Comments on: Draft Review: The First 50 days (or so) – Part One

By: deejay

deejay — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:14:24 +0000

roarke, this site is interesting and informative and I certainy will stick around .

However, it is more informative without obscure initials for categories and players, etc.

By: STLSportsMag » Blog Archive » The Morning Tailgate

STLSportsMag » Blog Archive » The Morning Tailgate — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:26:12 +0000

[...] Who says its too early to start reviewing the Cardinals 2008 draft? [Future Redbirds] [...]

By: theohall

theohall — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:39:15 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batting_average_on_balls_in_play

I like that explanation the best since it covers hitters and pitchers for BABIP.

By: T McCarthy

T McCarthy — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:11:37 +0000

Roarke,

I would completely agree with your assessment. This website is interesting to baseball fans of a wide spectrum of statistical knowledge.

By: Big Steve

Big Steve — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:58:51 +0000

Thanks for that link AZ. Good info.

By: JEM

JEM — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:10:45 +0000

JPsell45-

“Blake Murphy, C, Western Carolina: Who? Exactly. He posted a 1.241 OPS this season, walked more than he struck out, (51 to 32) and stole 22 bases. And I have no idea who he is. Project Prospect, a great prospect ranking site, called him the ‘best player in the nation no one knows about.’”

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/therundown/2008/06/2008_cardinals_draft_pick_anal.php

By: roarke

roarke — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:56:00 +0000

deejay:

I hope that the references to “new” statistics don’t chase you away from this site. I think that there are many different ways to enjoy and follow baseball and I would hope that people that aren’t into line drive rates, BABIP, VORP, etc. would still find this site interesting and informative. I know there are some places on the internet where you would be ostracized if you weren’t into all this stuff, but I don’t think that Future Redbirds is like that. While we do make references to those kind of statistics, I like to think that we provide enough non-statistic based analysis that everyone should find the site interesting.

By: Liam

Liam — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:48:17 +0000

BABIP is pretty old baseball, if you ask me. All it does is quantify, “Sometimes you swing good and they find gloves; sometimes you’re swinging like crap and they fall in anyways.”

A guy hitting .300 with a BABIP around league average is hitting really well; a guy hitting .300 with a BABIP around .450 might be hitting like crap but getting lucky. Nobody has the time to watch all these games, but by looking at numbers like these, you can get a better idea of how well a player’s doing than if you were looking at the batting averages alone.

By: deejay

deejay — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:48:38 +0000

Thanks for the explanations guys. Not only is this abbreviation confusing to me but it’s meaningless as well. I guess I am too “old baseball.”

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:21:04 +0000

BABIP means “Batting Average of Balls In Play”. It is a stat used to tell how “lucky” a hitter is. For instance, Nic(k)o Vazquez has a .461 BABIP, which means that for every time Nic(k) puts the ball in play, he getts a hit roughly 46 times out of 100. This stat excludes strikouts, home runs, walks, and HBP. I believe the major league average BABIP is around .280. So, extrapolating this to the minors (where the average BABIP is different I assume), Nic(k)o is hitting about .180 points higher when he puts the ball in play than the average player. This means he his getting lucky, in that his balls are getting hit in between players and thus falling for hits. Usually a high BABIP is a red flag because a player should regress to mean or slightly above or below it. If the players line drive rate is low, but has a high BABIP, then you can assume he’s getting a lot of bloop hits and seeing eye grounders. Feel free to amend this statemtn or correct it, as this is how I best understand BABIP.