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TOPIC: WHY THE RUN IS THE MOST UNDERRATED STAT
The setup
If you love statistics (and what baseball fan doesn't?) this is the golden era. Never before have there been so many stats to reveal so much of what goes on in baseball. OPS, EqA, WHIP, Win Shares, VORP, PECOTA, Pythagorean expectation -- if you want to measure anything in the game, anything at all, there's a stat for it.
Yet as statistics get ever more sophisticated, ever more precise and ever more complicated, I find myself relying more and more on the simplest and most underrated stat of all. The humble run.
You don't need an advanced degree in physics to calculate it. You don't need a membership in SABR to appreciate it. You don't need access to the Elias Sports Bureau to look it up. Often overlooked, the run is right there in front of your eyes, in a big bold number on every scoreboard from Little League to the majors. And yet, you probably can't name who led the league in runs last year. Or who holds the record for most runs in a season.
Heck, you can't even tell by looking at most boxscores how many runs a player has for the season. Most boxscores manage to update each player's season stats, accounting for his batting average as well as his doubles, triples, home runs, RBIs, stolen bases and even his errors if he had any in that game. But not his run total. Why are we told how many RBIs a player has for the season but not how many runs? For that matter, why are we told how many triples a player has hit but not how many runs he has scored?
I'll tell you why. Because the run is the most neglected, underrated stat in baseball.
The proof
Let me ask you something. When a game ends, how do they determine the winner? The team that had the most RBIs? The team that reached base the most often? The team with the lowest ERA? No. The only criterion for determining a winner is which team scored the most runs.
That's why the run is such an underrated statistical measure of a player's value.
Batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, BABIP -- those statistics and others are great but they merely reveal how well a player performs in areas that ultimately produce runs. Since that's the case, why not cut out the middle man and go right to the final product? If a player scores a lot of runs, he almost always is doing most of those other things well. He's almost certainly getting himself on base a lot and is probably pretty good at advancing himself around those bases (either with extra-base hits or stolen bases or both, in addition to receiving help from teammates).
I admit the run isn't a foolproof stat. Play on a team without any decent batters around you and your run total is going to suffer. Ichiro hit .352 with a league-leading 225 hits last season but scored a career-low 88 runs (even had he not missed 16 games, he still likely would have scored fewer than 100 runs). Much of that, obviously, was due to the anemic offense surrounding him in Seattle.
I can hear you now. Ichiro's season is the perfect example of why the RBI is more important than the run. Getting on base is only important if someone drives you in later.
Save your breath. I am not saying RBIs aren't important. I'm merely saying runs are undervalued compared to RBIs and other stats that get far more attention. After all, if a batter triples and then scores on a weak grounder to second base, who performed most of the heavy lifting, the guy who hit the triple or the guy who grounded out and got an RBI? Conversely, if a batter reaches first on a fielder's choice and scores on a triple, the player who tripled did most of the work. Considered in that way, runs versus RBIs can be a chicken or the egg equation.
Nonetheless, scoring 100 runs is more difficult and impressive than driving in 100 runs. Look at it this way. When you bat, you have the potential to score one run and one run only. But you could possibly drive in as many as four runs. Players don't often bat with the bases loaded, but they bat with enough runners on base over the course of a season that they have the opportunity to drive in far more runs than they could possibly score. But people don't notice if you score 100 runs. They're only impressed if you have 100 RBIs, in which case they vote you to the All-Star team and give you a five-year, $65 million contract.
A better stat, of course, is runs plus RBIs. But if you're looking at one stat category, the run is more important.
The conclusion
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying all other stats are meaningless. Far from it. They are valuable and helpful when analyzing a player. As we saw in the case of Ichiro, stats can reveal a player's value when he has the misfortune of rotting on base due to mediocre teammates, or batting low in the order (the exact same batter would likely score fewer runs batting seventh than leadoff). Like all other statistics, you must look at the run in the proper context.
What I am saying is that the run is a very simple and highly underrated tool for measuring a player's value. Runs determine which team wins and which team loses a game. Runs also quickly show you which players are truly helping a team win, without forcing you to reach for a calculator.
By the way, Albert Pujols led the majors in runs last season. It was the fourth season he's done that. No other active player has done it more than once. And the player who holds the modern record for most runs in a season? That would be Babe Ruth, with 177 in 1921.
Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
TOPIC: WHY THE RUN IS THE MOST UNDERRATED STAT
The setup
If you love statistics (and what baseball fan doesn't?) this is the golden era. Never before have there been so many stats to reveal so much of what goes on in baseball. OPS, EqA, WHIP, Win Shares, VORP, PECOTA, Pythagorean expectation -- if you want to measure anything in the game, anything at all, there's a stat for it.
Yet as statistics get ever more sophisticated, ever more precise and ever more complicated, I find myself relying more and more on the simplest and most underrated stat of all. The humble run.
You don't need an advanced degree in physics to calculate it. You don't need a membership in SABR to appreciate it. You don't need access to the Elias Sports Bureau to look it up. Often overlooked, the run is right there in front of your eyes, in a big bold number on every scoreboard from Little League to the majors. And yet, you probably can't name who led the league in runs last year. Or who holds the record for most runs in a season.
Heck, you can't even tell by looking at most boxscores how many runs a player has for the season. Most boxscores manage to update each player's season stats, accounting for his batting average as well as his doubles, triples, home runs, RBIs, stolen bases and even his errors if he had any in that game. But not his run total. Why are we told how many RBIs a player has for the season but not how many runs? For that matter, why are we told how many triples a player has hit but not how many runs he has scored?
I'll tell you why. Because the run is the most neglected, underrated stat in baseball.
The proof
Let me ask you something. When a game ends, how do they determine the winner? The team that had the most RBIs? The team that reached base the most often? The team with the lowest ERA? No. The only criterion for determining a winner is which team scored the most runs.
That's why the run is such an underrated statistical measure of a player's value.
Batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, BABIP -- those statistics and others are great but they merely reveal how well a player performs in areas that ultimately produce runs. Since that's the case, why not cut out the middle man and go right to the final product? If a player scores a lot of runs, he almost always is doing most of those other things well. He's almost certainly getting himself on base a lot and is probably pretty good at advancing himself around those bases (either with extra-base hits or stolen bases or both, in addition to receiving help from teammates).
I admit the run isn't a foolproof stat. Play on a team without any decent batters around you and your run total is going to suffer. Ichiro hit .352 with a league-leading 225 hits last season but scored a career-low 88 runs (even had he not missed 16 games, he still likely would have scored fewer than 100 runs). Much of that, obviously, was due to the anemic offense surrounding him in Seattle.
I can hear you now. Ichiro's season is the perfect example of why the RBI is more important than the run. Getting on base is only important if someone drives you in later.
Save your breath. I am not saying RBIs aren't important. I'm merely saying runs are undervalued compared to RBIs and other stats that get far more attention. After all, if a batter triples and then scores on a weak grounder to second base, who performed most of the heavy lifting, the guy who hit the triple or the guy who grounded out and got an RBI? Conversely, if a batter reaches first on a fielder's choice and scores on a triple, the player who tripled did most of the work. Considered in that way, runs versus RBIs can be a chicken or the egg equation.
Nonetheless, scoring 100 runs is more difficult and impressive than driving in 100 runs. Look at it this way. When you bat, you have the potential to score one run and one run only. But you could possibly drive in as many as four runs. Players don't often bat with the bases loaded, but they bat with enough runners on base over the course of a season that they have the opportunity to drive in far more runs than they could possibly score. But people don't notice if you score 100 runs. They're only impressed if you have 100 RBIs, in which case they vote you to the All-Star team and give you a five-year, $65 million contract.
A better stat, of course, is runs plus RBIs. But if you're looking at one stat category, the run is more important.
The conclusion
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying all other stats are meaningless. Far from it. They are valuable and helpful when analyzing a player. As we saw in the case of Ichiro, stats can reveal a player's value when he has the misfortune of rotting on base due to mediocre teammates, or batting low in the order (the exact same batter would likely score fewer runs batting seventh than leadoff). Like all other statistics, you must look at the run in the proper context.
What I am saying is that the run is a very simple and highly underrated tool for measuring a player's value. Runs determine which team wins and which team loses a game. Runs also quickly show you which players are truly helping a team win, without forcing you to reach for a calculator.
By the way, Albert Pujols led the majors in runs last season. It was the fourth season he's done that. No other active player has done it more than once. And the player who holds the modern record for most runs in a season? That would be Babe Ruth, with 177 in 1921.
Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
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