quote:Originally posted by 3FingeredGlove:
Well, that defintion isn't very clear either, but it seems to be the same idea. The second sentence sems to imply that a strikeout victim couldn't by definition leave any runners on base, but I suspect that is just not-so-careful writing.
Anyway the utility, IMO, is related to the RBI stat, which by itself is not very useful. When we see that a player has no RBIs during a game, it could mean that he had a rough day at the plate, or it could mean that nobody got on base before him, and his only opportunity for a RBI was to hit a home run.
The individual LOB stat tells us how many opportunities a player had to get RBIs, excluding solo HRs.
Yeah, there sure does seem to be a whole lot of “wiggle room” on this particular stat, doesn’t there?
There’s a smoky cloud that hangs over RBIs, but that can really be said about just about any stat that isn’t totally black and white. To me, for exactly what you pointed out, i.e. RBIs being extremely opportunity dependent, have a great deal to do with where in the lineup a player is, or really where he is relative to players who have high OBPs.
I’ve never been impressed with a guy who gets 100 RBIs, when the 3 guys ahead of him seem to be on base all the time. To me, that means just about anyone capable of making it to the level being played, is capable of getting a lot of RBIs if put into that spot. So, when one weighs this “individual LOB’ stat, its really the opposite of an RBI. Any at bat is an RBI opportunity. Any at bat with 1 runner on is an opportunity for 2 RBIs, with 2 runners on, 3, etc.. Now if that’s all there was to it, I could see it, but when all the “ifs” and “buts” are taken into account, it becomes so murky, I honestly don’t think its worth the time to try to explain it.
Over the years I’ve found that any metric that takes more than 10 or 15 seconds to explain, isn’t one that anyone other than the numbers geeks even want to hear about, and this one seems to fall into that mold.
