Archive for Batting average on balls in play

A few weeks ago, I dug through some PITCHf/x data, courtesy of Baseball Savant, and calculated the BABIP (batting average on balls in play) on ground balls to the pull side by velocity for hitters by handedness in 2015. There are a lot of prepositional phrases in that last sentence, but instead of trying to further clarify it, I’ll summarize the findings: right-handed batters hit for a higher batting average on pulled ground balls at every batted ball velocity than did left-handed batters in 2015.

It’s a long time coming, and I’m here to present the same analysis but for ground balls to the opposite field.

But, first, some quick housekeeping. Following my recent ADP (average draft position) research, I asked readers to predict which players’ end-of-season (EOS) rankings would outshine their ADPs for 2016, given some certain conditions. Twenty-seven readers responded and the results are in, ranked by frequency of votes:

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Baseball Savant, a website maintained by Daren Willman, is a thing of beauty. Aside from some great leaderboards and applications, Willman hosts a database of PITCHf/x data. Using it without a game plan is like entering the Amazon without a machete — it can be unwieldy and overwhelming. Navigating just right bears ample fruit, however. I would like to share some of my fruit with you.

Because in 2015, PITCHf/x data began including batted ball velocity for most balls in (and out!) of play. Batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is a critical component to player success, and while there has been plenty of focus on it in the last decade — more so than, say, pitch framing, which is a popular but still-raw area of research — the baseball community would still benefit from a better understanding of BABIP, especially in light of more frequent employment of defensive shifts.

Intuition tells us that a harder-hit ball in play will have a greater probability of resulting in a hit. (Indeed, my expected BABIP equation from last year that helps corroborate such a claim.) Specifically, in regard to ground balls and defensive shifts, a hard-hit grounder will have a much greater chance of clearing a crowded first-base line than would a softly hit grounder.

Enter Baseball Savant and its very granular PITCHf/x data. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s start with a multiple choice question.

1) Russell Martin has been lucky on the following balls-in-play type(s):

a) Grounders

b) Liners

c) Flies

d) at least Grounders and Flies

If you chose a) grounders, you would be wrong. If you chose d) flies, you would be wrong. If you chose b) liners, well… you could be partly right, however, the correct answer is d) at least grounders and flies. You could argue that there should be an e) option, ‘all of the above.’

According to Zach Sanders’ End of Season Catcher rankings, Russell Martin bamboozled his way into the top 10 at #7 overall and produced what would have been his 2nd best fantasy season if he approached 150+ games.

By bamboozled, I mean BABIP’ed.

Look at his 2014 ground ball, fly ball and line drive-related BABIP’s on each individual balls-in-play type in 2014 relative to his career; relative to 2013 (still with the Pirates); and relative to the mean if we considered his career rates as a one year performance:

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