[OldFatGuy]

Frustrating, huh Knockahoma?

I don't blame you. I've gotten a bit tired of it too. The folks on here claim "the evidence this" and "the data that" when the fact is, the data is too incomplete to make the assumptions being made.

All luck and defense? Right. A ground ball hit 5 foot to the left of a shortstop is entirely dependent on the shortstop's skill at moving 5 feet. It has nothing whatsoever to do with how hard the ball was hit 5 feet to his left. Right. And the pitcher has no ability to influence how hard the ball was hit. Right. Yet the pitcher is responsible when the ball is hit extremely hard for a home run. Right. He's responsible for one but not the other. Right.

Sorry to see you go Knockahoma. I was impressed with your patience and perseverence in tackling the issue, as well as your much more open mindedness to the question at hand. Yes I said openmindedness. Those of us on the side of common sense have had to endure basically being called idiots because "the evidence" says this or that. OK, then I should be free to call others idiots for not realizing there's more evidence missing than is available when it comes to explaining BABIP. An awful lot of the folks, SABR folks, that Knockahoma quoted seem to get that. An awful lot of folks here don't.