Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Most RBI in Final Season

Whatever your feelings are regarding RBI as a tool for judging players, you have to appreciate players that are put in the position to knock in baserunners and deliver often. While it's true certain players put up gaudy RBI totals without getting on base, more often than not players with high RBI totals aren't terrible.

To keep with the theme of the two posts prior to yesterday's, here are the only fourteen players with 80 or more RBI in their last season:
  1. Dave Orr, 1890, 124
  2. Joe Jackson, 1920, 121
  3. Happy Felsch, 1920, 115
  4. Albert Belle, 2000, 103
  5. Kirby Puckett, 1995, 99
  6. Dave Kingman, 1986, 94
  7. Joe Wood, 1922, 92
  8. Bill Joyce, 1898, 91
  9. Ecky Stearns, 1889, 87
  10. Charlie Ferguson, 1887, 85
  11. Perry Werden, 1897, 83
  12. Ed Konetchy, 1921, 82
  13. Rebel Oakes, 1915, 82
  14. Jack O'Brien, 1890, 80
Eight of the players had their final season in the twentieth century, though two of those (Jackson and Felsch) were banned from baseball in their prime. Only 228 players in baseball history collected as many as 50 RBI in their final season.

Here are players age 35 or older to collect 50 RBI in 2007:
  • Raul Ibanez (35), 105
  • Chipper Jones (35), 102
  • Jim Thome (36), 96
  • Frank Thomas (39), 95
  • Sammy Sosa (38), 92
  • Jorge Posada (35), 90
  • Manny Ramirez (35), 88
  • Carlos Delgado (35), 87
  • Garret Anderson (35), 80
  • Gary Sheffield (38), 75
  • Ray Durham (35), 71
  • Luis Gonzalez (39), 69
  • Barry Bonds (42), 66
  • Matt Stairs (39), 64
  • Ivan Rodriguez (35), 63
  • Kevin Millar (35), 63
  • Melvin Mora (35), 58
  • Paul Lo Duca (35), 54
  • Jim Edmonds (37), 53
  • Gregg Zaun (36), 52
  • Omar Vizquel (40), 51
  • Brian Giles (36), 51
  • Mark Grudzielanek (37), 51
  • Tony Clark (35), 51
  • Craig Biggio (41), 50

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