Interesting LD/BABIP article at Fangraphs

by Aaron Campeau on Jan 7, 2009 8:52 AM PST

I'm not really sure if this qualifies as Earth-shattering or anything, but I thought it was a fun read. Brian Cartwright brings up a few interesting points, which I think most people know intuitively but might forget sometimes; line drives are a scoring decision and scoring decisions are subjective, and batted ball profiles differ greatly from player to player, which means it's better to look at a player's historical BABIP profile in concert with LD% and park factors than the standard LD%+.12 figure to determine the role of chance in under/over-performance. I'm interested to see what conclusions he comes to going forward.

You know, if we had hit/FX we could stop talking about these sorts of things.

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Who reads Fangraphs

it’s a stats site!

by Bearskin Rugburn on Jan 7, 2009 9:09 AM PST reply actions

I really really really don't trust Y-T-Y line drive rates

I’ll pay for HITf/x myself if I have to.

by Jeff Sullivan on Jan 7, 2009 9:11 AM PST reply actions

Exactly.

There’s a lot of weirdness in those data. I always worried that a new scorer could affect a team/staff’s LD rate, but I didn’t expect the magnitude could be this large. 0.8 to 1.23? Huh?

We’ll all chip in for HITf/x, you know….

by marc w on Jan 7, 2009 9:20 AM PST up reply actions

It's only a matter of time before hitters go all Orlando Cabrera

and start arguing on the hit scoring.

“That was a line drive out, not a flyball! Change it! This’ll make my sabermetric stats look better for free agency!”

the other angels fan

by Eyebrows on Jan 7, 2009 9:23 AM PST up reply actions

Graham how much does this bother you?

Do you do any park factors for this sort of stuff for tRA? Thoughts?

by Edgar for Pres on Jan 7, 2009 9:35 AM PST reply actions

(or Matthew)

by Edgar for Pres on Jan 7, 2009 9:35 AM PST up reply actions

Doesn't bother me in the slightest.

And yes, we have LD park factors.

by Matthew on Jan 7, 2009 10:10 AM PST up reply actions

Do your LD park factors show the same sort of things?

I wonder if this sort of thing happens with IFFB too? I could see FB and IFFB muddled together a little.

by Edgar for Pres on Jan 7, 2009 11:13 AM PST up reply actions

Wow nice article. This guy is looking into the exact thing that bugs me about defensive stats.

The differences in how coders score hits from ballpark to ballpark reminded me of WW II code breakers being able to identify a wireless operators “fist”. If they were individually consistent, seems like you could just give each coder his/her own value in the formula.

Formerly dpseadvr.

by Kermit. on Jan 7, 2009 11:20 PM PST reply actions