Tracy's hitting woes and BABIP

[Slateman]

Tracy has been a victim of bad BABIP so he hasn't been as bad as his numbers would indicate but he's still a lefty matchup bat who hits righties much better.  Unfortunately, he wouldn't solve the problem and, in fact, could make it much worse.

High strikeouts, low walks, low LD% and low GB%.Tracy isn't a victim of BABIP. He sucks. Hes a crappy hitter. His low BABIP is the result of a poorly disciplined hitter who cant make solid contact.

[mimontero88]

High strikeouts, low walks, low LD% and low GB%.Tracy isn't a victim of BABIP. He sucks. Hes a crappy hitter. His low BABIP is the result of a poorly disciplined hitter who cant make solid contact.

Strikeouts and walks have nothing at all to do with BABIP so they don't prove anything at all about his hitting luck.  His line drive percentage is exactly what it was last year and 1 percentage point lower than his career average.  His groundball/flyball ratio is about 20 percentage points below career average which, while it will certainly lower BABIP, cannot account by itself for anything close to the .125 drop in his BABIP from last season to this season.  The numbers clearly show that he is hitting into a lot of bad luck.

[Slateman]

Strikeouts and walks have nothing at all to do with BABIP so they don't prove anything at all about his hitting luck.  His line drive percentage is exactly what it was last year and 1 percentage point lower than his career average.  His groundball/flyball ratio is about 20 percentage points below career average which, while it will certainly lower BABIP, cannot account by itself for anything close to the .125 drop in his BABIP from last season to this season.  The numbers clearly show that he is hitting into a lot of bad luck.

By using your complete lacknof understanding and no logical reasoning, Matt Stairs should still be on the team

[mimontero88]

By using your complete lacknof understanding and no logical reasoning, Matt Stairs should still be on the team

That's cool.  I resort to attacking people nonsensically when I'm wrong too.

[Slateman]

That's cool.  I resort to attacking people nonsensically when I'm wrong too.

You need to learn about BABIP before you use it in an argument. Clearly you do not understand how it works and what it's an indication of.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-BABI?urn=mlb,203710


"When BABIP doesn't work: As I just said, BABIP is not a determinant of success, it's only a measure of what's going on. It's only a byproduct of all the things that batters and pitchers have no control over — the little bounces and breaks and streaks that sometimes even out over the course of a season and sometimes can carry a guy to a career high or a career low.

Random chance isn't the only reason a player might fail. Persistently low hitter BABIPs or high pitcher BABIPs might be an indication of poor mechanics, injury, or insufficient skill or talent. There's wild BABIP variance in the minor leagues, where the talent spread is a lot wider."

BABIP is just one tool in a plethora of tools used to evaluate a hitter. It must be combined with other metrics. Tracy is not walking much and he's striking out a lot. His ability to manage the strike zone is poor. Furthermore,  his line drive and ground ball rates are low. Very low. When he makes contact, he's not making good contact. He doesn't hit it hard on a line drive like, say, Rendon does. He's hitting fly balls. This is what's leading to a low BABIP. When you are hitting pop ups or weak ground balls over 75% of the time, and you run like Tracy, you're not going to have a high BABIP.

His low BABIP is not a sign that he's unlucky.  It's one of many signs that point to diminshing skill, poor mechanics, and a bad approach at the plate. Tracy's numbers are similar,  and in some ways inferior, to Matt Stairs 2011 campaign.

[Mattionals]

Mimontero, I gotta agree with Slate here.  I'm not looking at the stats, I'm watching Tracy's at bats.  He just isn't a good hitter this year, but not many Nats inspire confidence right now with their collective approaches.

[mimontero88]

You need to learn about BABIP before you use it in an argument. Clearly you do not understand how it works and what it's an indication of.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-BABI?urn=mlb,203710


"When BABIP doesn't work: As I just said, BABIP is not a determinant of success, it's only a measure of what's going on. It's only a byproduct of all the things that batters and pitchers have no control over — the little bounces and breaks and streaks that sometimes even out over the course of a season and sometimes can carry a guy to a career high or a career low.

Random chance isn't the only reason a player might fail. Persistently low hitter BABIPs or high pitcher BABIPs might be an indication of poor mechanics, injury, or insufficient skill or talent. There's wild BABIP variance in the minor leagues, where the talent spread is a lot wider."

BABIP is just one tool in a plethora of tools used to evaluate a hitter. It must be combined with other metrics. Tracy is not walking much and he's striking out a lot. His ability to manage the strike zone is poor. Furthermore,  his line drive and ground ball rates are low. Very low. When he makes contact, he's not making good contact. He doesn't hit it hard on a line drive like, say, Rendon does. He's hitting fly balls. This is what's leading to a low BABIP. When you are hitting pop ups or weak ground balls over 75% of the time, and you run like Tracy, you're not going to have a high BABIP.

His low BABIP is not a sign that he's unlucky.  It's one of many signs that point to diminshing skill, poor mechanics, and a bad approach at the plate. Tracy's numbers are similar,  and in some ways inferior, to Matt Stairs 2011 campaign.

Okay so I stopped reading when you, once again, mentioned strikeouts and walks (which don't effect BABIP AT ALL) and mentioned his low line drive rate which, of course, is exactly the same as it was last year and exactly in line with his career norms.

I'm not arguing that Tracy hasn't been bad.  I'm arguing that he has been both bad and unlucky.  He's not hitting as well as he was last year but he's not hitting as badly as the slash line indicates.

[Slateman]

You are completely missing the point. I don't know how much clearer I can make it. BABIP is not the sole indicator of a player's hitting ability and to treat it as such is to mistake correlation for causation. In order to utilize BABIP to determine whether or not a hitter is good, bad, lucky or unlucky, you must examine the totality of their performamce at thd plate. Which includes walks and strikeouts.

You combine a low LD rate, a high FB rate, a low BABIP, a low walk rate and a high strikeout and you get a poor batter, not an unlucky one.

His line drive rate is lower, his gb rate is lower, his fb rate is much higher, his K rate is much higher, and his walk rate is half what it was last year. LD rate is the lowest of his career. GB rate is the lowest of his career. Walk rate is the lowest of his career. Strikeout rate is the second highest of his career. Are you telling me this just bad luck?

[mimontero88]

You are completely missing the point. I don't know how much clearer I can make it. BABIP is not the sole indicator of a player's hitting ability and to treat it as such is to mistake correlation for causation. In order to utilize BABIP to determine whether or not a hitter is good, bad, lucky or unlucky, you must examine the totality of their performamce at thd plate. Which includes walks and strikeouts.

You combine a low LD rate, a high FB rate, a low BABIP, a low walk rate and a high strikeout and you get a poor batter, not an unlucky one.

His line drive rate is lower, his gb rate is lower, his fb rate is much higher, his K rate is much higher, and his walk rate is half what it was last year. LD rate is the lowest of his career. GB rate is the lowest of his career. Walk rate is the lowest of his career. Strikeout rate is the second highest of his career. Are you telling me this just bad luck?

I am convinced you are missing my point entirely now.  Nothing you said here contradicts anything I'm saying.  In fact, it supports it.  Your point about LD rate is wrong.  He is at 19% this year which is exactly what he was at last year.  Career average is 20%.  I have used other statistics in conjunction with BABIP to show that he has been unlucky already.  The Ks and BBs indicate he has been a worse batter.  The extreme drop in BABIP, lacking correlating drops in GB rate (there's been a drop but not nearly extreme enough to drop BABIP a full .125) indicated that in addition to being bad, he's also hitting into bad luck when he does put the ball in play.

[Slateman]

I am convinced you are missing my point entirely now.  Nothing you said here contradicts anything I'm saying.  In fact, it supports it.  Your point about LD rate is wrong.  He is at 19% this year which is exactly what he was at last year.  Career average is 20%.  I have used other statistics in conjunction with BABIP to show that he has been unlucky already.  The Ks and BBs indicate he has been a worse batter.  The extreme drop in BABIP, lacking correlating drops in GB rate (there's been a drop but not nearly extreme enough to drop BABIP a full .125) indicated that in addition to being bad, he's also hitting into bad luck when he does put the ball in play.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1888&position=1B/3B

LD% 14.1% ... not sure where you get 19%. But that still sucks. He hasn't been at over 20% since 2009
His GB rate has dropped over 10% (35.4% to 23.4%) so there's your correlating data for a low BABIP

He isn't getting on base. When he does hit the ball, he doesn't hit the ball very hard, nor does he hit it on the ground where it my squib through for a base hit. He's hitting weak fly balls to the outfield and striking out. He isn't unlucky, he is sucking. He is Matt Stairs.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Not to try to be an arbitrator, but I think Mim is reading Slate's post about walk and strikeout rates as well as BABIP to suggest that those bad rates cause a low BABIP. I'm not sure if Slate's original post was as clear as it could have been, but what I think Slate is emphasizing is those BB and K rates are part of the package of a poor hitter, and that the BABIp is consistent with the mix of balls that he does hit when he makes contact (flies, not liners).  Mim I think is pointing out the line drive rate isn't dropping from when he was a decent hitter. Bottom line for both of you is that neither of you think he is a good hitter. 

Looking here, it seems there has been a bit shift year to year the GB% (down) and FB% (up), in the range of 12 - 14%.  That is probably part of the explanation for his BABIP drop, but .164 is ridiculously low for a fly ball heavy BABIP.  A decent way to SWAG BABIP is .120 over the LD%. That would suggest about .260 for Chad.  Last year's .280 is in line with this SWAG (LD%16.5).  This year's BABIP(.164) is way too low for a LD% of 14.1%, even with the change in the GB/FB ratio. 

Terrible hitter who has deteriorating strike zone judgment can also have bad luck.  I'd not be singing hosannas for Tracy if his batting average was .215 instead of .157.  Yes, there's some bad luck in there, but don't confuse it with saying he's a good hitter but for luck.

[mimontero88]

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1888&position=1B/3B

LD% 14.1% ... not sure where you get 19%. But that still sucks. He hasn't been at over 20% since 2009
His GB rate has dropped over 10% (35.4% to 23.4%) so there's your correlating data for a low BABIP

He isn't getting on base. When he does hit the ball, he doesn't hit the ball very hard, nor does he hit it on the ground where it my squib through for a base hit. He's hitting weak fly balls to the outfield and striking out. He isn't unlucky, he is sucking. He is Matt Stairs.

I'm using BR's numbers.  Is this another stat fangraphs calculates differently?  I would think LD% would be pretty straight forward.  Also agree with everything JCA said.

[sph274]

So, how about Rendon leading off?

i.e. can we fork a new thread for Tracy's  BAPIP ?

I would rather we just all agree chad tracy sucks but if he were lucky could be hitting .200 this year and just drop it

[HalfSmokes]

I would think LD% would be pretty straight forward. 

there might be different sources, fangraphs uses BIS which goes back to 2002, whoever BR uses goes back to 1988

[mimontero88]

there might be different sources, fangraphs uses BIS which goes back to 2002, whoever BR uses goes back to 1988

Hmmm... would think a line drive is a line drive so I don't see how that could be so different between the two.

[HalfSmokes]

Hmmm... would think a line drive is a line drive so I don't see how that could be so different between the two.

one person's line drive is another's fly ball- if you're using spotters reviewing tape, it's going to be subjective

[mimontero88]

one person's line drive is another's fly ball- if you're using spotters reviewing tape, it's going to be subjective

I suppose.  Surprised the difference is that large though.