The most useless baseball statistic of all time
Re-posting this as it got few reads. A short one. We did a podcast on it a while back and other overrated and underrated stats in baseball history.
A short one today:
From 1980–1988 MLB recorded a statistic called the Game-Winning-Run-Batted-In (GWRBI). The criteria in crediting a batter with a GWRBI was simple. The batter must drive in the run (RBI), that gave your team the lead that it never relinquished. Sounds simple enough and one might think a player’s clutch-ness might be revealed in part due to such a statistic. Example: think tie game in the bottom of the 8th inning, runner on 2nd with 2 out. The clutch hitter bangs a single through the hole to give his team a 3–2 lead. The closer comes on to retire the side in the top of the 9th without scoring, final score 3–2 and the clutch hitter gets the GWRBI. Even if the team scored more runs than the game winning single, the GWRBI is only for the go-ahead run and not what follows. Clutch right?
Only that situation was too often not quite the way it worked out. Example: It’s no score, the bottom of the 2nd, runner on 3rd with 1 out, and the hitter pulls a soft grounder to the hole on the right side scoring the runner on the fielder’s choice for the 1–0 lead. As the game progresses the team scores another 7 runs in the game, never trails, and the final score is 8–5 for the home team. The not-as-clutch hitter gets the same credit — the GWRBI. Ugh! If this happened in the 8th or 9th inning it carries much more weight.
How it took MLB 9 seasons to finally decide to junk this terrible statistic is hard to understand! Nobody cared about it. Not the players who did not get extra compensation for having more than the average GWRBI, nor managers, or even sportscasters and sportswriters. The mere mention of the stat could bring snickers and eyerolls. Fans knew it was a dumb stat.
Of course, there ARE records of GWRBIs. One of my favorite players (and a should be HOFer!) Keith Hernandez had 129 Game-Winning RBI’s while these records were kept, more than any other player. Hernandez also had the most in a single season (24 in 1985). Mike Greenwell had the most in the American League (23 in 1988). Clearly this mostly useless statistic has in no way advanced Keith Hernandez’s prospects for induction into Cooperstown. And I’d agree holding an all-time MLB record is still kind of cool and is if nothing else, famous. Or infamous!
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About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and now Substack.com.
