THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thursday, December 15, 2011

DIPS and BABIP

By Tangotiger, 12:56 PM

Matt gives us his take.

I’d like to point out two things:
1. SolvingDIPS (pdf) has gotten to similar conclusions in terms of the split between pitching and fielding as it relates to BABIP.

2. The conversion from BABIP to runs is usually ignored in these DIPS talks. A GB pitcher gives up more hits, but fewer % of extrabase hits, but also gets more DP. Overall, and you may find this hard to believe, in terms of RUNS per batted ball in play, GB and FB are the same! (Excludes Pops, Liners, HR.)

So, even if you find a BABIP skill, it’s irrelevant to know that. What we really want is his RUNS skill on batted balls.

And in that case, Voros’s initial claim is much more realistic.

• Sabermetrics • Pitchers

#1 David (see all posts) 2011/12/15 (Thu) @ 15:52

Thanks for this! I was wondering about that very thing (run values of FB vs. GB) when I read this article this morning. I appreciate it.

#2 Tangotiger (see all posts) 2011/12/15 (Thu) @ 16:29

You may find this old thread useful:

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/batted_ball_breakdown/

#3 Matthew Cornwell (see all posts) 2012/01/20 (Fri) @ 07:45

Matt’s article makes me wonder about the 1990’s/early 2000’s Braves teams, and if all of the legit BABIP reducers were in fact causing the team DEF, TZs and UZRs to be skewed a little bit. That could, in effect, be suppressing those pitchers’ WAR totals too. Probably not a significant amount, of course.

On the other hand, the article makes me wonder how Glavine was able to suppress his BABIP compared to mates as much as he did with so few Ks and an above average (yet not extreme) GB rate. I guess there are exceptions to every rule.

#4 Matthew Cornwell (see all posts) 2012/01/20 (Fri) @ 08:04

Correction- I guess the team defensive numbers would only be affected if batted ball type was not included already. So I guess TZ would not be lacking, unless it assumes Maddux and Glavine would be contributing worse BABIP that they did due to their high GB%s.

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THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thursday, December 15, 2011

DIPS and BABIP

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