They can cut you in! LOL

At some point players with many more opportunities than normal will get hurt merely because of limitations of batting average which Howard might fall under.

If you get up everytime with a runner on it is unreasonable to think a batter’s OBI could go much higher than his BA in that scenario but it does even out the disparity between players opportunities for normal. As with any metric extremes will skew but I don’t think it is enough to say it is not usable. Just like any metric you have to recognize the extremes and compensate accordingly.

If the mods are interested here is the link.
http://www.appyet.com/

If you want some help feel free to let me know I can create it for you but it really is as simple as filling out a form and getting a download.

The skewing I spoke about could occur if a player with few opportunities got those few with lets say the bases loaded and failed but succeeded in one or two where there was only one guy on. Reverse it and it skews the opposite way.

It is not a major statistical issue for me though as really the anomolies are more due to the same sampling issues most metrics and stats have. Not anything to do with the metric itself in fact the metric does everything it can to offset that situation.

This metric exists as an answer to the skewed way RBI totals are looked at. The percentages wouldn’t be skewed. Look at Pablo Sandoval. He’s got fewer than half the RBIs Howard does, 46% to be exact. But he’s batted this season with only 42% of the runners on base Howard has. It’s a perfectly valid argument that Pablo Sabdoval is better at driving in runs than Ryan Howard is. Actually, there are thirteen hitters in the league better at driving runners in than Howard, Turner included.

Could even be the CLUTCH metric many of the saber rattlers claim does not exist.
Of course as with any metric it has to be applied correctly. Leadoff Men would likely have lower than usual opportunities and therefore their percentage could easily be skewed lower but as long as you remember that and compare him to other players with similar opportunities it would still be a decent clutch indicator.

As I have said in our past discussions, RBI is a very important number in judging the value of the player in question. And while those numbers are somewhat dependent on players in front of him, this at least takes those opportunities (or lack of) into account and it can be determined if the low RBI is him or those players not getting on in front of him!

It does penalize HR hitters like Howard who seem to have an opportunity to get an RBI in every PA but that can be remedied by a mere glance at the HR totals so it’s not a problem for me.