Rocky Colavito: Stick it up their ***

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

The latter half of his career he missed a lot of games to injury too.

Not to mention that RBI's are pretty contingent on how good the people are on getting on in front of you, and if there is another power guy hitting in front of you taking a lot of of the RBI's with homers and not being on the basepaths for you.

I have a feeling that the Yankees of the 50s and first half of the 60s were pretty good at getting on base. As for the latter point, Gehrig still managed to have a few RBIs despite hitting behind Ruth, so I am not buying it. Even when Maris hit 61, he was still probably on base another 140 times.

[clydepepper]

It's great to see how many folks agree with me about Minnie Minoso...bet he was fun to watch!

Speaking of fun to watch, I wish I had witnessed some of Colavito's legendary outfield throws.

Through the magic of television, I have seen a few Clemente throws...just wonder how Colavito compared.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I have a feeling that the Yankees of the 50s and first half of the 60s were pretty good at getting on base. As for the latter point, Gehrig still managed to have a few RBIs despite hitting behind Ruth, so I am not buying it. Even when Maris hit 61, he was still probably on base another 140 times.

Buy it or not it's a fact that RBI's are team contingent and extremely volatile. They are next to worthless for judging individual production because the batter has no control over who is or isn't on base when he comes to bat. Plenty of great seasons have come without 100 RBI's just because they played on a bad team who sucked at getting on base.

Oh, and Ruth is like #2 or 3 in walks and BB% all time, of course Gehrig got a ton of RBI chances!

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

Buy it or not it's a fact that RBI's are team contingent and extremely volatile. They are next to worthless for judging individual production because the batter has no control over who is or isn't on base when he comes to bat. Plenty of great seasons have come without 100 RBI's just because they played on a bad team who sucked at getting on base.

Oh, and Ruth is like #2 or 3 in walks and BB% all time, of course Gehrig got a ton of RBI chances!

At .342 lifetime I think Ruth probably had a ton of hits where he ended up on base too. Is there an advanced stat for runs driven in/runners on base or something like that, that would be informative?

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

At .342 lifetime I think Ruth probably had a ton of hits where he ended up on base too. Is there an advanced stat for runs driven in/runners on base or something like that, that would be informative?

you could look at situational hitting, but it tends to be all over the place from one year to the next (and over a career tends to be similar to their hitting in ALL situations)

But, it tends to be true that good middle of the order hitters will get more RBI's if the guys in front of them are better at getting on base than an equally good hitter on a lesser team.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

you could look at situational hitting, but it tends to be all over the place from one year to the next (and over a career tends to be similar to their hitting in ALL situations)

But, it tends to be true that good middle of the order hitters will get more RBI's if the guys in front of them are better at getting on base than an equally good hitter on a lesser team.

Yes that certainly makes sense I would have thought without researching it that a team (50s mid 60s Yankees) that was perhaps the greatest dynasty in history would have been quite adept at putting men on base, but perhaps not?

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Yes that certainly makes sense I would have thought without researching it that a team (50s mid 60s Yankees) that was perhaps the greatest dynasty in history would have been quite adept at putting men on base, but perhaps not?

They looked to be above avg at getting on base. But here's something i just noticed:

Mantle only got 100 RBI's 4 times true, but he got 90+9 times and got walked 90 or more times in 13 seasons. So, with all those walks, he was missing out RBI opps.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Yeah, that was the first thing I mentioned, all those walks. He was ahead of his time. It's interesting that even in his last two mediocre seasons, he walked over 100 times in each. Odd that. And .421 OBP lifetime.

[howard38]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I have a feeling that the Yankees of the 50s and first half of the 60s were pretty good at getting on base. As for the latter point, Gehrig still managed to have a few RBIs despite hitting behind Ruth, so I am not buying it. Even when Maris hit 61, he was still probably on base another 140 times.

Maris got on base a decent amount but from the late 50s through the early 60s the Yankees had out machines Bobby Richardson and Tony Kubek batting first and second.