Ken Griffey Jr. & BABIP: A Quick Statistical Glance

by Jeff Sullivan on Jun 1, 2009 4:07 PM PDT in Seattle Mariners Stats

One of the rallying cries of both the pro-Griffey camp and the non-anti-Griffey camp so far has been that, if you take into consideration his poor luck on balls in play, he hasn't been that bad. And on the surface, it's true - through 156 plate appearances, Griffey has a decent number of line drives but a .220 BABIP, ninth-lowest in baseball among 274 hitters with 100 PAs. If you regress that BABIP up towards something more reasonable, then Griffey's batting line very quickly begins to resemble that of a contributing player.

There's a problem with this approach, though. Let's take a look at Griffey's breakdown by hit trajectory:

	Career BA	2009 BA	Career BABIP	2009 BABIP
Groundballs	0.221	0.103	0.221	0.103
Flyballs	0.232	0.191	0.093	0.130
Line Drives	0.750	0.778	0.732	0.750

Griffey's been unlucky on groundballs, with a BABIP less than half of what it is for his career. On fly balls, he's hit for a worse average but a better BABIP, this being due to his low number of home runs. On line drives, it's pretty much a wash.

So we want to hone in on those grounders, because those are what seem to be holding him back. A .103 BABIP is significantly lower than a .221 BABIP, but is it fair to hold him to that standard? Back in the day, Griffey used to be rather fleet of foot. If you just look at his performance since getting traded from Seattle - around the point when his body started to complain - his BABIP on grounders drops to .190.

.190 is still quite a ways away from .103, but if you regress him up to the former level of performance, then Griffey gains all of three or four hits. Each of them presumably singles. Adding four singles to Griffey's season line puts him at .238/.353/.392, which is pretty much what he did a year ago only with a drop in power output. That's not very good.

I'd like to give Griffey the benefit of the doubt. I'd like to believe that he's better than he's looked. But through nearly a third of the season, he's sitting on ten extra-base hits, with only one homer longer than 375 feet. I'll stop short of making any declarative statements, but the evidence is beginning to mount that Ken Griffey Jr. is finished.

Tweet Comment 44 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

He's doing about what I expected him to do

riding not-so-gracefully off into the sunset. I definitely want to be there on Oct 4 for the big sendoff, because not even Griffey can look at what he’s done this season and justify coming back for another go-round.

Nice Guys Finish Third - My semantics are a waste of time.

by pdb on Jun 1, 2009 4:15 PM PDT reply actions

I hope like hell he sees this himself and just retires.

I shudder to think what the average yay-hoo fan is gonna say when he gets DFA’d.

Fear the NPE

by thewyrm on Jun 1, 2009 4:15 PM PDT reply actions

I don't think the M's would take the PR hit of DFA'ing him though

they’re not THAT stupid. They’ll just keep him on the bench, maybe trot him out once a homestand, and call it a career.

Nice Guys Finish Third - My semantics are a waste of time.

by pdb on Jun 1, 2009 4:16 PM PDT up reply actions

It's not like he's killing us

and we don’t even have to do him the indignity of getting DFA’d. We just need to find a way to give some of his at bats to someone younger. Just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

by Jeff Sullivan on Jun 1, 2009 5:51 PM PDT up reply actions

Let Jeff Clement put on a minstrel show in a 24 Jersey

by abender20 on Jun 1, 2009 5:52 PM PDT up reply actions

I guess their hitting would be comparable.

by Fin on Jun 1, 2009 6:06 PM PDT up reply actions

And their defense.

by Matthew on Jun 1, 2009 10:49 PM PDT up reply actions

And their connective tissue.

by marc w on Jun 2, 2009 8:34 AM PDT up reply actions

And I really thought he was trending towards a productive year when he was OPSing

about .900 for a stretch there in May. But that 0-21 or whatever it was to finish the month really killed his numbers

by Rudy4three on Jun 1, 2009 6:49 PM PDT up reply actions

I was looking at this the other day and thinking the same thing

His career babip is pretty low to begin with and as he’s lost his speed it’s been trending downward even more. So it’s not like we can expect a huge turnaround from his performance so far.

by OlSalty on Jun 1, 2009 4:22 PM PDT reply actions

This is "ride into the sunset" season.

I should probably buy tickets to the last home stand, I am sure the Marketing/PR department will make it into some grand event.

by Fin on Jun 1, 2009 6:09 PM PDT reply actions

Color me confused

And maybe stupid, but

What is the difference between BABIP and BA when looking at these stats?

Formerly Mariners124M... Username was sorta bland, so I'm changin it up

by BQueezy on Jun 1, 2009 6:32 PM PDT reply actions

The difference:

Batting average is the percentage of hits per at bat. BABIP is the percentage of hits per balls that are put in play (including outs) and based on plate appearances. BABIP also doesn’t take into account strikeouts wihile BA does.

Fans are typically idiots.

by The Typical Idiot Fan on Jun 1, 2009 6:38 PM PDT up reply actions

In this case, however, we are already working under the condition that the ball has been put into play via one of the three standard batted ball profiles...

How do you strike out into a fly ball?

by abender20 on Jun 1, 2009 6:40 PM PDT up reply actions

By which I mean to say, add me to the list of now confused.

by abender20 on Jun 1, 2009 6:40 PM PDT up reply actions

Home runs

Balls that go over the fence are hits but aren’t considered in play. Note how the GB BABIPs and BAs are equal.

by Milendriel on Jun 1, 2009 7:37 PM PDT up reply actions

Thank You!

This was my question (I’m not completly retarded, just mildly)

Formerly Mariners124M... Username was sorta bland, so I'm changin it up

by BQueezy on Jun 1, 2009 9:01 PM PDT up reply actions

griff

He might be done, I can’t say that. He still has that one of a kind swing, and catches up to fastballs, reads the pitchers well enough to draw walks. He is being platooned and is used to playing every day and that could be part of the problem. As for how long his HRs are he is hitting half the time in Safeco and it is still spring, come July, August the ball will travel there further. Don’t count the man out he is no longer the “kid”, but he has always risen to the big stage and their might be a little more left in the tank than we may know. For the record Henry Aaron didn’t hit 450’ bombs he just got them over the fence. Over 700 times!

by illbarry on Jun 1, 2009 10:39 PM PDT reply actions

He doesn't really catch up to flyballs though.

And he’s being platooned because he can’t hit left handed pitchers at all.

by Aaron Campeau on Jun 1, 2009 10:42 PM PDT up reply actions

*fastballs

by Aaron Campeau on Jun 1, 2009 10:42 PM PDT up reply actions

griff

Gotta disagree with you Blue, I think he can hit left handers fastballs, but Wak has to be able to play everyone, and Griffey goes into his streaks when he gets in the zone. If you a platooning and have days off you have to get it back. For my sake I hope you are wrong because I would wish for him to have a big season and hang it up. He has knothing more tp prove except get a ring.

by illbarry on Jun 1, 2009 10:51 PM PDT up reply actions

He hasn't hit lefties well for years so I doubt he'll pick it up now

by Poochie on Jun 1, 2009 10:53 PM PDT up reply actions

Griffey's last good year was 2007.

He hit .236/.317/.419/.736 vs. lefties. The last season he hit well against lefties was 2005. If he’s able to hit the fastball, that’s all he can hit.

by Aaron Campeau on Jun 1, 2009 11:09 PM PDT up reply actions