Posted by MikeT23 on 2/7/2014 2:42:00 PM (view original):
Baseball wisdom says you don't put a player in scoring position intentionally. But that seems to be a different argument. I'm not arguing what the opponent should or shouldn't have done. In fact, you're telling me they would not have pitched around him(and I agree). Therefore, he was drawing a walk and not being issued one.
Anyway, the objective is to score a run. I assume we all agree it's just based on opportunity. Opportunity that you create and opportunity that a teammate takes advantage of. There may be a stat for this but I'm not aware of it.
Subtracting homers, because you knock yourself in, EM was on base 3310 times(simplistic 1938 H, 1283 BB, 89 HBP) and scored 910 times. .275 rate. Maybe that's good, maybe it's bad. I don't know. By comparison, Bernie Williams(chosen because we've argued the value between these two before and because he hit 3rd/4th most of his career) was on base 3157 times(2049 H, 1069 BB, 39 HBP) and scored 1079 runs. .342 rate.
Was EM helping his team the most possible by walking and counting on his teammates to get him around?
Rickey Henderson was .396.
Alfonso Soriano, who has probably batted in every slot, was .327.
Brett Gardner, who hit last for a long time, comes in at .420.
I imagine you'll have a hard time finding anyone who scored at a less frequent rate than Martinez did.