Have the Cubs improved?

[strawbossisevil]

And why is his BA lower FTJ? He has a lower BA, because his BABIP is lower, no? Is that not the cause as to why his BA would be lower? Do you have any other reasoning as to why it would be lower? The projections don't have his K rates going up signficantly, so that's not it. You haven't explained at all how you got to that .725 OPS, other than just taking a projection system as gospel without looking at how they got to their numbers. I've pointed out why that .725 might be flawed.

 

I guess I don't know what else I can say. I feel like despite all my efforts at clarity, I'm not being clear enough to break it down in a way you can understand what I'm saying.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Ryan Theriot is not Tony Gwynn. Prior to last year, he had 42 doubles in 684 career at bats. I think it's at least reasonable to assume that a guy who had 35 XBH's in '07 and 17 XBH's in 134 AB's in '06 would bounce back from an ISO power number of .052 in '08.

 

Even if his Babip number regresses, I would also expect his ISO power to swing back towards his career numbers as well, which would be an improvement.

[strawbossisevil]

Yeah, but when you look at '07 where he had all of those XBH, the fact that he had a more average BABIP had such an effect that his SLG% was actually lower in '07 than it was in '08 despite the higher ISO. So in other words, if he goes back to being average in BABIP, in order for him to match last year's numbers he would have to have a better ISO than he did in '07. It could happen, but is it likely? Probably not.

[Fatter than Joey]

And why is his BA lower FTJ? He has a lower BA, because his BABIP is lower, no?

 

absolutely not.

 

A player gets 30 hits in 100 ABs -- 0 HRs, 0Ks, 0 SFs -- At this point BA = .300, BABIP = .300

 

The next 100 ABS -- The player gets 30 hits with 3 HRS, 0Ks, 0SFs -- BA = .300, BABIP = .278

 

BABIP drops, BA doesn't -- BABIP and BA are not related as you claim.

 

I guess I don't know what else I can say. I feel like despite all my efforts at clarity, I'm not being clear enough to break it down in a way you can understand what I'm saying.

 

I understand what you are saying -- I think you are wrong.

[Fatter than Joey]

You haven't explained at all how you got to that .725 OPS, other than just taking a projection system as gospel without looking at how they got to their numbers

 

I think those people are smarter than you and I, and have put a lot more effort into their projections.

 

the fact that he had a more average BABIP

 

Again, you cannot compare Theriot's BABIP to a "league average".

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

The next 100 ABS -- The player gets 30 hits with 3 HRS, 0Ks, 0SFs -- BA = .300, BABIP = .278

 

BABIP drops, BA doesn't -- BABIP and BA are not related as you claim.

So a home run isn't consdered a "ball in play"? Interesting. That does make sense, but I never considered that. So if a player had 10 hits in 100 AB's and 0 K's, 0 SF's, and 10 HR's, his BABIP would be .000? Is that true?

[trwi7]

So a home run isn't consdered a "ball in play"? Interesting.

No defender can get the ball, so no.

[strawbossisevil]

Problem with that assertion FTJ, is you are then saying that Theriot is going to hit a lot more HR. He may have one or two more than he hit last year, but he has Juan Pierre power.

[TheRealMattKain]

And why is his BA lower FTJ? He has a lower BA, because his BABIP is lower, no?

 

absolutely not.

But you still haven't answered the question. If BABIP is unrelated to BA, then please explain (in your opinion) what the predominant factor is that is causing a drop in Theriot's BA in the projection systems.

 

Fatter than Joey wrote:

---

BABIP drops, BA doesn't -- BABIP and BA are not related as you claim

BA and BABIP are absolutely related. True, as you showed in your example, they are not the same thing. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but based on your example, your argument is akin to saying OBP is not related to OPS because I can take a player's OBP, adjust it, and with an additonal adjustment in the player's SLG, still obtain the same OPS.

 

Player 1: OBP = .300, SLG = .400, OPS = .700

Player 2: OBP = .250, SLG = .450, OPS = .700

 

OBP changed and OPS did not. Therefore OBP is not related to OPS. Makes no sense, right? So please explain how your example justifies the claim that BA and BABIP are not related?

[TheRealMattKain]

Problem with that assertion FTJ, is you are then saying that Theriot is going to hit a lot more HR. He may have one or two more than he hit last year, but he has Juan Pierre power.

Indeed. Theriot has never hit more than 3 homeruns in a season in any of his 8 professional seasons at the major or minor league level. I think it's safe to say that a jump in Theriot's HR totals is unlikely.

[Fatter than Joey]

Problem with that assertion FTJ, is you are then saying that Theriot is going to hit a lot more HR.

I used a generic player to show that a drop in BABIP does not automatically mean a drop in BA. That's all.

 

If BABIP is unrelated to BA, then please explain (in your opinion) what the predominant factor is that is causing a drop in Theriot's BA in the projection systems.

 

I never said they are unrelated -- I showed that a drop in BABip does not necessarily correspond with a drop in BA, this is what Straw contended. Obviously they use a lot of the same data.

 

BA and BABIP are absolutely related.

 

Right -- I said "they are not related as you (Straw) claim" -- not that they aren't related at all -- only not in the same manner Straw is claiming.

 

Indeed. Theriot has never hit more than 3 homeruns in a season in any of his 8 professional seasons at the major or minor league level. I think it's safe to say that a jump in Theriot's HR totals is unlikely.

 

I chose 3 HRs, but it was arbitrary -- I could have chosen 1 HR or 10 HR for my example and supported the same conclusion.

I think it's safe to say that a jump in Theriot's HR totals is unlikely.

 

Sure -- He is bound to hit more 2bs than he did in 2008 though.

[cwolf2012]

I'd like to make note that there is a very significant chance that Theriot's career BABIP should rest in the .320-.330 range.

 

http://www.hardballtimes....s/index.php?playerId=3811

 

His LD% is above 20% for his career, and that would correlate to above a .300 BABIP. I see .320 as absolutely sustainable for him. Now, if you want to debate the validity of that conclusion, I would welcome it. I'm not completely sold on the LD% + .12 = expected BABIP. I definitely think the reasoning behind that is valid (that the expected BABIP should be derived from LD%, GB%, and FB%), I'm just not sure how accurate LD% +.12 is.

[Ennder]

I'm not completely sold on the LD% + .12 = expected BABIP

 

I posted something in the statistics forum here that you might want to check out but they looked at a bunch of different methods of getting BABIP including just using the previous years BABIP and LD+12% came out as the worst method of all.

 

As a speedy guy who hits a lot of groundballs he could realistically sit around .320. He isn't going to live at .340 though.

[Fatter than Joey]

As a speedy guy who hits a lot of groundballs he could realistically sit around .320. He isn't going to live at .340 though.

 

Agreed.

[strawbossisevil]

http://www.hardballtimes....rticle/batters-and-babip/

 

Here is a link that points to Theriot as one of the luckiest when it came to BABIP. The stat BABIPx talked about in this article has shown to be very accurate in predicting a person's true talent in BABIP, when looking toward the future projections.

 

Theriots BABIPx? .291

 

Also telling, is that in the list of "lucky players" who surpassed their BABIPx by the most this past season, four of them are Cubs. Including Theriot, Bradley, Soto and Johnson. Hardball times expects all people on the list to have a significant regression in the next season.

 

For the record, the 4th "luckiest" person in all of the MLB was Theriot last season.

[TheRealMattKain]

http://www.hardballtimes....rticle/batters-and-babip/

 

Here is a link that points to Theriot as one of the luckiest when it came to BABIP. The stat BABIPx talked about in this article has shown to be very accurate in predicting a person's true talent in BABIP, when looking toward the future projections.

This FanGraphs article makes similar claims. Theriot's high BABIP resulted in inflated slash stats. His xBABIP indicates that his line should have been more in the vicinity of .266/.348/.309/.657. If not for terrific luck, his offensive line would have looked abysmal. They're predicting a huge dropoff for Theriot:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/.../index.php/the-lucky-riot

[cwolf2012]

To further elaborate on my LD% +.120 point, I decided to calculate my version of expected BABIP for him over the last 3 years. I threw out his 2005 season since it was only 14 PA.

 

Here's a quick chart I came up with:

 

Year	Balls in Play	GB%	Total GB	FB%	Total FB	LD%	Total LD	eBABIP
2006	119	0.495	59	0.239	28	0.266	32	0.386
2007	494	0.486	240	0.304	150	0.21	104	0.356
2008	525	0.566	297	0.202	106	0.232	122	0.373
Type of hit:	Expected BABIP (eBABIP-ht):
GB	0.28
FB	0.21
LD	0.74
Source:
http://www.hardballtimes....flyballs-and-line-drives/
Key:	Balls in Play (BIP):	PA - (K+BB+IBB+HR+HBP)
	Total GB/FB/LD:	BIP * GB%/FB%/LD%
	Expected BABIP (eBABIP):	[Total GB * eBABIP(GB) + Total FB * eBABIP(FB) + Total LD * eBABIP(LD)]/BIP

 

It's kind of messy, but to me it seems like Theriot is actually WAY under his expected BABIP so far. His extremely high LD% and GB% lead to a very high eBABIP. Feel free to take a look at my calculations and tell me what you think.

[strawbossisevil]

The other Hardball times article explains some of the flaws in looking at things in such a "quick and dirty" way, as it doesn't take into account a number of factors. As Ender pointed out, using that method to try to estimate BABIP almost always was the least realistic.

 

It seems like the BABIPx which includes a large number of different factors had the most consistent results in predicting someone's expected BABIP. That system points to Theriot as being one of the luckiest players in all of baseball.

 

Here is the link, one more time.

 

http://www.hardballtimes....rticle/batters-and-babip/

[TheRealMattKain]

It's kind of messy, but to me it seems like Theriot is actually WAY under his expected BABIP so far. His extremely high LD% and GB% lead to a very high eBABIP. Feel free to take a look at my calculations and tell me what you think.

But the numbers from THT that you used to compute Theriot's BABIP do NOT have homeruns factored out. The article basically says that the Average Batting Average of Batted Balls is .340 (this includes homeruns) whereas the Average Batting Average of Balls in Play (BABIP, which does not include homeruns) is .310. That is a huge difference, and these are very different stats. All of the numbers that you used to compute Theriot's expected BABIP were based on the first table (see the link) which has numbers with homeruns factored in. According to the table in the link, the number of flyballs that are turned into outs is listed at 79% and the number of line drives that are turned into outs is listed at 26%. Both of these numbers would go up if you took homeruns out, and, as a result, if you were to recompute your table based on these new numbers (with homeruns factored out), Theriot's true expected BABIP would go down.

[ILuvDaBush]

So when is Ryan Braun's BABIP going to go back to his '07 level, especially vs. lefties? He's done it already. He must be able to reproduce the line again! And while I knew that a HR wasn't a BIP, I never really thought about how that might drag down his BABIP vs. lefties from '07.

 

Nevertheless, let's look at their improvement vs. us.

 

Soto v. Kendall. I would say Soto should be about where he was last year. Our hero backstop may regress, as that is my expectation right now.

 

Lee v. Prince. I would say Lee should stay where he is, though he could outproduce what he did last year. I still have the image of him that the Marlins had some years ago, ie doubles power and a good average. Prince...I expect him to explode next year, or at least slightly improve on last year's numbers.

 

Miles v Weeks. Let me first say that "Rickie is going to put up MVP numbers this year!" That said, his average should at least creep back towards respectablity and with that, his OBP should climb. His power...something for the wishing well, but it is there to be tapped. Miles..."I don't think we're in St. Louis anymore." Considering what DeRosa brought to the keystone, big downgrade.

 

TheRiot v Hardy. Been beat to death on TheRiot. Hardy...probably regress, though 50HR from the SS position over two years, hard to continue to replicate, especially when playing premium defense.

 

ARam v. Mill Hamel. If ARam continues his patient ways, he could progress this year into a true MVP candidate. The one player who produces and still has upside. Mill Hamel...hopefully we see this guy around mid-May. Big time upside. Significant downside if he's replaced by Bike Hamb.

 

Soriano v. Braun. Soriano could definitely improve on last year's digits, but so can Braun. Neither has an affinity for the slow walk to first (unless, in Braun's case, he can continue his slow walk then to second). Braun's just entering his prime while Soriano spent his prime in Texas and the Bronx.

 

Fukudome v. Cameron. Let me first say, Fukudome in center is surely a downgrade offensively from what they had. An over .900OPS is not easily replicated. Also, Cameron won't be lost for the first 25 games, which can only improve his overall numbers, as well as the pitchers' considering his exemplary defense.

 

The Board Game v. Hart. The board game manufacturer put up the highest OPS in the AL last year...in Arlington. I would say Braun has a better chance replicating '07 than Milton Bradley has of breaking the 1.000 barrier. Hart, on the other hand, was an All-Star before a September that would make any baseball player cry (even Counsell). Is it wrong to expect progress on this front?

 

So I would say the better question is, have the Brewers improved simply with age and ascension (in the case of our Hot Corner Dweller)?

[cwolf2012]

"Both of these numbers would go up if you took homeruns out, and, as a result, if you were to recompute your table based on these new numbers (with homeruns factored out), Theriot's true expected BABIP would go down."

 

-------------------

 

Good call. I didn't look into that.