Troy Glaus hit his first (and to date, only) home run Sunday afternoon, to much fanfare (proof that Cardinal fans still love to make newcomers feel welcome: Glaus received a curtain call for the feat). The storyline is that Glaus may not be hitting home runs, but he’s at least driving runners in. MLB.com’s Matthew Leach noted Monday that Glaus was "on pace for 100 RBIs," and, after Tuesday night’s game, he’s on pace for around 122 RBIs (not bad for a guy who was hitting .242 just 10 days ago). But there’s a lot of noise in that number. After all, anyone batting fourth or fifth in the Cardinal lineup is going to drive in some runs, even if he’s flying out to right field half the time (as Glaus seems to neverendingly do); Tuesday night, Glaus had a total of four runners on base during his at-bats and leads the team with an incredible 107 runners on base during his plate appearances so far this season. How many runs is he actually creating, without respect to the others in the lineup?

As of Tuesday morning, Glaus had created 15 runs (basic formula) and hit one home run; at that rate, Glaus would end up the campaign with 86 runs created and six home runs. And that got us to thinking about Cardinal batters who’ve knocked in a lot of runs despite hitting fewer than 10 home runs. The modern-day Cardinal poster child for the "accomplishment" is Tommy Herr, who many fans know racked up 110 RBIs on a mere eight circuit clouts back in 1985 (having guys like Vince Coleman, who stole 110 bases, and Willie McGee, who stole 56, ahead of you helps). Herr, like Glaus, had ample opportunities, not reflected in a context-dependent counting stat like RBIs: He led the 1985 squad in runners on base with 450.

So let’s use Runs Created and see where Herr — and a projected Glaus — rank all-time among Cardinal batters with fewer than 10 home runs (min. 90 RCs):

Herr is the only one of the bunch who had more than 100 RBIs, yet he’s well down on the list with "only" 95 RCs. Interestingly, the 1982 champions had two players on the list, Skates and The Greatest-Fielding First Baseman of All-Time, Keith Hernandez. (Speaking of teams, in 1903, the entire team had only eight home runs and created 430 runs.) As for Glaus, his would-be 86 Runs Created, while impressive, won’t make it into the best, er, 28 seasons of no-pop run creators. That’s not to say that he won’t have given the Cardinals a return on their investment: 86 RCs would be an improvement from last year (he had 70) and more than Scott Rolen provided in 2007, as well (51). It’s just that his RBI total may not be telling the whole story, or simply telling the story that he has been in the right place at the right time. After all, with those 107 runners on base during his at-bats, he’s also on pace to break Willie McGee’s team-record of 544, set in 1993 (since at least 1959). For the record, McGee had 105 RBI that year — and 77 Runs Created.

This entry was posted by Pip on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 11:49 pm and is filed under by the numbers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.