The NY Post notes that Pete Alonso is nearing the record for Game Winning RBI in a season. He currently owns 25, which set the Mets team record:

 But just three players have totaled more than his 25 game-winning RBIs in one season: Willie Mays (1962 with the Giants) and Joe Torre (1971 with the Cardinals) with 27 apiece and Jim Gentile (1961 with the Orioles) with 26.

NYPost.com

GWRBI was an official statistic from 1980-1988. It was an era obsessed with clutch hitting, and I suspect people thought that GWRBI would do a good job of recognizing players who didn’t drive in a lot of runs, but did drive in important runs. It turned out that the players with lots of RBI also had lots of GWRBI. When it became clear that GWRBI didn’t add to the conversation of clutchness, MLB dropped the statistic.

Keith Hernandez held the Mets record of 24, and talks about how he would have modified the stat:

“The 24 game-winning RBIs, that stat, I could have driven in a run in the first inning and it’s a 10-0 game and I get the game-winning RBI,” Hernandez said last month. “I always felt like it should only be from the seventh inning on, or if it’s a one-run game or tied and it’s a really meaningful hit.”

I disagree with Hernandez on the first inning home run. No one knows when the RBI will happen. It could be a 10-0 game, or it could be a 1-0 game. Either way, the player gave the team a lead they held, and that’s what was important.

My guess would be that no matter how you define it, players who drive in a lot of runs will tend to do well in the category.