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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
BABIP Roundtable at BPro
Here you go, with a comment from Alan Nathan:
In my own analysis of hitf/x data from last year, I pretty much confirm what Brian says about how BABIP depends on the vertical launch angle. Based on analysis of nearly 15k batted balls, I find that if the speed off bat is larger than about 80 mph (a rather modest number), then BABIP peaks in the angular range 10-15 degrees, with BABIP exceeding 85%. If you actually look at the trajectory of a ball hit at 85 mph, 12.5 deg, it lands about 240 ft from home plate with a hang time of 2.6 sec, so falls in front of the outfielders with high probability. Also, it eludes the infielders, since it is too high for them to catch (it is about 18 ft high when about 100 ft from home plate). The maximum height is a bit larger, ~20 ft. Whether you call it a line drive or something else is a matter of semantics. It is a very well-hit ball. If you look at home runs, then the home run probability peaks with a launch angle in the 25-35 deg range.
The message seems to be pretty clear, at least to me. If you want to get on base (as opposed to hit a home run), keep the launch angle low.
Unfortunately, there is not enough data that has been released to look at these numbers in a statistically meaningful way for specific hitters.
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