Well, I'll start out saying, that I don't have a horse in this race.. But I wanted to look at a little more than simple numbers, some that often don't really mean a lot. I've never been a fan of RBIs as a pure stand-alone stat.
Looking at the all-time(all positions) list of RBI/GIDP ratios..to get an idea on the effect a player had on extending or killing rallies..
Schmidt is 8th. 1595 RBI/ 156 GIDP, for a ratio of 10.22/1
Brett is 51st. 1596 RBI/236 GIDP, for a ratio of 6.76/1
Chipper is 65th 1623 RBI/ 254 GIDP, for a ratio of 6.39/1
Now, I will admit that Schmidt's K's actually work in his favor in this category, and so do his HRs. So it's kinda hard to take those ratios as pure...I'll rework the math to eliminate HR, and only look at other runners driven in..
Schmidt 6.40
Brett 5.42
Chipper 4.59
I'd adjust these even further, taking into account the % of PA w/Runners on that didn't result in a KO..
Schmidt 82.2% 5.26
Brett 90.2% 4.89
Chipper 87.5% 4.02
We can also look at the RBI%. Which is (RBI-HR)/Runners on..
Chipper came to the plate with 6958 runners on in his career...
(1623-458)/6958 leaving him with an RBI% of 16.60
Schmidt came to the plate with 6246 runners on in his career...
(1526-528)/6246 leaving an RBI% of 15.98
Brett came to the plate with 7183 runners on in his career...
(1596-317)/7183 leaving an RBI% of 17.81
Ulitmately. Once strikeouts and GIDPs factor into everything, Schmidt was still the most effective at not killing rallies...Chipper lagged quite a bit, and Brett honestly isn't that far behind Schmidt... As for pure RBI% Brett jumps out by a lot. But Chipper and Schmidt are close enough, that it's not that big a deal... I am really surprised that Schmidt drove in so few runners that weren't himself though..
Having said all that. Schmidt's glove really sets him apart... Honestly, I've never been a huge fan of Schmidt's, but I must concede that he is probably the best overall 3B ever..
Last edited by novakjr; 02-18-2014 at 07:11 AM.
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