Collette Calls: Revisiting Steaks

Collette Calls: Revisiting Steaks

This article is part of our Collette Calls series.

I wasn't planning on revisiting this topic at this point of the year, but this particular pull from an interview with Pete Alonso after a game this weekend got my attention:

Sure, my playing career ended in my freshman year of college when I realized my barely 80 MPH fastball, weak hitting, and slow speed were better suited for the classroom than the field, so I put all my effort into graduating with my two degrees in Education and have spent my entire professional career in the field. A mindset which was instilled in me throughout my matriculation at the University of Central Florida was to maintain a thirst for knowledge. It is what got me into baseball analytics after I graduated, because I too worshipped the stats on the back of baseball cards well into the nineties. Joe Carter had to be one of the best hitters of the decade because he always drove in a ton of runners. In fact, he drove in at least 98 runs in all but one season between 1986 and 1997, and that one season was one impacted by the strike. Before the 1994 season shut down, Carter was already over 100 RBIs. One rather notable fact during that run is that Carter led the league

I wasn't planning on revisiting this topic at this point of the year, but this particular pull from an interview with Pete Alonso after a game this weekend got my attention:

Sure, my playing career ended in my freshman year of college when I realized my barely 80 MPH fastball, weak hitting, and slow speed were better suited for the classroom than the field, so I put all my effort into graduating with my two degrees in Education and have spent my entire professional career in the field. A mindset which was instilled in me throughout my matriculation at the University of Central Florida was to maintain a thirst for knowledge. It is what got me into baseball analytics after I graduated, because I too worshipped the stats on the back of baseball cards well into the nineties. Joe Carter had to be one of the best hitters of the decade because he always drove in a ton of runners. In fact, he drove in at least 98 runs in all but one season between 1986 and 1997, and that one season was one impacted by the strike. Before the 1994 season shut down, Carter was already over 100 RBIs. One rather notable fact during that run is that Carter led the league in RBIs just once, and that was at the start of that streak when he drove in 121 runners for a bad Cleveland team and garnered a 9th place finish in the MVP race.

In this column three months ago, I encouraged readers to familiarize yourself with this leaderboard at Baseball-Reference so you could see which teams and which hitters were doing well with the opportunities presented to them with men on base. It should come as no surprise that the Dodgers are the best team in baseball at plating their runners, as they've plated 15.8 percent of them this season, above the league average of 14.2 percent. What is surprising is the team who is in 5th place:

  • Los Angeles: 15.8%
  • Atlanta: 15.6%
  • St. Louis: 15.5%
  • Toronto: 15.1%
  • Cincinnati: 15.0%

Four of the five teams on this list are either in first or second place in their respective division, while Cincinnati finds themselves in a battle with Pittsburgh to stay out of last place. Counterpoint one to Mr. Alonso: baseball is as much a run prevention game as it a run-scoring competition. Scoring a bunch of runs does not necessarily guarantee you success. 

The Dodgers, while leading all of baseball in scoring runners, are in fact not leading the league in overall baserunners. That honor belongs to the Metropolitans, who are the only team in the league who have had more than 3,000 baserunners this season:

  • New York: 3,050
  • San Diego: 2,994
  • Los Angeles: 2,972
  • Colorado: 2,925
  • Boston: 2,890

Once again, we find a mixed bag of results here. Seeing Colorado on this list is not surprising given their home park, but what might have been in Boston this year if their offense remained healthy and they had any amount of pitching? They have produced plenty of baserunners but are tied for 8th in baserunners scored (BRS%) with...the New York Mets?

As play begins August 22nd, the Mets find themselves four games up on Atlanta in the NL East, but look at the difference in these two teams when it comes to a run-scoring competition:

TEAM

PA

RUNS

BASERUNNERS

BASERUNNERS SCORED

BRS%

NYM

4694

590

3050

452

14.8%

ATL

4627

600

2577

401

15.6%

Atlanta has squeezed out 10 more runs than New York in nearly identical amounts of plate appearances despite nearly 500 fewer baserunners. This is why many Atlanta fans feel this race is far from over, while New York fans (at least the ones I know) are beginning to get a little nervous.

Getting to the player level, we see that Alonso is currently tied with Aaron Judge for the MLB lead in RBI at 102 as one of only three players to reach the 100 RBI plateau so far this season. Given the adjustments to the baseball as far as production and handling, it's an impressive feat to already be this high before September begins:

However, if we take those same names and look at them under the lens of volume and conversion, we see a different story:

PLAYER

PA

BASERUNNERS

BASERUNNERS SCORED

BRS%

Alonso

523

382

72

18.9%

Judge

521

327

59

17.1%

Goldschmidt

497

299

70

23.4%

Ramirez

501

324

78

24.1%

Lindor

537

358

66

18.4%

Olson

540

329

59

17.9%

Turner

530

339

69

20.4%

Tucker

461

291

60

20.6%

Arenado

476

323

58

18.0%

Cron

494

348

58

16.7%

Alonso has been blessed with the highest number of runners on base this season, and his teammate Francisco Lindor is third on that same list. Josh Bell, with all the Juan Soto walks in front of him, prevents the Mets' duo from being first and second on this list. If we look at all hitters with at least 300 plate appearances this season, we find Alonso 22nd in the league in plating baserunners:

PLAYERAgePATmBRBRSBRS%
Jose Ramirez29501CLE3247824.1%
Paul Goldschmidt34497STL2997023.4%
Michael Harris21287ATL1473121.1%
Kyle Farmer31408CIN2395020.9%
Kyle Tucker25461HOU2916020.6%
Trea Turner29530LAD3396920.4%
Tyler Naquin31253CIN/NYM1523120.4%
Brandon Drury29457CIN/SDP2465020.3%
Luis Robert24358CHW2304620.0%
Andrew Vaughn24410CHW2374719.8%
Josh Naylor25342CLE2204319.6%
Rowdy Tellez27447MIL2514919.5%
Andres Gimenez23400CLE2414719.5%
Travis d'Arnaud33313ATL1693319.5%
Freddie Freeman32535LAD3246319.4%
Dansby Swanson28524ATL2795419.4%
Bryce Harper29275PHI1703319.4%
Justin Turner37402LAD2765319.2%
Charlie Blackmon35474COL2885519.1%
Ty France27457SEA2584919.0%
Garrett Cooper31368MIA1843519.0%
Pete Alonso27523NYM3827218.9%

We also see how the Reds were able to make the first list in this article, with three hitters in the top 10 in driving in baserunners, but only one of them still remains with the club, hence their current struggles with offense. It's also worth pointing out how Cleveland has has three hitters in the top 15 in this area despite being just a league-average team in runs per contest. They are the toughest team in the league to strike out and have used that skill to make the most of their limited opportunities as they've vaulted themselves to the top of the AL Central race. 

How is this all relevant to fantasy? Baseball is a run-scoring and a run-prevention contest. Fantasy baseball is a contest of mitigating risk, uncovering gems, and looking for underlying skills. Alonso has all the makings of a modern day Joe Carter with what he has accomplished in his career. That said, he is currently on top of the league in RBI production thanks in most part to a heavy volume of opportunities. To his credit, he's doing a better job in driving in a percentage of his runners than he has in any other season of his career, but he's also seeing runners on base more frequently than he ever has, and his overall numbers with runners on base this season are not much different than they were last season, with one notable exception:

SEASON

PA

K%

BA

OBP

SLG

2021

322

21%

.270

.342

.530

2022

276

14%

.266

.362

.555

Credit where credit is due: Alonso has greatly improved his contact with runners on base and has now done so for four consecutive seasons, as he's gone from 26.5 percent to 21.2 percent to 20.8 percent and now the current 13.8 percent in 2022. His overall contact rate has improved from 19.9 percent to 19.5 percent, but his improvement with runners on base has certainly been a factor in driving in runs as he's already doubled his sacrifice fly total from last season and has as many productive outs in 2022 as he had in 2020 and 2021 combined. 

As we look to forecast Alonso's future path as a run producer, we have to weigh the past even more than the present in figuring him out. He's currently driving in runners 25 percent more frequently than he had in his career prior to this season, and he currently isn't even in the top 20 for plating baserunners. If he were winning the BRS% competition this season as Ramirez is, Alonso would have 122 RBI right now!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason Collette
Jason has been helping fantasy owners since 1999, and here at Rotowire since 2011. You can hear Jason weekly on many of the Sirius/XM Fantasy channel offerings throughout the season as well as on the Sleeper and the Bust podcast every Sunday. A ten-time FSWA finalist, Jason won the FSWA's Fantasy Baseball Writer of the Year award in 2013 and the Baseball Series of the Year award in 2018 for Collette Calls,and was the 2023 AL LABR champion. Jason manages his social media presence at https://linktr.ee/jasoncollette
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