Curtis Granderson Chases Unwanted History One RBI at a Time

On Friday, the Mets' leaky bullpen turned a 1-1 tie into an 8-1 blowout loss in a matter of minutes.  Gone was Seth Lugo's valiant effort , in which he allowed one run in six and two-thirds innings while he was in the game and two additional runs after he was taken out of the game, no thanks to Jerry Blevins' craptastic performance.

The sole run for the Mets came in the second inning, when Curtis Granderson bashed and splashed his 20th home run of the season into McCovey Cove.  Obviously, Grandy's tater came with no one on base, something Mets fans have become accustomed to, as it was the 17th consecutive solo homer for Granderson this season.  And for those who would say that Granderson has so many solo shots because he's been used mostly as a leadoff hitter this season, you should be reminded that the only time Granderson is guaranteed to bat with no one on base as a No. 1 hitter is in inning No. 1 and that last year, he was used mostly as a leadoff hitter and still managed to knock eight balls out of the park with men on base.  Oh, and last night's four-base hit came as the Mets' sixth-place hitter, as did his previous solo homer two nights before that.

For the season, Granderson has 20 home runs and just 34 RBI.  You read that correctly, kids.  Thirty-four runs batted in for a 20-homer hitter.  And it's because of the paltry RBI figure that Granderson is chasing unwanted history.

The forever-smiling Curtis Granderson finally has something to frown about.  (Photo by Paul J. Bereswill)

Curtis Granderson is on pace to hit 27 homers and drive in 45 runs this season.  Only nine players in big league history have hit 20 or more homers while producing no more than 45 RBI in the same season.  But none of the players hit more than 22 home runs, as Chris Duncan (22 HR, 43 RBI in 2006) and Mark Reynolds (22 HR, 45 RBI in 2014) are tied for the most homers in a 45-RBI-or-fewer campaign.  With Granderson on pace for 27 homers, he stands a good chance to have the fewest runs batted in of any player with that home run total.  In fact, he could have fewer RBI than any player who hit at least 23 HR.

Here is the list of the fewest RBI recorded by players who hit 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27 homers.

• 23 HR, 48 RBI - Ruben Rivera (1999)
• 24 HR, 51 RBI - Ken Phelps (1984)
• 25 HR, 56 RBI - Fred Lynn (1988), Marcus Thames (2008), Luis Valbuena (2015)
• 26 HR, 54 RBI - Ron Gant (2000), Joc Pederson (2015)
• 27 HR, 56 RBI - Mark Bellhorn (2002)

Ruben Rivera is the only player in baseball history to hit 23 or more homers who failed to drive in 50 runs in that campaign.  Granderson, who has driven in 34 runs in the Mets' first 122 games, stands to join Rivera in this exclusive club while hitting more homers than Rivera and driving in fewer runs.  It should be noted that Rivera drove in his 34th run in 1999 on July 19 in his team's 92nd game of the season, while Granderson collected RBI No. 34 exactly one full month and 30 games later in his team's schedule.

With 20 homers and 34 RBI, Granderson has fewer then two runs batted in for every home run he has hit, or more precisely, 1.7 RBI/HR.  Only two other players with 20+ homers in a single season had RBI totals that failed to be at least twice the number of their home run output.  That gruesome twosome is:

• Kevin Maas (1990) - 21 HR, 41 RBI
• Chris Duncan (2006) - 22 HR, 43 RBI

Unlike Granderson, both Maas and Duncan needed just one additional RBI to have twice as many runs batted in as they had home runs.  They averaged 1.95 RBI/HR, compared to Granderson's 1.7 RBI/HR ratio, which means Granderson is on pace to shatter the mark for fewest RBI per home run among those players who hit 20 or more home runs.  But what if the bar was lowered from 20 HR to just reaching double digits in homers?  Surely, there should be many players who averaged fewer than 1.7 RBI per home run when they didn't hit too many homers to begin with, right?

Wrong.

In fact, here is the complete list of players who hit ten or more homers and failed to drive in 1.7 runs for every homer they hit:

• Wayne Gross (1985) - 11 HR, 18 RBI (1.64 RBI/HR)
• Russell Branyan (2008) - 12 HR, 20 RBI (1.67 RBI/HR)

That's it.  I'm sure Curtis Granderson is pleased to be in their company.

So let's look at one last thing before you start the process of buying Granderson a one-way plane ticket out of town.  Let's review all the names we've mentioned above.  I'm talking about Chris Duncan, Matt Reynolds, Ruben Rivera, Ken Phelps, Fred Lynn, Marcus Thames, Luis Valbuena, Ron Gant, Joc Pederson, Mark Bellhorn, Kevin Maas, Wayne Gross and Russell Branyan, for those of you whose attention span is smaller than the difference between Granderson's home run and RBI totals.

Those 13 players averaged just 343 at-bats in their RBI-starved seasons, with Pederson (480 AB) being the only one to surpass 450 at-bats.  Therefore, it could be reasonably argued that because most of them didn't come up to the plate as often as an everyday player, they had fewer RBI opportunities.  Granderson already has 424 at-bats this season.  Barring injury or benching, he's on pace to rack up 563 at-bats.  And yet he's still not driving in runs.

It makes you wonder if that paltry .123 batting average with runners in scoring position (10-for-81) and that almost inconceivable .050 mark in two-out/RISP situations (2-for-40) has something to do with Granderson's low RBI total with all those home runs.  (Spoiler alert:  It does.)

When the Mets signed Curtis Granderson as a free agent prior to the 2014 campaign, they expected him to be a run-producer.  Instead, he became the team's leadoff hitter.  In 2015, Granderson produced 70 RBI, with 64 of those runs driven in from the leadoff spot.  This year, he's not even halfway to his 2015 RBI total even though the season is more than three-quarters complete.  And now, he's not even in the leadoff spot where he could use the excuse that No. 1 hitters aren't expected to drive in runs.

It's not unusual for a big-time free agent signing to make history.  It is unusual, however, for one to chase the kind of unwanted history Curtis Granderson is approaching - history he's about to make one well-spaced RBI at a time.

 

Sweet 16: Mets Set RBI Record You Didn't Know About

The New York Mets did something this year that they had never accomplished during their first 49 years of existence.  No, it wasn't a fourth place finish in the NL East (they're getting quite used to that spot in the division by now).  Let's peruse the team's final RBI totals for 2011 to see if you can figure out what I'm talking about.

Despite being traded in late July to the San Francisco Giants, Carlos Beltran led the Mets in RBIs with 66.  He was followed by David Wright (61), Jason Bay (57), Angel Pagan (56) and Justin Turner (51).  But let's take a look a few other Mets and their RBI totals.

Lucas Duda had a strong second half to finish with 50 RBIs.  Finishing one RBI behind Duda was Daniel Murphy (49), who missed the last seven weeks of the season with an injury.  After Murphy, we had National League batting champion Jose Reyes (44), Josh Thole (40), Ruben Tejada (36), Nick Evans (25), Ike Davis (25), Scott Hairston (24), Willie Harris (23), Jason Pridie (20) and Ronny Paulino (19).

That gave the Mets a total of 16 players with at least 19 RBIs in this just completed season.  (Dang you, Ronny Paulino for not getting an extra RBI to make this a list of the sweet sixteen players who reached the round number of 20 RBIs in a single season.)

So why is 16 players with 19 RBIs or more worth writing a blog about?  Because it's never happened before in Mets history.

In 2007, the Mets had 13 players with 19 or more RBI, led by Carlos Beltran (112) and David Wright (107) and rounded out by Ruben Gotay (24) and Luis Castillo (20).  The 2005 Mets also had 13 players reach that RBI figure, as did the 2004 team.  To find a Mets team with at least 14 players reaching that not-so-round RBI total (seriously, Ronny Paulino, it was just one stinkin' RBI.  Was that too much to ask for?) you have to go all the way back to 1972.

In the first season after the untimely passing of manager Gil Hodges, the Mets had a roster that included 14 players who drove in a minimum of 19 runs.  That 1972 team, which finished 83-73 in the NL East (six games were wiped out due to a players' strike), were led by Cleon Jones and his 52 RBIs, which represent the lowest RBI total for a team leader in that category in franchise history.  The other 13 players following Jones in the RBI department were Tommie Agee (47), John Milner (38), Rusty Staub (38), Duffy Dyer (36), Ed Kranepool (34), Ken Boswell (33), Jim Fregosi (32), Wayne Garrett (29), Bud Harrelson (24), Jerry Grote (21), Ted Martinez (19), Jim Beauchamp (19) and some guy named Willie Mays (19).

Prior to the 2011 season, no Mets team had ever had at least 15 players with at least 19 RBI.  This year's team wasn't satisfied with having just 15 players reach that figure.  They went out and made it a sweet sixteen.  (Do you see the photo below, Mr. Paulino?  Wouldn't that have looked better with a "20" where the "19" is?)

It's very rare for a team to have that many players accumulate enough at-bats to drive in as many as 19 runs in a season.  After all, most teams carry 11 or 12 pitchers at any one time, leaving 13 or 14 spots on the roster available for the starting eight and the bench players.  Many bench players only drive in 10 or 12 runs because they only pick up 100-200 at-bats per season, mostly through pinch-hitting appearances and spot starts whenever a regular player needs a day off.  That wasn't the case for the 2011 Mets.

Because of injuries that kept a number of regular players out of the lineup for months at a time (see Davis, Ike and Wright, David) and one particular trade (Carlos Beltran), the Mets had a number of their players accumulate more at-bats than expected.  Ten players had 300+ at-bats and three others had over 200.  The more at-bats a player gets, the more likely he is to drive in a few extra runs.  That was certainly the case for the 2011 Mets.

However, the Mets didn't set this team RBI record just because they had so many players getting an inordinate number of at-bats.  Players such as Nick Evans (25 RBI in 176 at-bats) and Scott Hairston (24 RBI in 132 at-bats) were both excellent with men on base, with Evans hitting .308 in those situations and Hairston clubbing nearly half of his extra-base hits with runners on (7 XBH of 16 came with men on base).  Putting Hairston's performance into perspective, Ike Davis (who was on his way to a fabulous sophomore season before his day-to-day injury kept him out for the remainder of the season) had four more plate appearances (149) than Hairston did (145), but only had one more RBI than the utility player.

The 2011 Mets might have had an unusually high number of players getting more at-bats than expected, but those players who would have normally spent the majority of the season on the bench or in the minors came through when given the opportunity.  This record is not a fluke or a statistical aberration.  It is a testament to the team put on the field by Terry Collins.  The Mets' manager might not have had the best players to work with, but he did have players who contributed when called upon to do so.  A team like that deserves to have a record such as this one, don't you think?