BABIP and Control (or Lack Thereof)
- By: Chris Liss
- On: 6/22/2009 12:47:00 PM
- View Comments : 8
Related: Chris Liss
But as I've noted before, some pitchers seem to defy that logic - Carlos Zambrano in particular routinely allows considerably less than a .300 average on balls put into play against him. (This year, it's .285, the sixth in a row that it's .285 or less). One explanation for Zambrano's uncanny ability to prevent batted balls from becoming hits could be his excellent stuff which has velocity and movement. But there are plenty of pitchers with excellent stuff (Tim Lincecum, Dan Haren, Justin Verlander) who don't show any sustained skill at preventing batted balls from becoming hits. Meanwhile knuckleballers (Tim Wakefield in particular) also seem to post consistent sub-.300 BABIP readings. So instead of looking at Zambrano's stuff, maybe it's more important to focus on what he has in common with Wakefield - notoriously poor control.
While Wakefield's BB/9 aren't nearly as bad as Zambrano's over the years, a knuckleballer really has no idea where his pitches are going, i.e., he has little control in the literal sense. Zambrano has lead the league in walks twice. But perhaps that also makes it harder for the hitter to know where his pitches are going, and therefore harder to hit with authority. Zambrano is eighth lowest among pitchers since 2002 in line-drive percentage allowed. (Wakefield is second, and the other six pitchers are either extreme ground ballers (Brandon Webb, Derek Lowe, Tim Hudson) or control challenged (Jason Marquis, Jose Contreras, A.J. Burnett).
So it might well be that there's an inverse relationship between control and BABIP. If your control is excellent, you don't throw a lot of balls, and therefore you run the higher risk of having them struck with authority and drop in for hits. Now, if you paint the corners perfectly and have late movement within the zone, maybe you can have it both ways, but keep in mind even Pedro Martinez had a .343 BABIP in 1999, and he had a 313/37 K/BB ratio that year.
The point isn't that you should draft pitchers with poor control because the BABIP gains are likely to offset it - in fact, BABIP fluctuates a lot due to luck, and you're better off putting your faith in someone who does not depend on luck to keep hitters off the bathpaths. But it's worth noting that BABIP isn't a holy grail stat, and for the two steps forward a pitcher gains in control, it's possible some take a step back in terms of being more hittable. We see the reverse happen with hitters whose BABIP and power often decline when they make a conscious decision to improve their plate discipline.
I suspect the balance differs for each hitter or pitcher, but more control and more plate discipline is not always better. Some pitchers are better off throwing more out of the strike zone pitches, and some hitters are better off hacking.
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On: 6/22/2009 1:29:00 PM
On: 6/22/2009 2:54:00 PM
I have been doing a lot of looking into the whole BABIP thing, but never had the time to focus it all into an organized presentation. And sorry, what I am about to share will be far from organized. Basically, take all the fantasy and SABR stuff out, as a pure baseball fan, I have a hard time being such a big fan of a game in which a batted ball in play off Pedro Martinez in his prime has as much chance of being an out as one off of Pedro Feliciano in his prime.
So here are a bunch of quasi-related points, which when organized might tell an interesting story. Or maybe not.
1. Batted balls come in 3 basic types, grounders, liners and fly balls, though our friends at BIS are now tracking the FLINER, a hybrid fly ball and line drive. BALLPARK NUMBERS OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD -- 75% of LD are hits, 25% of GB are hits, 20% of FB are hits. Some personal research shows pitchers have some level of control whether a batter hits a GB or FB while the batter has some level of control of whether he hits a LD or something else. But the correlation is not THAT overwhelming. Intuitively, it could be a pitcher's skill to limit the number of line drives, whereby limiting the number of hits, lowering BABIP -- and vice versa.
2. If you break batted ball data up into specific samples, you find that the BABIP of a LHP vs. LHB is LOWER than LHP vs. RHB and vice versa. Lefty on lefty and right on righty yield a lower BABIP than lefty on right and right on lefty. While intuitive, it does help suggest a pitcher exhibits some level of control over the result of a batted ball in play. In addition the BABIP of a pitcher at bat is lower than that of a position player.
3. I have been asking those that can to track this for years, thus far to no avail, but I am completely convinced the missing piece to all this is that a pitcher from the windup and a pitcher from the stretch are fundamentally two different pitchers. This likely explains the enigmas that are Javy Vazquez and Dave Bush - guys whose peripherals suggest better than the eventual results. We do have runner on versus bases empty data and sure enough, the BABIP with bases empty (windup) is lower than that with runners on (stretch).
Just some thoughts, not making any claims or anything, but I personally have seen enough evidence to argue that the pitcher does exhibit a measure of control over the fate of a batted ball. It is just caught up in what Bill James calls the fog.
On: 6/22/2009 7:12:00 PM
On: 6/23/2009 10:31:00 AM
On: 6/23/2009 10:39:00 AM
On: 6/23/2009 11:24:00 AM
On: 6/23/2009 11:31:00 AM
On: 6/23/2009 1:59:00 PM
I guess the point is all strikeouts are not the same and one could argue anecdotally which type of strikeout pitcher is most apt to induce weak contact.
Sorry, again a bunch of disjointed thoughts that have run around in my head over the years and probably should be crystallized somewhere, but anyway...
Looking at guys like Blanton and Nolasco earlier this season, the "smart" analysis was their peripherals were fine, it is their BABIP that is way high, once that corrects, they will be fine. But in both instances, their LD% was over 25%, way high. Is this bad luck or bad pitching? I'm not sure. I hate to base an entire supposition on 2 cases, especially when one is Joe Blanton :)
But it does at least open the door for some analysis on LD rates in small samples.
As for windup/stretch, I imagine there are some guys that are for whatever reason BETTER from the stretch. Globally, BABIP is lower from the windup is all. What defines a good or not-so-good pitcher isn't the difference in BABIP between the windup and stretch it is the ability to strike guys out, not to walk them and to a lesser extent, keep them in the yard, same as always in that regard.
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