A word (or 300) about BABIP

by Jim McLennan on May 20, 2008 6:03 PM EDT

Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) is a good way to measure how "lucky" a player has been. It shows what happened on those at-bats which didn't end in a walk, strike-out or home-run. A low average indicates that players have been tending to hit the ball at opposing players; a high one, that balls have tended to fall in. Batters do have a little more control over this than pitchers - line-drive hitters will likely have a higher BABIP - but anyone who is extremely out of line, in either direction, is likely to find this corrected going forward. If your BABIP improves so, generally, will your batting average; the reverse also holds true.

Before looking at specific batters, the baseline for NL hitters is .296. The range for teams is between .271 (Brewers) and .325 (Cubs); as with players, you can generally expect these to tend towards the norm, so Milwaukee will get better at the plate. Probably not soon enough to save Ned Yost's job though. Arizona comes in at .310, which is somewhat above average, but not disturbingly so. Part of this is likely due to Chase being a hitter-friendly park generally: the Cubs also benefit, Wrigley's park-factor being second only to ours so far this season.

Now, turning to the figures for Arizona's players, where the range for regulars runs from .231 to .400. The former belong to Eric Byrnes, so it seems that his slump is not *entirely* due to the EB Pop-o-Matic operating on full power over the past month. At the other end is Justin Upton: a .400 BABIP is simply not sustainable. While his skills are undeniable, he appears to be primed for a return to more reasonable levels.

Looking at the rest of the team, Snyder is higher than might be expected at .338, and a number of the bench players also have a BABIP which is a great deal above average. These include Augie Ojeda (.386), Miguel Montero (.406). and we should also toss Micah in there, since his BABIP is up at .450. On the other hand, Chris Burke's figure is only .228, so it's no great surprise he hasn't been performing as well as hoped. Past performance is no guarantee of future success, as they say on those financial adverts, but if I was a betting man, I'd look for a rebound from Byrnes and a drop-off from Upton in the second quarter of the season.

Tweet Comment 5 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

I couldn't find it, probably because I'm not a member,

but just out of curiosity, what’s Larry Jones’ BABIP?

Max Scherzer is all out of bubblegum.

by DbacksSkins on May 20, 2008 6:21 PM EDT reply actions

Larry?

Never heard him called that before. :-) Took me a moment to work out who you meant. You can find individual BABIP on the Splits page for the player at Baseball-Reference.com. Chipper is at an Upton-like .402; compare and contrast his “brother” Andruw Jones, who is at .230.

by Jim McLennan on May 20, 2008 6:45 PM EDT up reply actions

Besides LD%, keep close eye on IF/F Rate

Since almost every infield popup results in an out, if a player with a high IF/F rate has a low BABIP, you can’t assume it’s “unlucky”, even if he has a good LD Rate.

by shoewizard on May 20, 2008 10:42 PM EDT reply actions

How can you post this

Without looking at the underlying stats like LD/FB/GB%.

Some players are really fast and hit a lot of rockets. Some are just lucky for short (say a season) periods.

by madvillian on May 26, 2008 12:02 AM EDT reply actions

No doubt

Certainly, player speed and the kinds of contact they make will, obviously, play into it, in the same way their home park does. However, this was more an introduction to the topic for beginners than an all-encompassing encyclopedia on the topic. If you want to write in more detail on the subject, I’d certainly love to hear from you! That’s part of the reason why I was also focusing mostly on the outliers at both ends of the spectrum: it doesn’t matter how many line-drives Upton hits, he simply can not sustain a BABIP of .400.

by Jim McLennan on May 26, 2008 5:41 PM EDT up reply actions