^^ There are other factors to consider for the #s guys. Faster guys have higher babips because they get more infield hits (Ichiro confounded the sabes for the longest time). These days they keep stats for hard hit, medium, and soft hits; also grounders, line drives, and fly balls. There’s also an average for homers per fly balls hit.
Check out baseball hq (Ron Shandler founded the site) and prepare to shake your head at the geekness.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Hey raj, since you’re the big sabermetrician on here, what do you think of Batting on Balls In Play (BABIP)? [/quote]
I especially find useful in evaluating pitchers, and think it’s less effective when looking at hitters.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Personally, I don’t like it that much in this respect: I always hear people cite a low BABIP (I think the league average is about .330) as opposed to either that player’s career avg or the league avg as indication that the player is destined to start hitting better if his overall avg is low at the time.
For instance, say a player with a career avg of .280 is currently only hitting .245 and his BABIP is .275, down from his career mark of .330. Doesn’t that low BABIP this year indicate that he’s simply getting unlucky and will most likely trend upward in terms of his overall avg?[/quote]
Maybe. You’ve chosen an example that’s in a grey area. Based on the numbers given, it could be a legitimate change in talent level and/or adjustments made by the hitter. You need to look at other statistics in conjunction with BABIP to make a proper assessment. Looking at a players plate discipline (his walk rate, how many pitches he’s swinging at outside of the strike zone, etc) is a great place to start. When we see extremely high or extremely low BABIPs it is generally an indication of luck or lack thereof.
For instance, Eric Hosmer’s BABIP is 100 points lower than it was last year. It has recently improved, but only a couple weeks ago it was a paltry .169.
I’m fairly confident he has been unlucky to a degree without even looking at any other numbers.
Your understanding of BABIP is correct however. It is attempting to measure luck as it assumes once a ball is put in play anything can happen. Basically, whether the ball is caught or hits the grass, one side ended up getting lucky.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The reason I don’t like this analysis is that it doesn’t take into account what type of hitter the player in question is. [/quote]
First off, sabermetrics can never replace actually watching the games. To perform a candid evaluation you need to consider other factors that sabermetrics cannot measure. For example, the players hitting/pitching mechanics, the type of routes they take to balls, composure or “mental makeup” and body type cannot be measured without actually watching the games.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I think a hitter who doesn’t have a ton of power or doesn’t use the middle of the field well will not trend upward in the same way that a player who does one or both of these things will. The reason is that a hitter who uses the middle of the field has a better chance of getting base hits as opposed to one who pulls the ball more often. Balls grounded up the middle go for base hits more than balls grounded to one side of the infield or the other and a fly ball to center has one outfielder chasing it down rather than two if it is in either gap. Furthermore, a player with more power will get more hits on balls hit right at infielders because it is routinely hit harder. A ball not fielded cleanly when it is hit very hard, even if it’s a grounder, is much more likely to be a hit than an error.
So a player with power and/or who uses the middle of the field should trend upward in terms of BABIP more than a player who doesn’t have the same power or approach. Take two identical players regarding batting avg, career BABIP and their respective current averages and BABIP for this particular season. If they are both below their career numbers by the same amount, sabermetrics tells me that they should both revert to the mean in the same manner. But in real life they are not as likely to both revert to that standard.[/quote]
Again, use other statistics and not BABIP on its own. From what you’ve described I would look at spray charts from past months/years and see where this player is hitting the ball. Look at where balls were hit when they were hitting around their career average and compare it to how they’re hitting currently.
This is a good site, its pretty flexible as you can adjust the dates on the spray charts.
Just wanted to talk about Colby Rasmus a little.
Here’s his slash line for the season: .248/.310/.454 + stellar defense. I’d say that would put him slightly above average as a hitter. He started off piss poor by the way
Now I’ve noticed that’s he been taking much better cuts and his timing at the plate is much improved, but he’s starting to look like a completely different hitter!
Check out this AB from early-mid may
Now check out his approach last night. Less crouching and standing upright.
He’s aso way closer to plate and it’s working. What’s strange about this change is it’s quite different from his 2010 year when he hit for power. In 2010 he was crouching even more than what I posted in the first gif. Weird.
Wow.
Matt Cain just threw arguably the greatest single game ever. Not only did he throw a perfect game, but he tied Sandy Koufax for the most strikeouts ever recorded in one with 14. I think those two perfect games and Don Larsen’s perfect game in Game 6 of the 1956 World Series, down 3 games to 2, are the three best ever.
I don’t know how I’d rank them but I’d say Larsen’s game was the best ever since it was against the best of the three teams faced. After that, it’s a toss-up between Cain and Koufax. I suppose Clemens’ and Woods’ 20 strikeout games are pretty close, as is Halladay’s no-hitter in the playoffs two years ago.
But Cain just dominated a halfway decent offensive ball club. I loved how in the 8th inning he comes to the plate to lead off the inning and he takes a huge swing and a miss at the first pitch then grounds to short and hustles all the way down the line in a 10-0 game. He could have hit the ball and stood in the batter’s box until he was out and then headed back to the dugout and no one would have cared but he hustled. What a fucking gamer.
One thing is for certain. Matt Cain is the best pitcher in baseball right now.
I don’t necessarily think a perfect game automatically outranks all non-perfect games.
I would honestly put the Morrow game as arguably the best pitched game in the last 2 years with the exception of the Halladay game.
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=10760449
17 strikeouts, 1 cheap hit (ball didn’t leave infield), 2 walks. 135 pitches against the TB Rays.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Bumgarner’s home run to break the Giants homerless streak. He actually has a pretty decent swing.
I did end up watching the last game of the Giants-Rangers series, was disappointed since it was a blow out. I really want to see Cain and Bumgarner pitch. I’m going to look up the highlights of that game when I get a chance.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I don’t necessarily think a perfect game automatically outranks all non-perfect games.
I would honestly put the Morrow game as arguably the best pitched game in the last 2 years with the exception of the Halladay game.
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=10760449
17 strikeouts, 1 cheap hit (ball didn’t leave infield), 2 walks. 135 pitches against the TB Rays.
[/quote]
You know what’s better than allowing one cheap hit and 2 walks? No cheap hits and no walks. There’s IMMENSE pressure during a perfect game that wasn’t there for most of Morrow’s start. And where did he do it? In front of 40,000 or 14,000? Cain did it in a bigger atmosphere and the fact is that he retired every batter he faced. Watch a replay of the game. He threw any pitch at any time and he was consistently 91-92mph with the fastball until he had two strikes. Then he was consistently 93-94. Give me a break. Morrow’s doesn’t even make the top 10 of the last ten years.
Oh, and I’d probably rank Juan Marichal’s 16-inning shutout against the Braves as one of the all-time great single game pitching performances as well.
Also raj, I’m surprised you aren’t using sabermetrics this time. You do every other time. But in this case you aren’t because it undermines your embarrassing argument about Morrow. Matt Cain’s game score was 101, the same as Koufax’s and 4 points below Kerry Wood’s 105. Those are the three highest game scores for a pitcher in the modern era. I doubt Morrow cracks the top 50 all-time.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
You know what’s better than allowing one cheap hit and 2 walks? No cheap hits and no walks. There’s IMMENSE pressure during a perfect game that wasn’t there for most of Morrow’s start. And where did he do it? In front of 40,000 or 14,000? Cain did it in a bigger atmosphere and the fact is that he retired every batter he faced. Watch a replay of the game. He threw any pitch at any time and he was consistently 91-92mph with the fastball until he had two strikes. Then he was consistently 93-94. Give me a break. Morrow’s doesn’t even make the top 10 of the last ten years.
[/quote]
So now you’re going to pull out the intangible factors like crowd size? Really?
Honestly who gives a fuck about a no-hitter against the Astros? Jamie Moyer could do that. Morrow pitched that game in a hitters park against the team that WON the AL East with a record of 96-66. They had the second best record in all of baseball. The Houston Astros are throwing out a Triple-A calibre lineup every night
Not only that, Blanco had to make a spectacular catch just to preserve that “perfect” game. That easily would’ve been a home run/double off the wall in most parks.
Well, Tampa may have won the AL east but they cartainly don’t have one of the better offenses. They seem to get no-hit every year. Almost got no hit last night.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
You know what’s better than allowing one cheap hit and 2 walks? No cheap hits and no walks. There’s IMMENSE pressure during a perfect game that wasn’t there for most of Morrow’s start. And where did he do it? In front of 40,000 or 14,000? Cain did it in a bigger atmosphere and the fact is that he retired every batter he faced. Watch a replay of the game. He threw any pitch at any time and he was consistently 91-92mph with the fastball until he had two strikes. Then he was consistently 93-94. Give me a break. Morrow’s doesn’t even make the top 10 of the last ten years.
[/quote]
So now you’re going to pull out the intangible factors like crowd size? Really?
Honestly who gives a fuck about a no-hitter against the Astros? Jamie Moyer could do that. Morrow pitched that game in a hitters park against the team that WON the AL East with a record of 96-66. They had the second best record in all of baseball. The Houston Astros are throwing out a Triple-A calibre lineup every night
Not only that, Blanco had to make a spectacular catch just to preserve that “perfect” game. That easily would’ve been a home run/double off the wall in most parks.
[/quote]
If Jamie Moyer could do it he would have. Actually, the Astros have a significantly better offense than the Rays did that year. They’ve been the victim of a no-hitter two or three times in the last couple of years, and for all intents and purposes they got no-hit last night as well.
And you’re right about Blanco’s catch. But it wasn’t in a different park and he DID catch it. There’s luck in every game. Get over it. A one-hitter with 2 walks is NOT a greater accomplishment than a perfect game with 14 strikeouts, no matter how you try to qualify it. Even your precious sabermetrics says as much.
Cain pitched very well, you just set me off with the 10 year comment. To be honest it would be really hard to compare two extremely dominant performances. Sabermetrics are designed to measure performance over a prolonged period not individual games.
To be fair we would have to watch both games and then decide. I didn’t watch the sfg game and you didn’t watch the Morrow game.
A replay of the highlights wouldn’t do either performances justice.
By the way the Rays finished 3rd in all of baseball in total runs scored in 2010.
The Astros offense is almost exactly average at 16th overall and 8th in the NL in runs scored.
I think it’s absurd to say the Astros 2012 offense is better than the 2010 Rays.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I think it’s absurd to say the Astros 2012 offense is better than the 2010 Rays.[/quote]
I think you’re absurd to compare Morrow’s start to Cain’s. They cancel each other out then and what we’re still left with is the fact that by the Almighty Sabermetrics that you pray to Cain just had the 2nd best start in the modern era, tied with Koufax. Why don’t you bring that up? You cite some meaningless statistic in practically every post you make and now you’re going to come on here and argue AGAINST those stats?
You’re intellectually dishonest.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Cain pitched very well, you just set me off with the 10 year comment. To be honest it would be really hard to compare two extremely dominant performances. Sabermetrics are designed to measure performance over a prolonged period not individual games.
To be fair we would have to watch both games and then decide. I didn’t watch the sfg game and you didn’t watch the Morrow game.
A replay of the highlights wouldn’t do either performances justice.[/quote]
You’re wrong. I DID watch that game. It was on at a restaurant I was at. I paid attention once I realized that he had a decent shot at 20 strikeouts. But he succumbed to the pressure and couldn’t strike out 20. Cain didn’t succumb to the pressure and retired 27 straight batters.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I think it’s absurd to say the Astros 2012 offense is better than the 2010 Rays.[/quote]
I think you’re absurd to compare Morrow’s start to Cain’s. They cancel each other out then and what we’re still left with is the fact that by the Almighty Sabermetrics that you pray to Cain just had the 2nd best start in the modern era, tied with Koufax. Why don’t you bring that up? You cite some meaningless statistic in practically every post you make and now you’re going to come on here and argue AGAINST those stats?
You’re intellectually dishonest.[/quote]
…
You don’t seem to understand.
Sabermetrics isn’t this monolithic thing. You can have two Sabermetrics based opinions that conflict with each other.
Have you even looked at how game score is calculated? Here it is:
Start with 50 points.
Add 1 point for each out recorded, so 3 points for every complete inning pitched.
Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th.
Add 1 point for each strikeout.
Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed.
Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed.
Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed.
Subtract 1 point for each walk.
Do you honestly believe this statistic on its own is enough to say Cain pitched better than Morrow, especially when they’re separated by a single point? Really?
Cain had 101, Morrow had 100.
I already told you that you shouldn’t look at single advanced statistic in a bubble. Why do you keep doing this?