Mound Talk

RBI skews high because of the tendency among fantasy owners to go heavy on power. RBI also trends higher than runs because every power hitter is owned and most are played. Very few #3-5 hitters are free agents and this is where the majority of RBIs come from. Conversely, runs are predominantly scored by #1-3 hitters and many of these players are unowned because their value lies outside of the five-by-fives and rarely contribute to the power categories.

Finish	RBI
1	874
2	809
3	805
4	800
5	797
6	770
7	752
8	736
9	730
10	710
11	703
12	692

There is an obvious compensation at the top going on and to win the category frequently implied a vicotry in home runs. However, the flaws of trying to take 12 points in a few categories and doing ok in the rest are too numerable for me to begin. Instead, looking at the numbers gives a good indication of what the marginal value of an additional point from each category is. Since the average fantasy league is going to require too many RBIs to win, you should target a lower number and work from there. The separation between #2 and #5 in the league isn’t great. In fact, the average RBI needed per slot to get 11 points in the category is 89.88 while the average needed for 8 points is 88.55. Ultimately, this will prove to be the closest margin of all the offensive categories. What that means is you better get your RBIs.

Fundamentally, players who accumulate RBI are going to have a higher batting average and home run totals. Without doing a statistical analysis, this should be fairly intuitive. A batter will almost always record a hit when also accruing an RBI, thereby increasing their batting average and a player who drives in a large number of runs is more likely to do so by the home run as it is the easiest way to rack up lots of RBI. Of the 32 players who had more than 100 RBI in 2007, all but six had at least 25 home runs and with the exception of Chris Young and Alfonso Soriano, everyone with 30+ HR had 87 RBI.

Concluding Thoughts

RBIs are important to the success of your fantasy baseball team. The difference between 8 and 11 points could be as few as one RBI per slot so be sure to fill your position players with power sluggers.

The top power guys in terms of RBIs don’t steal a lot of bases. For that reason, guys like Carlos Beltran, Bobby Abreu and Jimmy Rollins are extra valuable.