Unlucky Hitters
A quick and dirty measure to check how lucky or unlucky a hitter has been is to compare said hitter's line drive rate (LD%) with his batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Generally, a hitter's BABIP should hover around 11 points higher than his LD%. It's not as pure luck of a number as a pitcher's BABIP since hitters do have some control over batted balls and things like footspeed (for heavy groundball hitters) can skew the results, but it's a good 5-second proxy.
That being said, as of conclusion of play yesterday, here's the twenty most unlucky and lucky hitters (min. 200 PA) as measured by BABIP-LD%.
| Unlucky | Lucky | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Last | First | Team | LD% | BABIP | Diff | Last | First | Team | LD% | BABIP | Diff | |
| Sanchez | Freddy | PIT | 23.90% | 0.242 | 0.300% | Berkman | Lance | HOU | 16.50% | 0.367 | 20.200% | |
| Schneider | Brian | NYN | 28.20% | 0.298 | 1.600% | Uggla | Dan C | FLA | 14.10% | 0.341 | 20.000% | |
| Konerko | Paul | CHA | 20.30% | 0.229 | 2.600% | Lewis | Fred D | SF | 18.70% | 0.377 | 19.000% | |
| Swisher | Nick T | CHA | 24.30% | 0.269 | 2.600% | Jones | Adam L | BAL | 17.90% | 0.356 | 17.700% | |
| Rollins | Jimmy | PHI | 25.00% | 0.280 | 3.000% | Gomez | Carlos A | MIN | 17.00% | 0.347 | 17.700% | |
| Hernandez | Ramon | BAL | 22.20% | 0.257 | 3.500% | Gerut | Jody | SD | 15.80% | 0.331 | 17.300% | |
| Beltre | Adrian | SEA | 21.50% | 0.252 | 3.700% | Hardy | J.J. | MIL | 14.10% | 0.309 | 16.800% | |
| Byrnes | Eric | ARI | 18.80% | 0.226 | 3.800% | Laird | Gerald | TEX | 18.50% | 0.351 | 16.600% | |
| Vidro | Jose | SEA | 19.00% | 0.228 | 3.800% | Young | Delmon D | MIN | 18.30% | 0.343 | 16.000% | |
| Carroll | Jamey | CLE | 29.30% | 0.331 | 3.800% | Holliday | Matt T | COL | 22.60% | 0.385 | 15.900% | |
| Stewart | Shannon | TOR | 22.00% | 0.259 | 3.900% | Gathright | Joey R | KC | 13.40% | 0.291 | 15.700% | |
| Izturis | Cesar | STL | 20.40% | 0.245 | 4.100% | Matsui | Hideki | NYA | 19.00% | 0.346 | 15.600% | |
| Ludwick | Ryan | STL | 28.20% | 0.323 | 4.100% | Pence | Hunter A | HOU | 15.10% | 0.306 | 15.500% | |
| Tejada | Miguel | HOU | 25.50% | 0.297 | 4.200% | Varitek | Jason | BOS | 12.10% | 0.275 | 15.400% | |
| Patterson | Corey | CIN | 14.60% | 0.188 | 4.200% | Matsui | Kaz | HOU | 16.30% | 0.317 | 15.400% | |
| Duncan | Chris E | STL | 23.50% | 0.279 | 4.400% | Jeter | Derek | NYA | 15.50% | 0.307 | 15.200% | |
| Johjima | Kenji | SEA | 18.30% | 0.228 | 4.500% | Granderson | Curtis | DET | 18.40% | 0.333 | 14.900% | |
| Izturis | Maicer E | LAA | 23.00% | 0.275 | 4.500% | Ramirez | Hanley | FLA | 18.70% | 0.336 | 14.900% | |
| Scutaro | Marco | TOR | 24.70% | 0.293 | 4.600% | Harris | Brendan | MIN | 16.10% | 0.310 | 14.900% | |
| Mora | Melvin | BAL | 19.00% | 0.243 | 5.300% | Iguchi | Tadahito | SD | 18.00% | 0.328 | 14.800% | |
Data provided by The Hardball Times
1 recs |
19 comments
Comments
I had no idea player could go from the luckiest hitter in baseball to unlucky in the span of a month.
by JI on Jul 7, 2008 4:53 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
[Insert required ADRIAN BELTRE NEEDS TO AIM WHERE HE HITS BETTER quip here]
by BrianL on Jul 7, 2008 4:56 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Beltre clearly needs to take lessons from Adam Jones
Go Nova
by dbroncos31 on Jul 7, 2008 5:05 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Why do we go on about Beltre being unlucky while we nail Vidro to a cross for sucking?
by Last Fan Of Jose Lopez on Jul 7, 2008 5:12 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Not surprised to see Uggla near the top of the lucky list.
And pleasantly surprised Utley is kicking ass properly.
by Wilder. on Jul 7, 2008 5:59 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
I'm a little surprised at Uggla, given all the HRs he's hitting
although hitting lots of home runs and being lucky are completely independent things
by seattlebruin on Jul 7, 2008 6:08 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Ryan Ludwick is a beast
the artist formerly known as Mere Tantalisers.
by Bearskin Rugburn on Jul 7, 2008 6:24 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
It’s somewhat surprising that Chipper isn’t on the list of luckiest hitters.
Neglectful father of David Quinowski
by marcello on Jul 7, 2008 7:35 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Lucky or good.
The players on the right for the most part happen to be good players that I would want on my team. The players on the left with the exception of F. Sanchez are all over rated (Beltre, Konerko, Rollins) or suck (everyone else).
by mw3 on Jul 8, 2008 11:15 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

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