Surprise! You Believed Their 2016 BABIPs, But Shouldn’t Have – A Review

Sometimes it’s obvious when a hitter’s BABIP is due for a rebound or regression, but that isn’t always the case. For the first time before this season, I decided to discuss some of the hitters whose BABIP marks looked relatively sustainable, but my new xBABIP equation disagreed. Let’s see how this group ended up doing.

The first group includes hitters whose BABIP marks looked rather normal, but were well below their xBABIP marks, suggesting some serious hidden upside for 2017.

So Joe Mauer was coming off the worst BABIP of his career, which meant that most anyone and any projection system would have expected some sort of rebound (Steamer forecasted a .320 mark). But xBABIP suggested he was extremely unlucky and would have figured a much higher mark than Steamer did. Sure enough, Mauer ended up posting his highest BABIP since 2013, despite a very similar batted ball profile. You simply had to expect a major rebound from a guy who hits a ton of line drives and rarely pops it up.

Thought Howie Kendrick was dead? xBABIP certainly didn’t. Kendrick had remained super consistent heading into 2016, posting BABIP marks between .338 and .347 every season since 2011, but suddenly it collapsed to just .301. Kendrick doesn’t hit as many liners as Mauer, but he has more speed, which helps him leg out hits on all his grounders, and he also rarely pops it up. While he is unlikely to find full-time work, he should remain a solid asset in NL-Only leagues.

Despite a high fly ball rate, Justin Turner did everything right in 2016 for a strong BABIP, but the hits simply didn’t fall. He made up for it in 2017, as his BABIP jumped up to almost exactly the same rate as his 2016 xBABIP. Just when you thought he had peaked and squeezed out every possibility for growth, he cut his strikeout rate to a career low. His career path has been pretty remarkable.

Buster Posey departed 2016 with a new career low BABIP on the books, but xBABIP thought he should have posted the second highest mark of his career. Instead, he waited until 2017 to make good on that promise, but unfortunately for his owners, suffered another reduction in his HR/FB rate.

Finally we get to the first player who didn’t significantly raise his BABIP, and actually suffered a decline, in Gregory Polanco. Injuries contributed to a massively disappointing season, and you have to assume that the shoulder injury he deal with during spring training affected him for most, of not all, of the season. With his combination of skills, I’m totally pretending this season never happened and buying at whatever discount he’ll come at.

What on Earth happened to Alex Gordon?! His 2016 performance took a dive thanks to a sudden inability to make contact, and while that issue was mostly resolved, everything else fell apart. He was 33, which surely isn’t a youngin’, but it’s also not the age you would automatically think hitting ability would disappear. His defense remains strong, though, which means he’s not as in danger of losing his job as a defensive liability would be. He’s going to cost nothing even in AL-Only leagues, so I’m willing to gamble given his respectable track record.

Now let’s get to the potential decliners, those whose BABIPs looked reasonable, but whose xBABIP was far below, suggesting serious regression.

Throughout Anthony Rizzo’s career, he has alternated .200 range and .300 range BABIP marks and the trend continued in 2017. As a left-handed batter, he gets shifted all the time, so there was serious downside here. Luckily, he cut his strikeout rate to stop some of the batting average bleeding. Even with the decline in average, he was fantastic everywhere else and even chipped in 10 steals.

With a heavy fly ball profile and lots of pop-ups, Luis Valbuena had no business ever posting a BABIP over .300. All that good fortune completely reversed course, but you probably won’t find him near the top of any sort of unlucky list heading into 2018. He hit few line drives, along with lots of fly balls and pop-ups. Enjoy the power, as that’s all you’ll get.

You could have avoided buying Carlos Beltran’s end of the line season if you heeded xBABIP’s warning. Is he going to retire?

Aledmys Diaz came out of nowhere with a solid 2016 rookie campaign, but xBABIP suggested at least part of it was a bit fat fluke. Sure enough, a BABIP decline helped contribute to his demotion back to the minors and he may not get another chance at a starting job.

In his first two years, Yasiel Puig was a high BABIP guy, but the underlying skills hinted that the results were built on a house of cards. With so few line drives and a high pop-up rate, the hits couldn’t possibly keep falling, and that finally was the case this year. He made up for it with a power spike, though, and even stole 15 bases.

And yet again, Nelson Cruz makes me look silly. Is age just not a thing in his body?! I’m guessing Cruz will find himself in at least one negative article heading into 2018. If I keep including his name, I have to eventually be right, don’t I?!

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Wow, that was quite the showing. All these guys had normal looking BABIP marks in 2016, not far from the league average, and yet 10 of the 12 saw their BABIP marks move in the direction I predicted! Most of those movers were significant, too, leading to major profit or loss from their owners.