Yet another take on Wright's BABIP

by mnbv on Jul 16, 2009 10:18 PM EDT

(bumped from the fanposts. --eric)

Much ink has been spilled over David Wright's BABIP this season, but yesterday I read an interesting comment on Fangraphs about how line drive % plus .120 was not a good estimator of BABIP, linking to a study done at the Hardball Times.

The basic results of that study are that xBABIP is a much better estimator that ldBABIP (LD% + .120). In fact, the R-Squared on xBABIP was 0.25, but 0.04(!) on ldBABIP. qxBABIP, the quick and dirty version of xBABIP is also a much better estimator than ldBABIP. Since the study was conducted in January, the folks at the HBT have further tuned and made available a spreadsheet to calculate a simple xBABIP.

Curious about how David Wright's real BABIP stacks up against his simple xBABIP I plugged in the numbers courtesy of Fangraphs:

Actual BABIP = .430
xBABIP = .326
LD% + .120 = .364

This suggests Wright's been even more lucky that suggested by the LD formula.

Here's how his xBABIP stacks up year by year:

Year	BABIP	xBABIP	ldBABIP	BABIP - xBABIP	BABIP - ldBABIP
2005	.340	.318	.376	.022	-.036
2006	.344	.311	.315	.033	.029
2007	.356	.341	.352	.015	.004
2008	.321	.314	.376	.007	-.055
2009	.430	.326	.364	.104	.066

(BABIP and xBABIP numbers I pulled from the HBT spreadsheet, others are from Fangraphs. Note there's a slight discrepancy between the reported BABIP in the spreadsheet and Fangraphs' BABIP.)

Wright appears to consistently outperform his xBABIP, although that tendency has been trending down in recent years. I'd be hard pressed to even call xBABIP a better estimator of BABIP over his career than LD% + .120.

Just for fun, here's Beltran since he's been a Met:

Year	BABIP	xBABIP	ldBABIP
2005	.292	.276	.312
2006	.263	.300	.288
2007	.286	.304	.310
2008	.297	.319	.341
2009	.367	.303	.322

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yes

I referenced the Bendix article in my original piece about Wright, in which I tried to account for the various variables that the rule-of-thumb does not.

The xBABIP calculated by that spreadsheet, however, isn’t the Bendix formula. Derek presents it merely as a holdover until he can produce something better. It’s still worth looking at, though. I plugged Murphy in the other day and he should be hitting ~.275 according to the simple xBABIP calculator.

Welcome aboard.

King of the bling come to lay down the evidence//Not George Bush, L-Millz be da president

by Sam Page on Jul 16, 2009 10:03 PM EDT reply actions

Thanks Sam

Though I really should have read your original article more closely!

Yeah, the spreadsheet’s a “simple” version of their xBABIP, although I did compare the spreadsheet’s calculated simple xBABIP for Wright’s 2008 with the xBABIP reported in there and they seem decently close.

by mnbv on Jul 16, 2009 11:04 PM EDT up reply actions

Interesting stuff

Thanks for going through the numbers.

by Sokojoe on Jul 16, 2009 10:51 PM EDT reply actions

White flag time

I’ve been thru a lot with this team now for 18 seasons of fanship, and it sadens me to say this, but this season is more or less officially coming to a close. It is clear this team isn’t very good, no one is coming back anytime soon that will help the team and there is little to nothing on the farm that will get us a good return. Thinking back to game 7 when I was at Shea, watching St. Louis celebrate and thinking, ’we’re about to make our move for the next several years’ and to taken 3 steps backwards is a blow to the gut.

Soon the biggest point of interest will be rooting for anyone not named the Phillies to win the WS. Sad night indeed

by Rigsay on Jul 16, 2009 11:33 PM EDT reply actions

yea!

i love it when other people crunch the numbers i am too lazy to. thanks mnbv, this is dope. so maybe wright is an anomoly whose ldBABIP is a better predictor than his xBABIP or maybe he is just an outlier in general and his BABIP will follow his xBABIP more closely than ldBABIP for the rest of his career.

either way i think we can all agree that without dubs we would totally be in the proverberial poop soup at the moment.

Lets hope that when gut check time comes again the Mets will pass it with flying colors.

by kendynamo on Jul 17, 2009 9:48 AM EDT reply actions

without Dubs

we would have won the last 7 World Series. He’s a loser who drags the team down with his statistical numbers.

by cjmulrain on Jul 17, 2009 12:50 PM EDT up reply actions

We wouldn't have won the last 7 World Series

We’d still have Reyes on the team. He’s Reyes is another guy with statistical numbers. Hell, he’s even less of a gamer than Wright, and we all know Wright ain’t a gamer.

"We must win and we must know how to win rather than win because we have statistical people."

by Evan_S on Jul 17, 2009 9:48 PM EDT up reply actions