Joe jackson only drove in 121 runs in his entire career

craig44

now, to begin, ¨rbi¨ is not a very important metric tome. I found it interesting when reading a recent article about Albert Pujols becoming only the third player to pass 2000 rbi this season according to elias, the official record keeper of MLB that they only credit Ruth with 1995 rbi. Now, I grew up knowing ruth drove in over 2200 runs, so this statement was a bit of a mystery. apparently, RBI was not an official stat until 1920, so Elias does not account for RBI accrued before that year. So according to Elias, Shoeless Joe only drove in 121 runs. Poor old Adrian Anson never drove in any runs as far as Elias is concerned. The Babe is only credited with 1995, even though he hit 49 home runs before 1920.

Seems a bit silly to ignore these numbers when they happened and voluminous research has been done on box scores proving such. I realize that blocked shots are not counted until sometime in the 80ś for basketball, but I dont believe there would be any way to retroactively recreate those numbers as they were not counted on stat sheets before then.

Coinstartled

He had no Nike contract either.

stevek

You mistakenly looked at his last season total, not his career total.

Justacommeman

I liked him better then Elvis Costello

m

craig44

@stevek said:
You mistakenly looked at his last season total, not his career total.

No, Elias doesnt count any RBI before 1920. so according to them, the only runs he ever drove in were in 1920. Crazy. and Adrian Anson, the first to 3000 hits never drove in a run, according to Elias as his entire career was before 1920.

craig44

I always use baseball reference or fan graphs. so i never realized this about elias. silly to me

stevek

@craig44 said:

@stevek said:
You mistakenly looked at his last season total, not his career total.

No, Elias doesnt count any RBI before 1920. so according to them, the only runs he ever drove in were in 1920. Crazy. and Adrian Anson, the first to 3000 hits never drove in a run, according to Elias as his entire career was before 1920.

Seems quite silly to me. But then again, I thought computers were just a passing fad.

JoeBanzai

@craig44 said:
now, to begin, ¨rbi¨ is not a very important metric tome. I found it interesting when reading a recent article about Albert Pujols becoming only the third player to pass 2000 rbi this season according to elias, the official record keeper of MLB that they only credit Ruth with 1995 rbi. Now, I grew up knowing ruth drove in over 2200 runs, so this statement was a bit of a mystery. apparently, RBI was not an official stat until 1920, so Elias does not account for RBI accrued before that year. So according to Elias, Shoeless Joe only drove in 121 runs. Poor old Adrian Anson never drove in any runs as far as Elias is concerned. The Babe is only credited with 1995, even though he hit 49 home runs before 1920.

Seems a bit silly to ignore these numbers when they happened and voluminous research has been done on box scores proving such. I realize that blocked shots are not counted until sometime in the 80ś for basketball, but I dont believe there would be any way to retroactively recreate those numbers as they were not counted on stat sheets before then.

Elias is obviously a poor place to go for rbi stats.

WPA states; "This statistic is computed from play-by-play data which is only complete from 1974 to the present. From 1925-1973, the data is incomplete, though for most seasons only less than 20 games per season total are missing." WPA doesn't even go back to 1920.

By my rudimentary math skills this means the numbers from 1925-1973 are up to 13% "off". This makes comparing players much harder to do accurately with this number. WPA is most likely a good stat to use for players that played after 1973.

Perfect example of how stats are incorrect or at least inaccurate depending on where you look.

craig44

part of the RBI problem was for the first 11 years it was an official statistic they were recorded differently than post 1931. any RBI was included even those derived from errors and double plays.

but we now have researchers who have gone back into the original box scores and have reconstructed the statistic. the research has extended all the way back to 1876 and is then vetted by Pete Palmer to ensure accuracy.

I believe when your quote is mentioning less than 20 games per season are missing, they dont mean 20 games for each team, they mean 20 games total. under the 154 game schedule, 2469 games were played each season. if they lack evidence from less than 20 of those, it would be .008 of games have no statistical record. under the 162 game schedule, 3888 games were played each year. if less than 20 of those were covered we would be looking at .005 of dataless games.

statistically those numbers are inconsequential for player comparisons

JoeBanzai

@craig44 said:
part of the RBI problem was for the first 11 years it was an official statistic they were recorded differently than post 1931. any RBI was included even those derived from errors and double plays.

but we now have researchers who have gone back into the original box scores and have reconstructed the statistic. the research has extended all the way back to 1876 and is then vetted by Pete Palmer to ensure accuracy.

I believe when your quote is mentioning less than 20 games per season are missing, they dont mean 20 games for each team, they mean 20 games total. under the 154 game schedule, 2469 games were played each season. if they lack evidence from less than 20 of those, it would be .008 of games have no statistical record. under the 162 game schedule, 3888 games were played each year. if less than 20 of those were covered we would be looking at .005 of dataless games.

statistically those numbers are inconsequential for player comparisons

On the RBI subject Elias needs to get it together and get it right, or at least better.

I see your point on WPA. Well, it still makes me wonder how many games they missed. It says "most" seasons. How many of those 48 seasons and how many games each season?

I like to know if these "made up stats" are accurate enough to go by, so far I see a lot of claims, but a LOT of smoke is floating around.

OBVIOUSLY I enjoy a good spirited debate. Give me some numbers without some kind of caveat.

stevek

@Huckleberry said:
Doesnt matter to me how many runs he drove in. He's still shoeless Joe Jackson. I saw an revrun of the show Pawn Stars recently, and in the episode a guy brings in a copy of the book "Say it aint so Joe". The book is supposedly autographed by Joe Jackson himself. So Rick Harrison doesnt hesitate to buy it from the guy for $13,000, because Joe Jacksons autograph is one of the rarest and hardest to find. His autograph is rare because Joe Jackson was illiterate and coudnt write well. Anyway the auto graph turns out to be fake so Rick got burned for a 13 burger. Anyway Joe Jackson is one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. He is one of the ghosts of baseball past. Field of dreams.

That show sounds like scripted fiction to me, just for the cameras, and TV show entertainment for the viewers.

There's no way in reality that Harrison would have done that.

Seems like the First Edition was published in 1979, Jackson died in 1951. But perhaps there was some sort of previous edition of this book and this edition is revised? I didn't bother researching it too much because Harrison wouldn't have bought it anyway.

Pasted:

Say It Ain't So, Joe! The story of Shoeless Joe Jackson
Gropman, Donald Author SIGNED/INSCRIBED!

Published by Little, Brown & Co., Boston, MA (1979)
About this Item: Little, Brown & Co., Boston, MA, 1979. Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 14 B/W Photos (illustrator). First Edition. >>>

JoeBanzai

Harrison had an autograph expert he went to ALL THE TIME, he wouldn't have paid a dime for something like this unless his guy ok'd it.

Tabe

@JoeBanzai said:

WPA states; "This statistic is computed from play-by-play data which is only complete from 1974 to the present. From 1925-1973, the data is incomplete, though for most seasons only less than 20 games per season total are missing." WPA doesn't even go back to 1920.

By my rudimentary math skills this means the numbers from 1925-1973 are up to 13% "off". This makes comparing players much harder to do accurately with this number. WPA is most likely a good stat to use for players that played after 1973.

You math is way off

20 games total in a season, not 20 per team. Take 1926, for example. Ignoring extras, each team played 154 games. 16 teams. That's 1232 games total (16*154 = 2464 but that counts each game twice, so divide by 2 = 1232). 20 games out of 1232 = 1.6%.

JoeBanzai

@Tabe said:

@JoeBanzai said:

WPA states; "This statistic is computed from play-by-play data which is only complete from 1974 to the present. From 1925-1973, the data is incomplete, though for most seasons only less than 20 games per season total are missing." WPA doesn't even go back to 1920.

By my rudimentary math skills this means the numbers from 1925-1973 are up to 13% "off". This makes comparing players much harder to do accurately with this number. WPA is most likely a good stat to use for players that played after 1973.

You math is way off

20 games total in a season, not 20 per team. Take 1926, for example. Ignoring extras, each team played 154 games. 16 teams. That's 1232 games total (16*154 = 2464 but that counts each game twice, so divide by 2 = 1232). 20 games out of 1232 = 1.6%.

My math MAY very well be way off.........................their stats may be way off.

Your math is good, assuming all the (missing) numbers are spread out equally. This might not be so, and one player could suffer (or be rewarded) by missing information.

It also says MOST seasons. Not very clear here.

If you pay attention so some of our (pointless) debates, some of the players are REALLY close.