RBIs Matter Less In Baseball. But Should They Matter More To the Twins?

Over the last two years, the Minnesota Twins lineup has had many great moments from their offense. Still, runs batted in (RBI) have faded from importance on the individual player level, and subsequently, Minnesota’s players are driving in fewer runs.

No Twins player has had more than 66 RBI over the last two years. José Miranda led the team with 66 RBI as a rookie in 2022. Last year, Max Kepler was the team leader in RBI, also with 66. Fortunately, with 37 games remaining on the schedule, there’s still time for Minnesota’s top two leaders in RBI to do some damage and surpass a number that has stumped them lately.

Likely, three Twins would already be over this hump if they were healthy for the full season; Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa, and Royce Lewis. However, injuries have plagued them greatly this year, like in the majority of their careers, and Buxton is the closest to reaching this mark, sitting at 49 on the year.

Buxton has missed 35 of the Twins 125 games on the year, Correa 50, and Lewis 78. That means they have missed out on RBI opportunities that begin to pile up when Minnesota’s big three hitters have combined to miss 163 games on the year.

Ryan Jeffers leads the team with 57 RBI, just nine short of the total from the previous two seasons. While he’s only played 10 games in August, he’s begun to heat up to where he was at the beginning of the season. Jeffers has hit 8-for-32 (.250 batting average), with four home runs and seven RBI.

The Twins have less than 40 games left. However, if the Twins continue to give Jeffers more consistent playing time and continue his hot streak from earlier this month. That would mean he can easily get anywhere from 10 to 20 more RBI, clearing Minnesota’s 66-RBI threshold from the past two years.

Christian Vázquez has been one of Minnesota’s best hitters since July 7, posting a .318/.352/.546 triple slash over 22 games in that stretch. Jeffers has played more games than Vázquez since then, playing in 25 games with 21 starts. However, he has hit .205/.264/.410 during that stretch. If Jeffers can continue to turn things around as he has throughout August, then there’s a good chance he can get the Twins over this two-year RBI stump.

Jeffers isn’t the only Twin with a shot to get them over the 66 RBI hump before the season is over. Carlos Santana sits behind him in team RBI, with 55 on the season. Santana is also getting more consistent playing time, having only sat two of Minnesota’s 18 games in August.

Santana has recently drawn more attention for his glove work at first base, as he should. He leads all qualified MLB first basemen with 13 outs above average and a fielding run value of 10. However, his numbers at the plate in August have not been as great. He has a .200/.328/.460 triple slash in 61 plate appearances. However, he has the same power numbers as Jeffers for the month, with four homers and seven RBI.

Jeffers or Santana is an easy chance to get over the 66 RBI hump and be the first Twins player in three seasons to have over 70 runs batted in on the year. In 2021, Jorge Polanco was just two RBI short of 100, finishing the season with 98. Miguel Sanó was behind him for the team lead, with 75 RBI. Josh Donaldson also finished over 70 RBI, sitting just at 72 in his final season with Minnesota.

There are still three Twins just outside of having 50 RBI total who could make a push to get over that dreaded 66 RBI mark: Byron Buxton (49), Willi Castro (48), and Miranda (46). Buxton is the least likely to make it over the hump to 66 RBI, with his latest stint on the injury list beginning this last Thursday. Miranda and Castro have more opportunities to get over the hump.

The Twins hitters may not have had the best RBI totals for their performances or been in the top 10 in the American League. However, they have improved their collective RBI totals in the last two seasons. In 2023, they were 10th out of all teams in baseball, having 745 RBI on the year, which was up 77 total RBI from 2022. That year, they collectively had 668 and sat right in the middle of the league as the 15th most on the season.

For 2024, the Twins have the 10th-most RBI in the league, with 572. Their current opponent, the San Diego Padres, is only two spots above them, with 578 on the season. With their total number of RBI as a team, they’ll likely find themselves between their total numbers in 2022 and 2023.

Many people in baseball who favor analytics say RBI totals from an individual player don’t matter. However, if no one is driving in runs at the plate, how will the Twins score? They can’t steal home, score on wild pitches, or make errors most of the time, so hitters who can deliver in RBI opportunities maintain the value the stat has always had.

As these last 37 games play out for the Twins, so will the runs and who drives them in. Still, there’s some hope they will not have a player lead the team with only 66 RBI for the third year in a row.