.. the Cubs would be the team it would happen to…

But I really agree with the underlying message of this post, which I assume (correct me if I’m wrong, Berselius) is that we’ve already got the players we need to succeed (or certainly most of them — the injury to Aramis obviously makes things more difficult).

I mean how many guys on this team couldn’t be playing a LOT better than they are right now? Outside the starting rotation, not many.

I’m sure many will say I’m an idiot (or at least think it), but I’m STILL thinking that this turns around if we just get a few lucky breaks going our way.

We just need something to break us out of this funk… to snap us out of this whirling vortex of suckitude that’s pulling us down…

Only 6 regulars (i.e, players with at least 400 PAs) posted a BABIP below .250 last season, which points to most of these numers going up.

The key behind BABIP is that once you exclude the three true outcomes (HR, Walks, Ks), the pitcher has very littleto no control over where a ball goes once it is batted. It has very little correlation to year to year and can essentially be treated as a random variable with mean .300

it would be unlucky. In short, there is no reason to expect bad luck to continue.

to go on record by saying you sound ridiculous when you assert your opinion as blanket fact.

And to suggest Soto a juicer is cheap and low.

Gee, there goes my FanPost idea: “Is It Time For Some Pixie Dust?”

But seriously, I don’t think anyone’s suggesting anything more magical than allowing for the possibility, or in fact the probability, that a statistical average based on a full season of performance will have points both above and below that average, and that we may be witnessing the mysterious collective low points on those statistical lines. Just because it can’t be easily explained doesn’t preclude it from being true.

While Lee is unlikely to become better with age, it’s too early to say that he is just a shadow of his former self, and flat out accusing Soto of using PEDs is just rhetorical bomb-throwing.

Soriano IS an up and down inconsistent swinger (you know which kind)

We may find out Theriot HAS been over-performing, give him another year os so…

Fontenot, at least at this point, prob. WOULD benefit from being a guy coming off the bench for another year or two

And Soto-well, you’re way off there, sorry-it’s called the WBC, he was too young to screw with the Spring routine, not to mention he’s a catcher and has a lot of other responsibilities….he’ll be fine after the All-Star break, and maybe, hopefully sooner.

Because line drives are the least likely occurrence from a non-bunted batted ball, you have to wait longer in the season to get a good read on the LD%.

Even if these number were their true talent LD%s (which I sincerely doubt given how they are so far below their career norms), Fontenot and Bradley’s BABIP should be in the .250 range.

Still though, those LD% and IFFB% are so far off their career norms that you cannot expect them to be sustainable.

It’s likely that this seasons LD rate doesn’t give a good estimate of Fontenot’s (or whoever’s) true ability. A good projection regresses those batted ball rates to career averages and league average.

Last sentence should read: "…you can’t merely compare to career BABIP as an indication of future performance.

Lee’s BABIP is low compared to his career BABIP. That’s quite a bit because of his low LD%. Why is he hitting less LDs?

I’d argue that all hitters go through stretches where they hit well, squaring the ball up, and stretches where they hit poorly. LD%, I’m arguing, doesn’t remain constant throughout the season. So, a hitter who starts the sesaon cold will have a low LD%, while a hitter who starts the season hot will have a high LD%.

With Derrek Lee’s FB% up, we can see that he’s changing his approach. I’ve speculated that he’s over-compensating for all his DPs last year. That may, therefore, keep his LD% down throughout the season as he tries to put everything in the air. Or, he may just be going through some odd stretches that will balance out on the season.

So, yes, the LD% and BABIP are interesting and useful tools to look at and useful even this early in the season. I, in fact, did a post looking at a lot of league-wide under-achievers looking at those #s 2 days ago. My contention is that while we’re starting to see some possible explanations, there are different ways things could go from here.

Line drive rates are not stable from year to year at all. That means that this seasons line drive rate doesn’t accurately measure the players true talent level. For example, Lee’s career LD rate is 21.3 and it has hovered around 20 for the past three years. This year, in a much, much, much smaller sample size, it is 12.5. Which do you think accurately measures his true ability? Over 6000 career plate appearances and around 1700 the past 3 years, or 140 this year.

In fact, THT did a study on batted ball rates and BABIP, and they found that a previous years BABIP has nearly TWICE the predictive power of LD rate + .120. In fact, LD BABIP only has a correlation factor of .20, which is very small.

In short, using this year LD rate to predict future BABIP is blatantly wrong. You would be better served to take a weighted average of previous years BABIPs or using a more complex BABIP model like this one.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes. :)

which is roughly a .300 BABIP, which is exactly what the author suggests doing.