Is BABIP scripted??

[aadam]

I'm starting to wonder whether BABIP is somehow scripted, and is used by the game engine for balancing. In our online league, my team has always had the one of the lowest (for 5-10 year, I mean), it's dead last again with .266 compared to the league average of .291 (simply calculated (H-HR)/(AB-K-HR), not adjusted by SF or anything). My roster is usually built from players with relatively low contact (5-6 out of 10), high power and very low strikeout rates (for some years, historic lows, far below the league).

I guess there must be a correlation between the hidden BABIP skill and contact/power... but to this extent? Each year, even with the players changing? I guess I tend to sign players of the same kind but this year, 3 of them are above league average BABIP, 11 are FAR below, even the 4th highest is .268, the remaining 10 are lower than that.

It's really hard to imagine that as coincidence. If BABIP has a distribution close to normal, 11 out of 14 players that far below average seems very unlikely to me.

[Matt Arnold]

Well, if you're signing guys with low contact ratings, then you have to expect that they'll have low BABIP/low BA. While BABIP on defense tends to stick around the same point for every team except the rare exception, it can vary a lot for batters and each one has much more control over their own fate. So if your lineup is made up of all guys like Jose Bautista, it's entirely reasonable to be running a team rate well below league average.

[jpeters1734]

low contact and high power? no wonder your babip is low.

[buckeye22]

High power, low strikeout = 2/3 of the contact formula is good. So if they STILL have low contact despite that, their BABIP rating is REALLY bad.

It's not scripted or even luck in your case. It's guys playing to their talent level. If they're hitting enough home runs or making enough productive outs to still win games for you, I wouldn't worry too much. Not the way I'd like to build an offense, but hey, if it works I can't argue against it.

[Drstrangelove]

Here's the thing....

BABIP rates depends on how successful one is with non-HR hitting.

In true MLB, the highest batting average is for line drives. The next is ground balls. The lowest is for pop outs, with fly balls a little higher. E.g., in the NL in 2016, line drive batting average was .650, ground balls was .245 and fly balls was .169.

So a normal hitter that is slow and hits a lot of fly balls is going to have a very sub par BABIP because his ground balls are going to be outs more than normal, and he will hit a lot more fly balls than normal.

We don't know exactly what team you built, but since you are heavily biased to power (HR) hitters, it makes sense that you are ignoring speed. Speed and power are not complimentary attributes. Moreover, spray hitters and line drive hitters are not generally HR hitters, while HR hitters hit a LOT of fly falls.

So your team reflects what you picked.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Drstrangelove

Here's the thing....

BABIP rates depends on how successful one is with non-HR hitting.

In true MLB, the highest batting average is for line drives. The next is ground balls. The lowest is for pop outs, with fly balls a little higher. E.g., in the NL in 2016, line drive batting average was .650, ground balls was .245 and fly balls was .169.

So a normal hitter that is slow and hits a lot of fly balls is going to have a very sub par BABIP because his ground balls are going to be outs more than normal, and he will hit a lot more fly balls than normal.

We don't know exactly what team you built, but since you are heavily biased to power (HR) hitters, it makes sense that you are ignoring speed. Speed and power are not complimentary attributes. Moreover, spray hitters and line drive hitters are not generally HR hitters, while HR hitters hit a LOT of fly falls.

So your team reflects what you picked.

Yeah, I think what often happens is that people hear about BABIP being "around .300", and sometimes assume that that's the case for everyone.

But while it's true for pitchers in general that they won't stray far from that (except a few sinkerballers who can routinely run a better BABIP), that's certainly NOT the case for batters. A speedy guy like Trea Turner is probably expected to run a BABIP in the .340 range, just because he'll get a lot of infield hits. Or someone like Votto can run high because he never pops out.

You can still win with a low BABIP as a team. And I mean, it's better to run a .260 BABIP with your team never striking out, than to strike out 30% of the time and run a .300 BABIP, but don't expect that the rates to "normalize" to league average if your players are not average players.

[NoOne]

hr are subtracted from babip calculation, so more hr = lower babip relative to how many hard struck balls or some comparison like htat.

not adsjusted for sf? only ~1100-1300-ish SF league-wide has a small tick to the average, even so.

think matt hit ont he most important thing: a player will regress to "their" mean, not the league's mean.

contact = BABIP(x) + Avoid K(x) + Power(x)

you can deduce tehir babip rating from the other 2 even though it is not displayed for us to read in the game. this is eve more important when evaluating a power hitter, for the reasons given in previous posts.

if your team regularly is at the bottom of the league, you have a ton of low-babip rated players. it's 100% the fault of the person choosing the players learn and adjust, if it's not bringing lots of wins/success.

if you are winning a ton, who cares if you are last in teh league in BABIP. i'd assume in a ~normal 2017 environment it's not a winning strategy.