Here we are, a day later and (hopefully) a little wiser. I have more to say about yesterday’s post on those pesky first basemen. I can now tell you exactly how lucky or unlucky all of them have been so far this season.
BABIP, batting average on balls in play, is the metric used to determine the role of luck in a player’s offensive output. Here is the simple equation:
Where:
- H = Hits
- HR = Home Runs
- AB = At-bats
- K = Strikeouts
- SF = Sacrifice flies
This equation shows what happens after contact is made and a ball is put in play. League-wide, and this has been true for a long time, players hover around .300. A BABIP of .300 is the de facto gravitational center for all players.
Take a look at this:
This is how we want to read the data. Guerrero (.378), Rice (.378), and Kurtz (.364) have been extremely lucky so far this season. I do not think they can maintain BABIPs that strong much longer. They will certainly regress to the league mean of ~.300.
On the other hand, Naylor (.213) and Pasquantino (.169) have been very unlucky. Those line drives are being hit right at fielders, and the hard-hit ground balls are not finding any holes. Both men should see their offensive production increase as their BABIPs work their way toward .300.
What about our man, Kyle Manzardo? At .317, he has not been unlucky at all. Not only has he not been unlucky, but he has likely benefited from slightly favorable outcomes on balls he has put in play. This means that balls are finding gaps at a slightly elevated rate, defensive positioning or variance is working in his favor, and there is no immediate signal of suppressed results due to bad luck. Once again, I was a bit surprised by this.
Manzardo’s BABIP implies that there should be downward pressure on his offensive production. Remember the graph from the last post? This does not bode well for a player whose output has been last in the league at his position. I am curious to see how this plays out.
