Oswaldo Arcia and RBIs

I do understand that RBIs are, to a large extent, a team statistic. Mark Teixeira, for instance, always racks up tons of RBIs for the Yankees, even though he is not a fantastic hitter. He has the benefit of batting in a stacked lineup with tons of guys in scoring position, over the course of the year, when he comes to the plate. So yes, RBIs are a very imperfect statistic. That being said . . .

Twins fans should take note of this statistic (that I tweeted last night): Chris Colabello of the Rock Cats leads the entire Eastern League in RBIs with 87. He has driven in those runs in 416 at-bats. Oswaldo Arcia, owner of an impressive .330/.404/.551 AA slash line, has racked up 47 RBIs . . . and he's done it in 176 at-bats. In other words, he has just over half the RBIs of the league leader, and he as accumulated those RBIs in only 42 percent of the at-bats that Colabello has. Though RBIs are an imperfect measure of production, the fact that Arcia has been so good (.414 average) with runners in scoring position is noteworthy.

This afternoon, the Rock Cats go for a big series win over the Reading Phillies, hoping to expand their lead for the last playoff spot to 2.5 games. Hopefully, Arcia will continue to show Twins fans that he deserves a September call-up!