BABIP
Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2011 7:01 am
I see the articles.
Austin Jackson was lucky last year.
Aaron Hill wasn't.
Some writers have discovered BABIP, and are using it like a new toy.
BABIP does not tell us how hard each ball was hit. It doesn't show us if the ball carried five feet or four hundred feet. It doesn't even show us line drive percentages. No, merely fair balls.
Simply predicting good fortune for Hill or any other hitter based on a bad BABIP last year is folly. Statistics like this do not reverse to the mean. And, if they did, why does it have to be the following year? Couldn't it happen again with both hitters? It sure can. It's a little bit like flipping a coin and using the past to predict the next heads or tails.
I owned Hill last year. In watching him a lot, I saw that his swing had gotten longer and that all (or few) stats accumulated by him last year were earned.
He wasn't unlucky, he just sucked.
His line drive percentage of 11% tells me more than his BABIP.
His swing got longer, maybe trying to emulate Bautista and the home run craze in Toronto, but it wasn't good for him. The flaw in the swing would also explain his horrendous .125 average vs. lefties. That, is more than just bad juju.
If he corrects that flaw, these BABIP enthusiasts will pat themselves on the back and say, "Yes, I told you so..." Silly, really.
Austin Jackson is trumpeted as being lucky by this same group. His BABIP was .390. High? Sure.
The players that finished second, third, and fourth in BABIP?
Josh Hamilton, Carlos Gonzalez, and Joey Votto. Nobody thinks of them as lucky.
Austin Jackson only saw six curveballs out of every 100 pitches thrown to him last year. 61.8 per cent of the pitches he saw were fastballs. Most rookies see a lot more off speed pitches than Jackson saw last year. But, Jackson could not hurt pitchers with his lack of power, so he saw more fastballs than most rookies would normally see over a first season.
I would give these facts more credence to Jackson's average than 'luck'.
When exploring players numbers, one stat can mislead.
If done well, one stat, should lead to another stat, which leads to yet, another stat.
Somebody said, 'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing'.
For those drafting with a lot of money on the line, the little knowledge shown in BABIP articles, may be a dangerous thing for your drafts.
Look for articles that back up BABIP findings. If they don't back it up with other numbers or visuals, write it off as being BABIP-
B.s. Assumptions By (somebody) In Print.
[ February 22, 2011, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: DOUGHBOYS ]
Austin Jackson was lucky last year.
Aaron Hill wasn't.
Some writers have discovered BABIP, and are using it like a new toy.
BABIP does not tell us how hard each ball was hit. It doesn't show us if the ball carried five feet or four hundred feet. It doesn't even show us line drive percentages. No, merely fair balls.
Simply predicting good fortune for Hill or any other hitter based on a bad BABIP last year is folly. Statistics like this do not reverse to the mean. And, if they did, why does it have to be the following year? Couldn't it happen again with both hitters? It sure can. It's a little bit like flipping a coin and using the past to predict the next heads or tails.
I owned Hill last year. In watching him a lot, I saw that his swing had gotten longer and that all (or few) stats accumulated by him last year were earned.
He wasn't unlucky, he just sucked.
His line drive percentage of 11% tells me more than his BABIP.
His swing got longer, maybe trying to emulate Bautista and the home run craze in Toronto, but it wasn't good for him. The flaw in the swing would also explain his horrendous .125 average vs. lefties. That, is more than just bad juju.
If he corrects that flaw, these BABIP enthusiasts will pat themselves on the back and say, "Yes, I told you so..." Silly, really.
Austin Jackson is trumpeted as being lucky by this same group. His BABIP was .390. High? Sure.
The players that finished second, third, and fourth in BABIP?
Josh Hamilton, Carlos Gonzalez, and Joey Votto. Nobody thinks of them as lucky.
Austin Jackson only saw six curveballs out of every 100 pitches thrown to him last year. 61.8 per cent of the pitches he saw were fastballs. Most rookies see a lot more off speed pitches than Jackson saw last year. But, Jackson could not hurt pitchers with his lack of power, so he saw more fastballs than most rookies would normally see over a first season.
I would give these facts more credence to Jackson's average than 'luck'.
When exploring players numbers, one stat can mislead.
If done well, one stat, should lead to another stat, which leads to yet, another stat.
Somebody said, 'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing'.
For those drafting with a lot of money on the line, the little knowledge shown in BABIP articles, may be a dangerous thing for your drafts.
Look for articles that back up BABIP findings. If they don't back it up with other numbers or visuals, write it off as being BABIP-
B.s. Assumptions By (somebody) In Print.
[ February 22, 2011, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: DOUGHBOYS ]
