede, 15
- Carlos Pena, 13
- Xavier Nady, 13
- Pat Burrell, 13
- Josh Hamilton, 13
- Raul Ibanez, 13
- Manny Ramirez, 12
- Vernon Wells, 12
- Jeff Franceour, 12
Now, let's look at the top ten RBI conversion percentages:
- Joe Crede, 37.9 %
- Angel Pagan, 31.3 %
- Nate McLouth, 30.3 %
- Jeff Franceour, 30.0 %
- Chipper Jones, 29.0 %
- Manny Ramirez, 28.6 %
- Paul Konerko, 28.1 %
- Jason Kendall, 28.0 %
- Corey Hart, 27.8 %
- BJ Upton, 26.3 %
Though the drafts are generally finished since the season is well underway if you are looking for RBI production in the waiver wire I would strongly suggest using the BP OBI % tool to find the players with the most opportunities. They may not be the best overall players available but will be put in positions to knock in runs more often than others. As you can see, some of the players listed in the raw RBI totals list are not in the OBI % list, due to a combination of generating a high percentage of RBIs through solo home runs and having many teammates on base in their PAs as compared to others.
