The 2015 Hitter xBABIP Underachievers

Seemingly every year, we try to develop a new hitter xBABIP equation. Obviously, the goal is to improve upon the previous iteration because BABIP is really hard to predict. We can be reasonably sure that some hitters own high BABIP, average BABIP or low BABIP skills, but that’s about it. In any given year, the metric could swing wildly. As more granular data continues to be made available to us, we could use it to keep bettering our ability to predict BABIP and understand which underlying skills drive it.

I took a stab at it a year ago when I worked on “Developing the Bestest xBABIP Equation Yet” (FG+). It certainly was the best yet, but we still had more than enough room for improvement. Alex Chamberlain took on the challenge and made some changes to my formula by incorporating the new Soft%/Med%/Hard% and Pull%/Cent%/Oppo% classifications. The r-squared was only a slight upgrade compared to my results, but it was cleaner and I liked it better. So it’s now the official xBABIP equation of the Pod Projections.

So which fantasy relevant players underperformed their xBABIP marks the most in 2015, and presumably have some significant batting average upside in 2016? Let’s find out…

Obviously, this was a career low BABIP for Jed Lowrie. A return to the Athletics isn’t a positive move, but he should play every day, may very well hit second, and has probably been forgotten about after an injury riddled season and being pushed aside by some young hotshot named Carlos Correa. Should yield some profit in AL-Only leagues.

For as great as his career has been offensively, Albert Pujols has rarely demonstrated above average BABIP skills. He’s a dead pull hitter and pops it up too frequently. But he’s never posted a BABIP this low! In fact, his second lowest mark was .258 just two seasons ago in 2013 and last year marked his third lowest at .265. He’s clearly moving in the wrong direction. Combined with his age and the fact that he could miss some time early after offseason foot surgery, he’s not exactly a candidate to be undervalued at draft day thanks to a suppressed BABIP.

Oh Hanley Ramirez, what a bizarre season you just endured. You redefined what it meant to be a bad fielder, you outperformed your xHR/FB, and now you have underperformed your xBABIP? What does one xDO? Hanley owns a .327 career BABIP and is hitting in a park that typically boosts BABIP, thanks to a 104 RHH singles park factor and 113 doubles factor. While I wouldn’t forecast a rebound to his career mark, especially given his age, there’s a good chance he bounced back over the .300 level again and enjoys a nicely improved batting average.

Jayson Werth is 36 and coming off an injury-riddled season. You know what that means? Opportunity! Though the steals may have finally dried up, his skills remain solid and his BABIP should jump. He actually sports the same career BABIP as Ramirez, but since he’s older and plays half his games in a less favorable park for base hits, he shouldn’t be expected to enjoy as significant a rebound.

Surprisingly, Jay Bruce is the first lefty on this list that has clearly been hurt by the shift. Over his career, he has pulled 63.1% of his ground balls and actually set a new career high in 2015 with a 70.7% pull rate. It sure makes it easy for fielders to know where to position themselves. Unfortunately, it has been far to difficult to incorporate the effects of shifting into an xBABIP equation, so these guys are going to be the outliers that might not rebound as xBABIP suggests. While I would imagine Bruce does improve somewhat, I would not bet on a .300+ mark.

I already opined that Ryan Zimmerman would be a “huge profit center for his owners” as one of the leaders in the standard deviation of distance of his fly balls and home runs. His appearance as an xBABIP underachiever makes him even more attractive as a rebound candidate. Before his .268 2015 BABIP, which easily set a new career low, Zimmerman had amazingly posted a BABIP of at least .308 for seven straight seasons. And in eight of his nine previous full seasons, he has posted a .308+ BABIP. Yes, his health has been a question mark, but since that’s going to be built into his cost, there’s going to be ample room for profit.

You know who was number one on my list of hitters with major HR/FB rate upside who also appears above? Jonathan Lucroy. Now since 2011, he has slightly underperformed his xBABIP overall and a .347 mark for a catcher who doesn’t pop up as infrequently as Joe Mauer did when he was a high BABIPer is never going to be reached. This xBABIP doesn’t so much hint at dramatic upside, but rather that Lucroy’s bat is A-OK, despite a wOBA that hit its lowest mark since 2011.

Aaaaaaand there’s that other left-hander who has been bit by the shift, David Ortiz. The ageless wonder has pulled his grounders nearly 70% of the time in each of the past two seasons, so like Bruce, cannot be expected to rebound to anywhere close to his xBABIP. This just gave me an idea for a new iteration of xBABIP that incorporates Pull% for grounders. The data is not currently available on the FG leaderboards, so I’ll see what I can do.

Wilson Ramos has dramatically underperformed his xBABIP for three seasons running now, so there must be something going on here not being captured. Perhaps one of the reasons is that he’s sloooooooooooow, as his 0.9 Spd mark ranked in a tie for dead last among qualified hitters. As we know, equations don’t perform well at the extremes, so it’s possibly that the formula doesn’t subtract enough BABIP points to account for his complete lack of speed.

And there’s my good friend Billy Hamilton! The name I will never live down after my famous second round selection of his in LABR last year. A player with his speed has no business posting a .264 BABIP. Of course, a player with his speed also has no business hitting ground balls only about 42% of the time. He should be over 50% and utilizing his speed to beat out grounders. He doesn’t possess enough power to be hitting so many fly balls. Remember what I said above about Ramos and equations handling extremes? Hamilton posted a Hard% that would have ranked fifth worst if he qualified for the leaderboard. Then again, his xBABIP in 2014 was identical to 2015, and that year his actual BABIP was .304, so maybe it was all just bad luck. He’ll be undervalued in 2016 and don’t be surprised if he finds his way onto my LABR team again (just not taken in the second round this time!).

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Because I know you’re going to ask for it, here is the entire list of hitters with at least 200 plate appearances that either underachieved their xBABIP or hit it right on the head.