I have no idea if this subject has been talked about before....so, here I go.
Back in the 1970's I was the Manager/player of our workplace Softball team. I named our team the "DingBats" (of Archie Bunker fame). It was apropo, for when I joined this team
it was in last place in our Division. Dealing with Bell Labs Engineers, Scientists, and Management types was a big challenge for me out there on the ball field. We loved to play the
game. And all of us wanted to be winners.
So, how did I get this team from the bottom to 1st place in our Division that first year of my leadership ? From the data on my scorecard, I developed a statistic which I refer to as
RUNS PRODUCED INDEX (RPI). I applied this stat in order to determine who was going to be the starting players in each game of our 14-game schedule that season.
Sure, I was confronted by those I didn't start with...."why aren't you playing me today ?" Or...."my BA is over .300, but you're benching me", etc. Eventually, every one got to play.
I'll tell you I took this stat seriously, so by playing the guys who showed a tendency to produce the most RUNS in a given game worked beautifully. The DingBats won the 1st place
trophy from 1975 to 1980, consecutively. So, here is my simple formula for the RPI factor......
RPI = actual At Bats / Runs + RBI - HR
If you do the math, both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig have an RPI factor of 2.8 to 2.9 (obviously, the lower this number is, the more productive the hitter is).
Therefore, they produce a RUN for every 2.85 times At Bat. And, I think they may be the Major League leaders in this stat.
TED Z
T206 Reference
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