Okay, okay, you probably figured we were done with this. And we are. Really. After this. To recap: First, taking a clue from a piece by Jonah Keri, I looked at the most overrated individual seasons since 1972 when judged by their RBI.  Last week, I used some of the more recent "advanced stats" (I hate that term, for some reason), to look and see if perhaps the "RBI Guys" had a special knack for situational hitting. In both cases, we found that the real secret to getting to 90 or 100 RBIs in a season doesn't appear to lie in any particular skill, but instead in being in the right spot in the lineup at the right time. I thought I was done with this thing, but then Sky Kalkman of Beyond the Box Score fame asked if I had any careers numbers. With that in mind, as an epilogue, let's take last look (for a while, anyway) at the topic by examining a list of players whose careers were overrated by their RBI numbers. If you're sick of this, blame Sky. If not, then credit me.

For this project, I again used the custom linear weights scripts I used in my earlier posts (see the first post for more details). To narrow down the database query so that it wouldn't take forever to calculate and also becaue the linear weights are closer together since the mid-1950s, I restricted myself to summing up seasons after 1954. So if a player's career began before 1955, the RBI and Runs Created totals only include those seasons 1955-.

Without any further ado, HERE IS THE GOOGLE SPREADSHEET.

What Do These Numbers Mean, Again?

I'll keep this brief, since most of this material is covered in the previous posts on this topic. The simple explanation (and taking into considerations some suggestions from this thread), is that I've taken each player individual career RBI and divided them by this total runs created. The higher the ratio of RBI:Runs Created is, the more his RBI overstate his actual offensive production (probably due to being in the middle of the lineup, etc).  So the players at the "top" of the rankings are the most overrated by their RBI. For the sake of interest, I restricted the search and made two lists, one based on players with 1000 or more RBI, and another for players with 500 or more RBI.

Quickly revisiting some definitions:

• wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average) is simply the linear weights a players offensive contribution per plate appearanec expressed as a rate stat set to an on-base percentage scale so that one can get a quick read of a player's contribution. This is the players career average 1955-, but the weights I derived using Tom Tango's SQL (adapted by Colin Wyers) adjusts the weights each year for the particular run environment -- very cool stuff. This number is not park adjusted.
  
• wRAA (I called this BRAA in earlier posts) is "wOBA Runs Above Average"). Using the formulae posted in earlier articles, this is the linear weights runs above/below average the player created over his career. This number is park-adjusted using terpsfans' park factors. This is not directly involved in the RBI calculations, but is there to give an a better idea of how good or bad a player was with respect to his particular run environment during his career. wWAA is wRAA converted to a wins scale based on the runs-to-wins conversion for each individual league and season, further specifying the player's relation to his run environment
• wRC is wOBA Runs Created. Rather than runs above or below average, this figure is the "absolute" number of runs a player created based on the custom wOBA caculations during his career. This is the figure used in the key "ranking" stat for this project:
• RBIperwRC is the key stat as explained above: his career RBI numbers divided by his absolute runs created. The higher the ratio of RBI:Runs Created is, the more his RBI overstate his actual offensive production (probably due to being in the middle of the lineup, etc).  So the players at the "top" of the rankings are the most overrated by their RBI.

With the boring stuff out of the way, let's take a look at the lists.

The 1000 RBI Guys

We being with a huge upset here. Sky thought my SQL might be broken when he saw an earlier version. How could Joe Carter not come in first? As it is, he "only" ended up at #4, although I'm sure that won't make Phillies fans feel much better.

Ruben Sierra at number 1? Who knew? Of You look at the guy's numbers and you say, "well, he was above average for his career." Still, a .332 wOBA for his career? That's barely better than Royals' catcher John Buck has at the moment (.331). Hanging around for 20 seasons can help a guy out. David Kingman makes #2 on the 1,000+ list. I hope I don't get a rat in the mail. Can they be emailed? The relatively anonymous Tommy Davis comes in at #3

If Joe Carter fans think "only" being #4 on this list somehow vindicates their man, perhaps they should check the man right at #5: Gary Gaetti, Ageless Wonder and Object of Devotion. Here's a guy who has almost the same wRCperRBi as Joe Carter, yet hit more than 20 runs below average for his career. It's fitting that George Bell is also in the top 20, as well as George Foster. Jose Canseco, Tino Martinez, B. J. Surhoff, Carlos Lee, and Harold Baines rounding out the Top 25 of a list of Overrated RBI guys? I don't know about Jose, but I sure feel Vindicated.

It's is at least as instructive to look at the "bottom" of the list -- the players most underrated by their RBI numbers. RIcky Henderson is at the bottom. Enough, said, probably. Wade Boggs right in above him. How about this: third from the bottom MIckey  Mantle. ZOMG JOE CARTER >>>>> THE MICK.!!!!!1111ONE1 Pete Rose... Wow, I can't believe I came up a list which shows Pete Rose as underrated... I mean, one not composed by Pete Rose himself (yes, I know he Craig Biggio, the former object of Bill James' affection, is also on here. Eddie Matthews, Rod Carew... Its very interesting to see guys like Bonds, Mantle, Matthews, etc. on this list because they did hit in the middle of the order (and all of these guys have over 1000 RBI, remember), so it might be more accurate to say that they "outhit" their RBI. Lots of stuff to see here. Derek Jeter, underrated?

The 500 RBI Guys

As you might expect, this is a much longer list. It's interesting to see more active players in and about. Bengie Molina slides in at #8. Hammerin' Jose Guillen  #31 out of 542. As for the underrated active guys,  Jason Kendall's presence gave me pause, but it's easy to forget, given his present state, what a good OBP guy he was when he was younger. Jimmy Rollins at #500 out o#542 -- another underrated leadoff guy, and we're not even talking about his excellent defense yet. The eternally underrated Tim Raines is #525 out of #542 -- he just missed being on 1000 RBI list by 20.

Just one final note -- Stan Musial is at the bottom of the list (remember this is only 1955- numbers). Wow. And really, my whole point about RBI could have been made by simply making this list and noting that Stan Musial is at the "bottom," and my man Tony Batista is at the top.