To reach a player’s RCP%, runs batted in and runs scored are added together. Next, home runs are subtracted from that total. This figure exists as “run production”. But take the figure and divide it into the total team runs and the answer provides the percentage of team offense in which the player is directly involved.
- 2022, 07-27: RCP Discussed at length by Gero (Youtube)
BY GERO VON DEHN
2000
These days in baseball, the home run is king of the highlight reel and the bunt is about as common as the high strike call. The long ball can indeed be a sight to behold and while the guys who can hit a baseball 450 feet are important, they are not always essential to wins and losses.
Some teams in major league baseball have the ability to power through their opponents by going “all or nothing” every at-bat. But those teams generally are not the ones who you’ll find playing in October. The 2000 world champion New York Yankees were just fifth in the AL with 205 home runs. Houston hit the most in the majors with 249 and wound up 23 games out of first place.
Yet, regardless of their style every team from top to bottom has that player that always seems involved in the team’s offense. He’s the one who appears to start every 9th inning rally, crosses the plate for the go-ahead run, or simply scores that first run of the game. A few years ago I began to take special notice of the individuals who stood out as doing all of the aforementioned and realized that we can in fact dissect and conclude which player is most often directly involved in the team’s offensive production. By “directly involved”, I mean either crossing the plate or knocking in a run. I devised a formula to determine which person this is on each team. The result of this statistic is Run Contribution Percentage (RCP%).
To reach a player’s RCP%, runs batted in and runs scored are added together. Next, home runs are subtracted from that total. This figure exists as “run production”. But take the figure and divide it into the total team runs and the answer provides the percentage of team offense in which the player is directly involved.
The reasoning behind subtracting home runs from the total is because this is a percentage statistic. Home runs count the same as an RBI single. For instance, if the Pirates win 1-0 on a home run by John Vander Wal, John was involved in 100% of the team offense but certainly not 200%. You can only receive credit for the amount of team runs, which in this case was one, not two. Had Vander Wal hit a grand slam, his RCP% for the game would have been 1.000. The baserunners would each register at .250 which means that John was involved in 100% of the scoring and the baserunners were each involved in 25% of the scoring. This means that the total RCP% may exceed 1.000 because numerous players can be involved in one run.
Although RCP% may not always identify the best or worst player on the team, it may reveal the most productive. A player with a high slugging percentage frequently puts himself in scoring position with extra base hits. Naturally, RCP% will reflect the efforts of a fast or smart baserunner who can dig his way to second or third base through the course of the year. Timely hitting, such as with runners in scoring position, is a good way to raise a player’s numbers as well.
RCP%, like other individual statistics, will be partially affected by the lineup card. Similarly, a platoon player should have a much lower percentage than everyday players and someone who spends time on the disabled list will see his percentage drop as well. Other statistics such as runs scored and RBI’s will also decrease when a player misses action. Therefore, healthy players and those who work hard on conditioning will be rewarded.
When keeping track of RCP% a team also has an idea what they will miss when a player is injured. The Montreal Expos know they are in big trouble when Vladimir Guerrero is hurt because with his ’00 RCP% at .244, he was by far the most important offensive contributor on the team (2nd was Peter Bergeron at .144).
Every year there is great debate over choices for League MVP and the ’98 season brought a good one to the table as Mark McGwire and the Cubs’ Sammy Sosa slugged their way to new home run records. McGwire was 37 percentage points in front of the next closest Cardinal with an RCP% of .256. Sammy Sosa played on a playoff team where offense was spread out and still had an RCP% of .270. Which one was more important to their team, you ask? Perhaps we have found a major factor to consider when searching for the MVP.
A player that is traded in mid-season will have his numbers pick up with the new team. During the 2000 season Wil Cordero played in 89 games in a Pirate uniform before being traded to Cleveland on July 28th. To obtain the RCP% for Cordero we look at the runs scored by the teams he was with only during his tenure with each of those squads. After Wilfredo left Pittsburgh armed with a batting average of .282, 16 home runs, and a percentage of .168, his performance dipped in Cleveland where he didn’t hit any homers, dropped his batting average to .264 and was involved in just 35 of 403 Indians runs and a dismal RCP% of .087. By combining the numbers of each team during his stay we find Cordero’s final adjusted RCP% for the 2000 season to be .131. Keeping track of RCP% in the postseason can also be fun and insightful. This past season’s Yankees spread out the offense in the playoffs and were led by shortstop Derek Jeter whose 13 runs, 9 RBI, and 4 bombs yielded and RCP% of .261. But forget the Yankees, let’s check out our Pirate past.
Back in 1960 there was no NLCS so the playoffs consisted of one series. That solo shot to win the Series wasn’t the only offense Bill Mazeroski contributed to the Pirates’ cause. He hit another blast earlier in the Series, scored 4 runs, knocked in 5, to go along with a batting average of .320 and a team leading RCP% of .259. Roberto Clemente led the Bucs in the regular season with a percentage of .228 and paced all Pirates in the Series with 9 hits but was only batted in once.
In ’79 the “Cobra” Dave Parker batted .310 and led the Pirates with an RCP% of .230 but Stargell came up huge in the playoffs scoring 9 runs, batting in 13, with 5 home runs and an incredible percentage of .362. There wasn’t a great deal of thinking involved in awarding the Series MVP that year.
The dead ball era in the early 1900’s saw very little offense but still produced some of the best hitters the game has ever seen.
In 1917, Ty Cobb carried his team with an RCP% of .318. He had many such seasons in Detroit but none better than in 1909 when he lead the Tigers to the World Series with a .377 batting average and an RCP% of .321 on a team that could only muster up 666 total runs. The World Series produced different results though as the Georgia Peach was outmatched by the sensational Flying Dutchman, also known as Honus Wagner, the gritty shortstop of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Wagner outhit Cobb .333 to .231 and stole six bases compared to Cobb’s two in the seven game series won by the Pirates.
However, the most sensational one-man-show that I could find was on the Pirates of 1908. Honus Wagner hit .354 and had 48 more RBIs than the next closest Pirate. The 1908 Bucs finished one game out of first and scored just 585 runs while Wagner’s RCP% was an astounding .340.
Perhaps we’ll never see someone carry a team the way that Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb did, but we’ll always see true team leaders and highly productive offensive baseball players. Maybe when the discussions about MVP’s next season, we’ll be better prepared with the ammunition of Run Contribution Percentage. Keep track of your favorite players and see where they stand amongst the league’s elite. Perhaps Major League Baseball will take notice as well.
Gero von Dehn