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On Saturday night’s national FOX broadcast of the Nationals-Marlins game, announcer Cliff Floyd bemoaned what he called “the lost art of the two-out RBI.” Had you ever heard of that? Me neither. So I decided to check it out.

In an absolute sense, of course, he’s right. There were at least 8,000 two-out RBI in eleven of the twelve seasons from 1998 to 2009 but no more than 7,780 in the six years since. Of course, there are fewer one-out and no-out RBI as well, since there are fewer runs being scored. So I decided to look at two-out RBI as a percentage of total RBI from 1994 (Floyd’s rookie year) to the present:

Or, if you prefer, every year from 1996 to 2015 to exclude the strike-shortened 1994 and 1995 seasons and the incomplete 2016 season:

Other than the outlier 2014 season, I’d say the art form is pretty much intact.

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NatsGM
5/24
Color me surprised Cliff Floyd made a mistake.
BrewersTT
5/25
Even in 2014, the drop was only on the order of 1.5%. I'd be very surprised if anyone could detect that happening just by watching games.