Jimmy Rollins Likes to Score

by dajafi on Oct 4, 2009 12:36 PM EDT

The Inquirer's Jim Salisbury has a long and worthwhile feature on Jimmy Rollins in Sunday's paper, touching upon the shortstop's early-season struggles and how he worked out of it and offering a range of viewpoints on Rollins' offensive game and career to this point. It includes one note I found particularly interesting: "Even with an on-base percentage under .300, he has reached 100 runs for the fifth time in six seasons."

If you think about it, this has to be pretty unusual. Consider what's required to score 100 runs with a sub-.300 OBP: you have to hit leadoff or maybe second, you have to be in the lineup almost every day (which, since you're not in there for your on-base prowess, probably means superior defense and/or great secondary offensive skills), and bat in front of hitters who are pretty accomplished at knocking you in.

Rollins fills all these boxes, obviously: Gold Glove defender, excellent base stealer, unusual power for a leadoff man--it helps when you drive yourself in 20 times--and fortuitous positioning in front of five guys with RBI totals of 61, 93, 141, 93 and 99 in the Phillies' potent lineup. It all adds up to an unusually high "score rate": in about 46 percent of Rollins' times on base this season, he's crossed home plate. (100 runs, divided by 168 hits plus 44 walks plus two hit-by-pitch, plus--a guess--five times reaching base on fielders' choices.) By contrast, Albert Pujols, who leads the NL with 124 runs scored going into today's action, has scored in just under 40 percent of his times on base this season (despite driving himself in on 47 occasions).

To go back to the original question, our pal Floppy, proprietor of the excellent Phuture Phillies site, found that Rollins is just the second player in MLB history to score 100 with an OBP below .300. The first was the immortal Hughie Critz, who scored 108 runs with a .292 on-base percentage back in 1930. (Batting in front of future Hall of Famers Mel Ott and Bill Terry didn't hurt: Critz's "score rate" was well over 50 percent despite not having much power or speed to speak of--4 homers, 8 steals.) Slugger Tony Armas came close in 1984, scoring 107 with an OBP of exactly .300; more recently, Jose Reyes almost did it with 99 runs and a .300 OBP in 2005.

Congrats (?), Jimmy.

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Didn’t read the piece yet, but I hope Mr. Salisbury did not bring up the Phillies record when Mr. Rollins scores a run.

by WanderingMoses on Oct 4, 2009 12:40 PM EDT reply actions

Arrrgh, he did! But thankfully, he does at least lend some credence to the other side of that argument.

by WanderingMoses on Oct 4, 2009 12:44 PM EDT up reply actions

Just goes to show ...

that if you look hard enough you can find a new record or near record for lots of unusual performances. Are congrats in order? Probably not, but it does say something about Rollins’ ability to get results despite his limitations this season.

by phillyinportland on Oct 4, 2009 3:19 PM EDT reply actions

How many would he have scored if he had had a normal Rollins year? (Let’s say a .345 OBP.) How many more runs would the team have scored?

by taco pal on Oct 5, 2009 12:16 PM EDT reply actions

Well, his career OBP is .329. He had 725 plate appearances in 2009, so if he’d gone .329 rather than .296, he would have been on base 239 (well, 238.5, but we’ll round up) times rather than the 219 I estimated above. (This isn’t exactly apples-to-apples methodology, as I made a guess above about fielders’-choice times on base that isn’t captured in OBP, but it’s close enough.)

With the 2009 “score rate” of 46 percent, that’s 110 runs. If you buy the sabermetric argument that 10 runs equals a win, that’s one win Rollins cost the Phils by his lower OBP.

Of course, he’d been over .329 in each of the five years before 2009, so maybe this is low. Applying the .340 OBP he’s more or less averaged over the previous five years to the 725 plate appearances, Rollins would have scored about 113 runs.

by dajafi on Oct 5, 2009 12:43 PM EDT up reply actions