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ghost's picture

Sorry Sandy, but you've constructed a straw man to bash, rather than actually confronting Doc's point or mine.
I am not treating all differences between xBABIP and actually BABIP as luck...I'm treating them with skepticism as any good scientist should. But more importantly, no one ever said exactly 100 was gospel...we said the distribution of deltas from that expectation is relatively small over 500 PA. Bad hitters might only get 75 or 65 points of BABIP over LD% and really good ones might have years where they get 125 points. But No one...especially no one who looks as good as Ichiro currently does at the plate (please...I'm begging you to actually watch Ichiro hit, Sandy)...is going to run a MINUS FRIGGIN FOUR. That's ZERO players who will do that. In his last years i.220 n the big leagues.
You examples of non-luck BABIPs...Jr. Griffey in his last years and Richie Sexson in his...
Sexson in 2007 ran a .217 BABIP with a 15% LD rate. That's +67...on the low end of expectation, but not out of whack entirely...we predicted his LD% was a tad anomalous and we predicted that he would get a higher BABIP - LD delta the enxt year. AND HE DID. He hit .262 for a BABIP on a 17% line drive rate...that +92. Logic 1 - Sandy ZERO
Jr. Griffey in his last two seasons as a Mariner ran these numbers:
.220 BABIP and 17% line drives (+50)
.220 BABIP (short sample) and 18% line drives (+40)
Of course...his LD% was trending down overall and if you actually watched him hit, many of his line drives were softly hit flares...Ichiro's KILLING the ball. But still...we'll give you a bit of credit here...Griffey demonstrated real negative skill in this regard late. IT STILL WASN'T MINUS FRIGGIN FOUR points type "skill".
On your current list: I would in fact argue that Granderson, Choo, etc are clearly unlucky on their line drives at the moment (if by luck we mean that their current deltas are not sustainable). It may have something to do with the April air making some line drives hang up...I'd be curious whether the delta is typically different in April than the rest of the year. But the underlying point remains: Ichiro is hitting the ball harder...hitting more line drives, his walk rate is down for now but so is his K rate and his OOZ SW% (he's putting it in play more often and harder because they're throwing him more strikes and he's refusing to swing at balls).
He doesn't have a ton of infield hits BECAUSE HE'S KILLING THE BALL...he gets infield hits when he's NOT killing the ball. :) hard to get an infield hit when the ball hits the outfield. But his speed score has not diminished much in the last few years...and is actually UP at the start of the 2012 season.
I am open to the argument that he needs off days and won't get them and that this could depress his final numbers. But the rest of your argument just seems off track to me. Sorry.

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