In this week’s By The Numbers, the subject of our analysis will surround BABIP, or “batting average for balls hit into the field of play.” This has become a very popular metric over the past decade as a benchmark for quickly analyzing how “lucky” or unlucky a player has been due to the relationship of the number from the league average (This is historically around the .300 mark, but we will discuss that more shortly).
This is a mistake.
Many of you know this, but many still abuse this statistic in a way that will lead to misleading conclusions. That is why we are going to take a closer look and try to put an end to those bad habits.
We’ll discuss what BABIP represents, how a player can influence the metric through skill, and how to track players deviating well above or below their perceived average in order to predict possible regression.[[ad:athena]]
After an explanation of how you can improve your own analysis by understanding what BABIP is and where it comes from, we will dig into some early season league leaders and pop the hood to see if their engine is going to keep firing, or suddenly stall.
What is BABIP?
BABIP measures a player’s batting average based entirely on balls hit into the field of play, removing outcomes not affected by the opposing defense (mostly HR & K):
(H – HR)/(AB – K – HR + SF)
BABIP tends to be scrutinized as a statistic often due to a reputation for showcasing a player being “lucky” or “unlucky.” As stated in the previous section, the league average BABIP is typically .300, but so far in 2021, the average is settling around .285 in an overall down offensive year. If a player drifts too far above or below that threshold people seem to grow skeptical, which is not entirely unfounded. Sometimes the hits just seem to fall in at a natural rate.
That being said, batters who have seen a high or low percentage of their balls in play drop in for hits over a period of time will see their results average out over 162-games. This is what takes most “luck” out of the equation for most years. In 2020 there were 102 fewer games, so the variance was greater. This is the reason that 2019 statistics will be referred to going forward instead of 2020.
So what skill-based attributes contribute to a high BABIP? What can we look for in a player that allows players like the batting champions above to carry such a high BABIP? Sometimes year over year.
Skill-Based BABIP Production
The following skills contribute to a player carrying a higher BABIP, thus allowing them to carry a higher batting average than your typical major league hitter.
Plate Discipline:
We already talked about this above, and it is very straightforward. You can’t steal first base, you need to earn it. Walks will not help in this scenario, but pitch recognition and patience will.
Striking out will send you back to the dugout, but will not impact your BABIP. It will however impact your batting average. In addition, the lack of plate discipline typically tied to a high strikeout percentage is also typically tied to poor pitch selection. Poor pitch selection leads to poor contact. Poor contact leads to outs. Outs lower your batting average.
Superior contact leads to hard contact. Hard contact raises your BABIP (see below).
We will look further into metrics such as O-Swing percentage and swinging strike percentage, but for our immediate purposes, we will toss players into profiles using strikeout minus walk percentage.
Hard Contact:
There is a strong yearly correlation between a high hard contact rate and a higher BABIP. In 2019, 17 out of the top-30 players in hard contact percentage (FanGraphs) carried a better than league average BABIP. In 2018? 19 of the top-30.
If you hit the ball hard you typically made solid contact, which also allows less time for the fielder to react. Not making an out equals higher BABIP which equals higher batting average. However, this is just one variable of many, since you may have guessed there were many hitters with a high hard contact percentage who carry a poor batting average.
Line Drive Rate:
This is more or less tied to the previous variable hard contact rate, but with an important distinction: batting average results. A line drive is by definition a ball driven on a line, which is normally accompanied by hard contact, also one of the more notable signs of a solid hitter.
In 2019 the American League hit .692 on line drives, while the National League hit .681. Pretty cut and dry. Line drives equal a higher BABIP and batting average.
Fly Ball Rate:
This variable is a bit contradictory. Home runs are good, but they do not count towards a player’s BABIP (not considered batted balls since they are not in the field of play). In addition, outfield flies are often the easiest plays for a fielder to make, so for our purposes in this exercise, we will be looking to avoid hitters with a high fly ball rate.
Sprint Speed
Ground balls are the WORST. In fact, the league average on batted ground balls in 2019 was .237 & .235. Yikes. No one performs well on ground balls.
However, some are better than others. What is the best way to avoid an out on a ground ball? Beat it out for a single. Players with a higher sprint speed are able to leg out more ground balls for hits, stretching their BABIP and batting average.
This could certainly come in handy over small sample sizes.
2021 BABIP Leaderboard
It is important to remember that the 2021 season is still in the early stages and that there is a new baseball that is wreaking havoc on traditional metrics and overall offensive output. You work with what you have and what you can understand. The information we are digging into is based on how BABIP is influenced by skill and how to identify players that will excel or fizzle out.
That being said, let’s tackle a look at the current 2021 leaderboard for BABIP:
The surprise White Sox star sits near the summit of BABIP mountain with a .413 mark while batting .373 with five home runs and 20 RBI. There are too many analysts that have a strong opinion about a player that we know very little about. Sure, Mercedes did spend eight years in the minor leagues, so that tends to leave an impression over time. However, what we have seen so far in 2021 has been far more impressive on the surface.
First of all, the 28-year-old has reached a maximum exit velocity of 113.3 miles per hour, albeit in a season where the ball seems to be traveling hot. Mercedes also carries a healthy barrel rate of 10.6 percent, but with a lackluster hard-hit rate (32.9 percent).
This is mostly due to an elevated ground ball rate of 45.9 percent and line-drive rate of 17.6 percent. These are not the characteristics you want to see from a player you expect to carry an elevated batting average for balls in play, especially with a sprint speed in the 36th percentile of the league. Mercedes does use the whole field to a degree with an opposite-field hit rate of 24.7 percent and a center hit rate of 35.3 percent, but this does not make up for the kind of batted balls being put in play.
If you add in that right-handed Mercedes is chasing 40.9 percent of pitches out of the strike zone, it’s rather easy to dismiss his early success as luck. However, an adjustment to batted ball launch angle could change things in a hurry. Expected statistics suggest that a .373 average should have been closer to .291 to this point, but I would bank on a much lower average going forward unless there is a fundamental change that is closer to the 26 percent line-drive rate we saw in Double-A from Mercedes.
The star sophomore carries a .403 BABIP into mid-May with a .267 batting average which can be terrifying for anyone looking to cast standard regression. You will find no comfort in a 32.6 percent strikeout rate either. So is there some good news for the breakout Rays outfielder in batted ball data?
Arozarena currently posts a lowly four percent barrel rate, but a respectable 46.7 percent hard-hit rate. The 26-year-old’s 20 percent sweet spot percentage suggests that he lacks early-season bat control, which is confirmed by a 29.4-degree standard deviation of launch angle or sd(LA). For everyone who is completely lost right now, sd(LA) measures the “tightness” of a hitters launch angle which is an indicator of overall bat control and consistency. For those wondering the league leader in sd(LA) is currently Omar Narvaez at 20.3 degrees. Other notable names at the top are Aaron Judge at 22.1 degrees, Yordan Alvarez at 22.1 degrees, and J.D. Martinez at an even 23 degrees. You want this number to be well below 30 degrees and Arozarena currently holds a 29.4-degree mark in sd(LA). This is not “awful” by any means, but also not ideal. It is worth noting that Randy’s mark in 2020 in sd(LA) was 31.7 degrees and that seemed to work out just fine. The big difference is that Arozarena’s actual average launch angle in 2020 was 9.2 degrees and in 2021 it sits at just 1.8 degrees.
As you may have guessed, just like Mercedes, there is a poor spread in his batted ball results. A 13.5 percent line-drive rate is horrifying and it is accompanied by a 62.2 percent groundball rate. The good news is that I highly doubt these marks are going to hold over time, but the bad news is that we have seen these levels from Arozarena in the minor leagues at times. It’s entirely possible that these levels could stick around long enough to wreck Randy’s sophomore season.
In case you are wondering, Arozarena is not chasing bad pitches. In fact, the Rays outfielder has an expected (location-based) wOBA of .378 on pitches he decides to swing at versus a .302 mark for pitches he takes (from rotofanatic.com). That is fantastic. Unfortunately, this only helps Arozarena if he makes contact and from the way this narrative is going, you can probably guess how that has been going for him. Randy carries a 66 percent Z-Contact rate, which is nearly 20 points worse than the league average, with a 15.8 percent swinging-strike rate. Arozarena is swinging at his pitch, but he simply can’t seem to hit it.
Overall, this is another example of what seems to be a mechanical or approach issue leading Arozarena to consistently generate poor contact into the ground. There may be better times ahead, but as it currently stands he is a mess. Do you feel lucky?
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The 27-year-old left-hander is currently batting .325 with a .388 BABIP with six home runs and 27 RBI this season. Walsh has a very acceptable 12.2 percent strikeout minus walk rate for a power hitter and a healthy 11.6 percent barrel rate.
So far so good.
The Angels slugger has a disappointing 32.6 percent hard-hit rate so far and quite a bit of weak contact on the other end, so there is definitely something unnatural elevating his over numbers so far. Walsh has been able to generate 22.1 percent line drives and 31.4 percent fly balls, which is completely acceptable.
A 32.9-degree sd(LA) suggests Walsh is having a difficult time with bat control early this season despite his results. You can take this news one of two ways. First, Walsh settles in as the summer moves on and his production continues with natural skill offsetting regression. Second, you can choose to think that poor bat control and weak contact will catch up to the 27-year-old.
Expected statistics have Walsh being closer to a .266 hitter so far this season rather than the .342 line on the stat sheet. The smart money is on a talented hitter making adjustments considering how well Walsh is performing with flawed results behind the scenes. Even if regression hits you are likely to be left with a strong power hitter with a solid batting average. Fantasy managers will take that kind of floor every day of the week.
Kris Bryant and Nate Lowe are excellent examples of players that check most boxes in terms of legitimate BABIP gains.
Bryant is seeing the ball exceedingly well with an 86.1 percent Z-Contact rate, 10.5 swinging-strike rate, and 27.1 percent O-Swing rate. All of these metrics are better than league average and when combined with a 16.3 percent barrel rate they translate into elite results.
The Cubs third baseman is batting .308 with a .351 BABIP and from what we have seen there is no reason he couldn’t keep this level of production up all season. Will he? Probably not considering this would be the best season of his career, but would it really be that difficult to imagine? Bryant is now years removed from a shoulder injury that seemed to take this edge away and just one season removed from batting .282 with 35 home runs.
You can prepare for Bryant’s batting average to drop a bit, but everything he has shown up until this point looks legitimate and repeatable.
Nate Lowe is somewhat in the same boat in terms of exhibiting high BABIP skills. The only thing the Rangers slugger lacks than Kris Bryant possessed is an ideal in-zone contact rate. Lowe carries a 78.7 percent Z-Contact percentage, which is around five points below league average.
However, this is hardly an issue if you are talking about decreasing his .285 batting average to around the .265-.270 range. If that is the expectation with Lowe’s home run production then fantasy managers will celebrate. Lowe has posted elite maximum exit velocity numbers in all three of his major league seasons and there is every reason to believe his early-season success is for real.
Michael A. Taylor and Cedric Mullins are two power and speed threats that are off to fantastic starts. The thing that makes them different is their ability to generate BABIP on the ground with their speed.
Taylor, similar to Lowe, is having a slight issue with in-zone contact. The 30-year-old’s statcast page may not impress those looking for pretty colors, but there is a ton to like about his performance so far, at least for fantasy baseball.
The Royals outfielder has pedestrian power metrics, but a 7.2 percent barrel rate, 36.2 percent har hit rate, and 111.4 max exit velocity will get the job done for a player with close to 90th percentile sprint speed.
Taylor currently boasts an amazing 29.4 percent line-drive rate. It would be incredibly shocking if the speedy outfielder could maintain that level throughout the season, but the good news is that Taylor is making strong contact and has the wheels to make the best of a 39.7 percent ground ball rate.
Further regression could be coming in the power department as well with Taylor currently carrying a 9.5 percent home run-to-fly ratio which is well below his career average.
The main roadblock is Taylor’s plate discipline or lack thereof. His 72.4 percent Z-Contact, 35.8 percent O-Swing, and 18.6 percent swinging-strike rate are truly awful. This creates a low floor that you can’t prepare for and makes Taylor a volatile fantasy asset to count on. You can gamble on his career BABIP numbers of .363 in 2017 and .396 in 2019 to light the way for possible long-term success, but you are more than likely going to get bit by the regression bug sooner or later.
If you want a safer option, look no further than Cedric Mullins. The everyday leadoff hitter for the Orioles is batting .313 with a .353 BABIP and plays half his games in Camden Yards.
Mullins boasts tremendous plate discipline metrics across the board with a 26.8 percent O-Swing rate, 88.4 percent Z-Contact, and 6.8 percent swinging-strike rate. The 26-year-old is one of the best decision-makers according to location-based wOBA metrics and carries a fantastic 8.7 percent strikeout minus walk rate.
The Orioles outfielder does not tear the cover off the ball like some of the other hitters above with a 5.6 percent barrel rate. However, Mullins does manage to generate a solid 36.1 sweet spot percentage, 42.6 percent hard-hit rate, and limits soft contact to 13 percent (FanGraphs).
A .313 batting average may be a bit too much to hope for the rest of the season, especially without a track record of high BABIP performance in the minors, but there is definitely a reason to believe in Mullins. Speed, plate discipline, and contact will go a long way and a career year from the 26-year-old seems like a very safe bet at the point.
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