Yesterday, I listed a slew of hitters whose HR/FB rates sit far higher than we expected heading into the year. But there have been so many darn surprises, I felt the need to continue discussing names. These are the guys that I literally do a double take when I see their HR/FB rates and think “wait…WHAT?!?!”. Once again, I included their xHR/FB rate marks as well to help gauge how sustainable these surprise power sources are.
Let’s continue our perusal through the various leaderboards, returning back to power and HR/FB rate. We’ll go through the HR/FB leaders, include their xHR/FB rate marks (not adjusted for home park) and marvel of their awesomeness.
I despise the use of small sample sizes, but pitchers change so frequently that it’s not so silly after all to evaluate shifts in underlying skills over a relatively small number of starts. So as I do every once in a while, I peruse the SwStk% leaderboard over the last 30 days. Let’s discuss some of the interesting names on there, shall we?
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Last week, I discussed the two month BABIP underachievers, identifying names whose marks fell significantly below my xBABIP. Now let’s take a look at some of the hitters whose low BABIP marks are actually validated by xBABIP. These are the guys who at first glance, your knee-jerk reaction might be to expect a dramatic rebound, but the underlying skills that drive BABIP suggest there has been little bad fortune involved. That’s not to say that the hitters are going to maintain such weak skills, but that looking backward, the poor results have been legitimate.
Last week, I discussed the two month BABIP overachievers, identifying names whose marks significantly exceeded my xBABIP. Now let’s take a look at some of the hitters whose high BABIP marks are actually validated by xBABIP. These are the guys who at first glance, your knee-jerk reaction might be to expect heavy regression, but the underlying skills that drive BABIP suggest there has been little fortune involved. That’s not to say that the hitters are going to sustain such skills, but that looking backward, the results have been legitimate.
It’s time to inspire with another edition of the deep league waiver wire. Yay for rhymes.
Yesterday, I discussed a swath of hitters whose BABIP marks sit significantly higher than their xBABIP. Today, it’s time to look at the underachiever list, which is probably more actionable than the overachievers. Let’s take a gander.
Last week, I began my examination of in-season BABIP with a look at how the league was utilizing the defensive shift and individual players were being shifted versus last season. It was a precursor to identifying and discussing where hitters currently stand with regards to my new xBABIP equation, which was developed earlier in the year and accounts for defensive shifts. So let’s dive into the hitters who have overachieved the most, meaning their BABIP marks are significantly higher than their xBABIPs.
At the end of January, I introduced the latest hitter version of xHR/FB, featuring the Statcast fueled metric, Brls/BBE (barrels per batted ball event). I failed to discuss the pitcher side of the ledger, but their barrels against are tracked too, of course. While I haven’t performed any sort of analysis or run a regression, I have to assume that just like for hitters, Brls/BBE allowed by pitchers are going to correlate rather highly with their own HR/FB rates. Unlike for hitters though, it’s probably very inconsistent from year to year, which is why I never bothered to look into it.
