RBIs is not a very useful stat when trying to determine hitter effectiveness, because it is heavily dependent on the players ahead of you in the lineup. A lot of e-ink has been spilled lately trying to explain this, and to say that if you do look at RBIs, you have to put them in the context of the opportunities a player has to drive people in, i.e. the runners on base when he comes to bat (ROB). Naturally the focus of many of these articles is the NL leader in RBIs, Ryan Howard. I don't want to get into how bad or "sneaky good" his season has been, only whether he drives in baserunners at a less-than-stellar rate.
For example:
http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/13886/good-bad-rbi-production-in-cleanup-spot
[Howard] does have 19 home runs and is hitting .318 with runners in scoring position. But he has also hit with more runners on base than any hitter in the majors other than Adrian Gonzalez.
http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/13200/the-rbi-guys
That Howard has driven in "just" 48 runners, or 17.9 percent, is far from an indictment of his abilities as a play-maker -- it’s still a very good clip.
http://joeposnanski.si.com/2011/07/12/ducks-on-the-pond/
Howard leads all of baseball with 296 runners on base. He had an amazing 60 game-stretch recently when he hit .223 … and he still drove in 47 runs in those 60 games. You can say he is a run producer. You can say he’s just in a situation where there are ALWAYS runners on base. Either way, the man will get paid $145 million from now until 2017.
http://philliesnation.com/archives/2011/07/wrapping-your-head-around-ryan-howard/
Give any guy that many opportunities to drive in runs and lo and behold runs will be driven in. In this regard, Ryan’s success is more the result of the success of people batting ahead of him rather than his own ability to bring them in.
So even though he's leading the NL in RBIs, Howard is only 26th in the majors in OBI% (i.e. the percentage of runners on base that he’s driven in). The problem with focusing on this as evidence that Howard's RBIs are a product of the lineup that he bats in is that players' rank in OBI% fluctuates quite a bit from year to year, and it’s not unusual for some of the top sluggers in the game to rank low in a given year. From the Christina Kahrl article above:
But Fielder’s presence also illustrates how players aren’t necessarily consistent in their OBI% from year to year. In 2010, Fielder drove in just 10.8 percent of his runners (or 51 of 474), a clip that only Alcides Escobar worsted [sic] among Brewers regulars.
OBI% rankings for 2011 and recent years after the jump...
OBI%, 2011
So if Howard is 26th, all of the other (better) slugging first basemen must be ahead of him, right? Well, sort of.
Below are this year's Top 30 in OBI%, as of a few days ago, out of 268 qualifiers with 180+ PA's:
1
Josh Hamilton
24.7%
11
Matt Holliday
19.8%
21
Jonathan Lucroy
18.6%
2
Chipper Jones
22.2%
12
Victor Martinez
19.7%
22
Joey Votto
18.5%
3
Ryan Braun
21.7%
13
Adrian Gonzalez
19.6%
23
Jason Kubel
18.4%
4
Neil Walker
21.0%
14
Pablo Sandoval
19.2%
24
Carlos Gonzalez
18.4%
5
Hunter Pence
20.7%
15
Travis Hafner
18.8%
25
Evan Longoria
18.3%
6
Xavier Nady
20.6%
16
Andrew McCutchen
18.8%
26
Ryan Howard
18.3%
7
Justin Turner
20.5%
17
Adrian Beltre
18.7%
27
Matt LaPorta
18.2%
8
Michael Young
20.4%
18
Danny Espinosa
18.6%
28
Kevin Youkilis
18.2%
9
Mike Aviles
20.3%
19
Prince Fielder
18.6%
29
Nelson Cruz
18.1%
10
Martin Prado
19.9%
20
Brian McCann
18.6%
30
Lance Berkman
18.0%
The list includes many of the hitters you would expect to see. However some notable names are further down the list:
40. Mark Teixeira 17.7%
74. Albert Pujols 15.9%
82. Miguel Cabrera 15.7%
OBI% Rank, 2006-2011 by Year
Below are the annual rankings in OBI% for some notable sluggers (minimum 300 PA’s through 2010, 180 in 2011):
Qualifiers:
271
280
281
284
270
268
Rank
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Albert Pujols
4
89
25
21
54
74
Mark Teixeira
112
19
38
68
85
40
Joey Votto
37
25
7
22
Ryan Howard
40
43
5
10
42
26
Miguel Cabrera
1
12
16
97
14
82
Prince Fielder
186
65
87
17
250
19
Adrian Gonzalez
121
101
39
163
39
13
Justin Morneau
5
55
14
50
101
181
Kevin Youkilis
146
103
11
72
117
28
Josh Hamilton
122
4
36
8
1
Raul Ibanez
6
14
27
89
103
85
Jayson Werth
7
150
133
190
249
OBI%, 2006-2011 Combined
As mentioned above players move up and down quite a bit from year to year, so we need to combine stats over multiple years. Below are OBI stats since Howard’s first full year in 2006:
Out of 368 players with 1000+ PA's:
| 2006-11 rank | ROB | OBI | OBI% | |
| 1 | Josh Hamilton | 1,421 | 279 | 19.6% |
| 2 | Joey Votto | 1,358 | 253 | 18.6% |
| 3 | Aramis Ramirez | 2,102 | 388 | 18.5% |
| 4 | Ryan Howard | 2,751 | 506 | 18.4% |
| 5 | Miguel Cabrera | 2,514 | 462 | 18.4% |
| 6 | Ryan Braun | 1,849 | 339 | 18.3% |
| 7 | Bobby Abreu | 2,410 | 437 | 18.1% |
| 8 | Joe Mauer | 1,935 | 348 | 18.0% |
| 9 | Victor Martinez | 2,189 | 389 | 17.8% |
| 10 | Albert Pujols | 2,463 | 437 | 17.7% |
| 11 | Justin Morneau | 2,294 | 407 | 17.7% |
| other notables: | ||||
| 18 | Raul Ibanez | 2,404 | 422 | 17.6% |
| 37 | Mark Teixeira | 2,622 | 439 | 16.7% |
| 44 | Kevin Youkilis | 2,270 | 374 | 16.5% |
| 48 | Adrian Gonzalez | 2,446 | 400 | 16.4% |
| 92 | Prince Fielder | 2,489 | 387 | 15.5% |
| 204 | Jayson Werth | 1,613 | 226 | 14.0% |
| MLB Average | 14.0% | |||
This includes Howard's huge 2006, but he's still 4th in MLB in 2007-2011:
1. Josh Hamilton 19.6%
2. Neil Walker 18.8%
3. Joey Votto 18.6%
4. Ryan Howard 18.5%
then Braun, ARamirez, VMartinez, Holliday, ARodriguez, Mauer
...and 3rd in 2008-2011:
1. Josh Hamilton 20.3%
2. Neil Walker 18.8%
3. Ryan Howard 18.7%
then Votto, KMorales, Mauer, ARamirez, Abreu, Braun, ARodriguez
So yes, Howard has gotten lots of opportunities to drive in runs, but he's been one of the most efficient in baseball at driving those runners home.