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Please explain .... Richie Sexson 2007 BABIP = .217 -- (career .293)
Please explain ... Junior 2008/2009 BABIP = .220 -- (career .287)
Please explain ... CAREER BABIP - LD results for these players:
Mark McLemore - .295 -- 24.9 = 46
Dan Wilson .309 -- 24.1 = 68
David Bell .274 -- 23.2 = 42
Btw, I got these guys by sorting by highest career LD% since 1960.
These are not results of small sample from a single year. These three guys amassed those final tallies over a career worth of data. And while there are many guys who maintained a 100 skew and many who maintained skews well above 100 ... my point is that while the reality for the mass numbers is absolutely true - on an individual level, the link between LD% and BABIP is just not that tight or predictable.
For a decade, Ichiro maintained a +150 skew of BABIP over LD%. In 2011 Ichiro had (for him) a completely normal LD% 19.1% and a completely (for him) abnormal BABIP, .295. His BABIP was more than 50 points below norm and his skew was also way out his personal boundaries. He decoupled with his own previously establsied norms.
Based on previous BABIP crashes for aging players ... the odds are not in Ichiro's favor. Could he have successfully remade himself into a completely new hitter? It's possible. What would HIS previous LD/BABIP numbers tell us. Nothing really.
The basic argument on Ichiro is that for the last decade he was a completely abnormal hitter ... but this year, he has turned himself into a 'normal' hitter ... who will run a 100 skew and hit a lot more LDs My counter argument is that if he is indeed becoming a "normal" hitter. He is becoming a normal 38 year old hitter.
Normally, 38 year old hitters are not very good.