BP:How Does Quality of Contact Relate to BABIP?

[Tony-OH]

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15562

This is actually part 2 part 1 is below

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15532

Mike Fast is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers.

Truly fascinating stuff. I love this kind of data because it makes sense.

[Can_of_corn]

Truly fascinating stuff. I love this kind of data because it makes sense.

I just starting following Fast on Twitter. The man is on the leading edge that is for sure and he is able to explain his findings in a way that makes sense to those not as deeply involved.

[Can_of_corn]

Mike Fast laying it down on twitter

Correlation pitcher BABIP '08 to '09 is .04 (basically none). Correlation '08 BABIP adjusted by hard/soft contact to '09 actual BABIP is .41

In case it wasn't clear from my article this week that I think my findings basically destroy conclusions people have drawn from DIPS.

[DrungoHazewood]

Mike Fast laying it down on twitter

Ok, but what's the magnitude of the changes, and what is the year-to-year correlation for individuals? If hard/soft contact varies year to year, and a great soft contact guy has a BABIP of .270 while a hard contact guy is .280 or .290, this isn't so revolutionary.

[Moose Milligan]

I found that a major-league pitcher does not only control whether he gets ground balls or fly balls; he also has a significant degree of control over how hard the ball is hit.

I'm not sure why, but this seems like a blatantly obvious statement. Of course this is true, would anyone think to the contrary? Anyone who has ever actually played the game should be aware of this.

[DrungoHazewood]

I'm not sure why, but this seems like a blatantly obvious statement. Of course this is true, would anyone think to the contrary? Anyone who has ever actually played the game should be aware of this.

The difference is the sample of pitchers you're looking at. In high school it is blatantly obvious. You have some guys throwing in the 90s, others throwing in the 60s with a curve ball that breaks 3 mm.

In the majors? I don't think it's at all obvious that there are significant differences in any number of things like this. You have the 200 or 300 best pitchers in the world, down-selected from many millions who play ball at the level you or most of the folks on this board have played. I think it's pretty reasonable to think there are attributes of this extremely select sample that don't vary much from #1 to #250 or whatever.

[Can_of_corn]

Ok, but what's the magnitude of the changes, and what is the year-to-year correlation for individuals? If hard/soft contact varies year to year, and a great soft contact guy has a BABIP of .270 while a hard contact guy is .280 or .290, this isn't so revolutionary.

Here you go Drungo

http://twitter.com/#!/fastballs

He is tweeting a lot of additional information. Of course the tweets are not "showing work".

[Moose Milligan]

The difference is the sample of pitchers you're looking at. In high school it is blatantly obvious. You have some guys throwing in the 90s, others throwing in the 60s with a curve ball that breaks 3 mm.

In the majors? I don't think it's at all obvious that there are significant differences in any number of things like this. You have the 200 or 300 best pitchers in the world, down-selected from many millions who play ball at the level you or most of the folks on this board have played. I think it's pretty reasonable to think there are attributes of this extremely select sample that don't vary much from #1 to #250 or whatever.

Yes, you're talking about the best 200-300 pitchers in the word, but there's still a giant difference from Verlander and #250. I still think Mike DeJean is the worst pitcher I have ever seen...obviously batters were able to square up really easily on him. Now there's a noticeable difference in how hard he was hit compared to one of his contemporaries like Maddux or Pedro Martinez.