Weinstein: Redefining batted balls to predict BABIP
From Max Weinstein at The Hardball Times on February 18, 2014:
Today, I will release metrics that will help supplement our understanding of hitter batted-ball tendencies and provide a model to predict a hitter’s Batting Average on Balls in Play, or BABIP.
The main tool we use to supplement our understanding of BABIP is batted-ball data. Further on, we will discuss how batted-ball data is currently a poor tool–yet a wildly popular one–to use when speaking in terms of BABIP.
The fact of the matter is, batted balls don’t tell you much about BABIP in the first place, and today I am here to change that with new innovative metrics. We want our measures of batted-ball tendency to actually be predictive and descriptive of BABIP itself. With these metrics and a few other simple components, I believe we can predict BABIP at a high rate, simply using batted-ball data.
Because BABIP can have a large effect on a hitter’s overall performance and value at the plate, we are very interested in finding the magic number/ratio/formula–something that will limit the year-to-year variation in BABIP that currently exists–for all parties involved.
Read the full article here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/redefining-batted-balls-to-predict-babip/
Originally published: February 18, 2014. Last Updated: February 18, 2014.