2005 Brewers BIP rates

[JeffSackmann]

I just compiled a table for 2005 Brewers position players (plus Koskie & Gross) that measures the percent of plate appearances that resulted in balls in play, as well as their hit rate on those balls in play, and compares those to their career numbers. Here's the link to the entry, where I go into a fair amount of detail as to how these numbers can be useful, what the league averages are, etc.

 

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www.BrewCrewBall.com

[JeffSackmann]

I just did a study to put some of the Brewers 2005 BIP stats in context. The idea is to figure out how well the "lucky" players (like Jenkins and Clark) will do next year ...I looked at some of the lucky guys in 2004 and how they did in 2005. The whole thing is here:

 

www.brewcrewball.com/stor...144938/068

 

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www.BrewCrewBall.com

[homer]

Interesting stuff, Jeff. This will come in handy while researching my late round fantasy 'nuggets'.

[endaround]

Actually I think your making a mistake by throwing Jenkins in with Clark. While Jenkins H/BIP was 21 points higher than his career average, his BIP was actually 20 points below his career average.

[JeffSackmann]

While his BIP% was 20% below average, that's mostly because of more walks and strikeouts per at-bat, so it shouldn't have much to do with the result of his batted balls. Aside from the fact that the numerator of BIP% is the same as the denominator of H/BIP, I doubt there's much correlation between the two.

 

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[reillymcshane]

Jeff, thanks for the info. Nice work.

 

I think the thing we have to be aware of is that players will fluctuate in stats - no way around it. The key is to use info like this and not be stuck with signing a FA or something for a guy who's bound to falter (or on the flip side, adding a player who is likely to rebound). I don't think anyone says to live and die by stats, but it's a useful tool.

[endaround]

The point is that as most player BIP% goes down, the H/BIP should go up. As you walk more and K more you'll have fewer softly hit balls. Jenkins season in 2005 was very clsoe to his 2003 season.

[JeffSackmann]

You may be right, but that doesn't make intuitive sense to me. If Jenks's batting eye really improved, then yes, he's watching balls go by that previously would've been nubbers off the end of the bat, grounders to pitcher, that sort of thing. But I don't think that's what happened.

 

One of these days I'll see if there's much of a correlation between BIP% and H/BIP and we can settle it better.

 

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[Ennder]

That BABIP is repeatable for Jenkins, its right around the same level he's been in his career outside of his injury shortened 2002 and his not full strength after injury 2004. Its still a tiny bit high but he is a 33/34 H% player when fully healthy. His eye was also worse last year than in 2003 which would be considered his 'prime year' so that is probably repeatable. His contact rate was the lowest its been in 4 years so that obviously is repeatable. His power stats are exactly the same as in 2003 so thats repeatable. His FB ratio was actually slightly lower than normal and his walk rate was lower than in 2003. His xBA was the same as in 2003.

 

When you look at his indicators he's right in line with 2003 last season and assuming he doesnt' regress strongly which he shouldn't at just age 31 he should be able to repeat last year. 2004 looks like the abberation here not 2005.

[JeffSackmann]

I hope you're right about Jenks.

 

On the other hand, the stuff I'm going to post tomorrow suggests that H/BIP can decline with age, especially with sluggers. Geoff may not be old enough for that to set in, but...you never know for sure whether a player is declining or just having an offyear until you've seen a few years.

 

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[endaround]

Keep in mind that Jenkins has been an utter monster in the past which is overshadowed by his injury history. In his first full season he had a 927 OPS followed the next season by a 933 OPS. After that his injuries have lead to a bunch of up and down seasons.

[JohnBriggs12]

To me this stat is meaningless. I just do not accept the notion that all players are somehow lucky when their Hits per BIP is high.

 

Bad hitters over the long haul will have fewer Hits per BIP than good hitters because they aren't as good. Period.

[Ennder]

except, history disproves that. Every single year the players who have extra high H% (BABIP) almost universally have thier average dip the next season. The notion that luck has nothing to do with baseball stats is absurd, all this is doing is trying to identify who got good luck and who got bad luck.

 

Same thing with ERA, the players with extremely low H% or higher strand rates almost universally see their ERA's inflate the next year, these stats weren't just created at random, they have been proven to have a real correlation to what happens in the game.

 

The majority of players in baseball hover around 29-31% hit rate, there are a few exceptions like extreme slap hitters and guys who hit in extreme hitter parks like colorado but if you compare them to their career rates you get a pretty strong idea of whether a dip/raise in average is for real or just lucky.

[JeffSackmann]

Well said, Ennder.

 

Here's the flip side of what I wrote about yesterday...today I look at those players whose BABIP is very low relative to their career averages, and see what that suggests for their future. Could work out nicely for Carlos Lee...

 

www.brewcrewball.com/stor...17913/6993

 

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www.BrewCrewBall.com

[rluzinski]

Jenkins led the National League with a 26.7% LD% in 2005. That was also good for 2nd in the entire majors. That certainly would suggest that Jenkins was being very selective, which could explain the increase in his BABIP.

[M Skjellyfetti]

Does anyone know if a player's BABIP stays fairly constant as they advance through the minors and into the big leagues? Or does it tend to change somewhat significantly when a player gets to the major league level? Also, if it does change, are there any methods that people have used to attempt to predict that BABIP change and use it toward projecting a player's major league usefulness? Just curious about those things.

 

Oh, yeah. What's an LD%?

[JeffSackmann]

Given that BABIP is somewhat dependent on what "type" of hitter you are (groundball/flyball, etc), I would imagine (and I think I've read) that it stays somewhat constant through the minor leagues, kind of like walk rate. It may go down, but I would be surprised if there wasn't a decently strong correlation.

 

Once I get all my minor league data and major league data into the same form, I'm going to take a look at that.

 

LD% is line drive percentage -- the percent of batted balls that are, obviously, line drives.

 

I haven't looked at how consistent players are at maintaining their gb%, fb%, or ld%, but I would imagine someone who has a particularly high BABIP and a particularly high LD% is not going to maintain those levels. I would love for Jenkins to maintain his 2005 levels and I certainly won't be at the ball park cheering for regression, but I just don't see Geoff repeating that performance.

 

Eventually I'll harness all the retrosheet data and see about the consistency of LD%, among other things.

 

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[rluzinski]

Given that BABIP is somewhat dependent on what "type" of hitter you are (groundball/flyball, etc), I would imagine (and I think I've read) that it stays somewhat constant through the minor leagues, kind of like walk rate. It may go down, but I would be surprised if there wasn't a decently strong correlation.

 

I think BABIP is subject to about as much variance as BA, which is to say, alot, relative to K and BB rates.

 

I haven't looked at how consistent players are at maintaining their gb%, fb%, or ld%, but I would imagine someone who has a particularly high BABIP and a particularly high LD% is not going to maintain those levels.

 

While it's tempting to always assume outlyers will regress, it's not always true. Let's use Jenkins as an example:

 [b]Year LD GB FB IFFB[/b] 2002 19.6% 46.2% 34.2% 6.3% 2003 25.4% 41.6% 33.0% 5.7% 2004 19.3% 43.3% 37.4% 5.7% 2005 27.4% 38.5% 34.1% 5.1% 

As has been pointed out, Jenkins' 2005 capaign was basically a repeat of 2004 for him. Is it simply a coincidence that he had good LD% in 2 of the last 3 years?

 

If you are really interested in these sorts of things, I suggest you purchase the Hardball Times Annual for 2006. They list year-to-year correlations of BIP types (FB,GB,LD,ect...) and go into this subject in great detail.

[JeffSackmann]

BABIP is subject to much more variance than AVG, because BB and K are fairly constant from year to year.

 

Looking at your chart of Jenkins BIP types, you can make an argument on either side of the case. In addition to declining, players tend to regress to their career average in just about everything. If Jenkins returns to his career average, he'll take a hit in both ld% and BABIP. If he returns halfway, it'll still make a noticeable dent. If he has the same sort of decrease he had from 03 to 04, it'll be worse.

 

I'm not (and never have been) saying that Jenkins is going to return to league average in all things. But he will take a step back. At this point in his career, his BABIP may well start slipping as he enters the beginning of a decline phase, as well.

 

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[rluzinski]

BABIP is subject to much more variance than AVG, because BB and K are fairly constant from year to year.

 

Since BB don't affect BABIP or AVG, what does it have to do with their variance?

 

Looking at your chart of Jenkins BIP types, you can make an argument on either side of the case. In addition to declining, players tend to regress to their career average in just about everything.

 

With Jenkin's injury riddled past, he's probably the worst player to use for this discussion http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif While Jenkin's will begin to slip as a result of age, I think 2003 and 2005 are representative of Jenkin's actual abilities.

[JeffSackmann]

Duh, you're right--BB has nothing to do with it. Amend the above with HR instead of K, and you've got my point. I just looked at some BABIP variances last night that I'll post one of these days ...the BABIP variance from yr to yr is huge, 1 standard deviation is .037 or something.