PxP: Out of Control

Your bullet points at the end beautifully sum up my perspective on BABIP. I hope reader after reader will choose to internalize those conclusions.

Absolutely magnificent.
I don’t think everyone will ever be able to agree on how to measure baseball talent, or how to measure the talent at all. there are so many factors, and some people will look at different factors from others.
As for BABIP, I agree that batters influence it. Hitters do have an impact on whether a ball is hit in to the air or towards the ground, for example. Ditto for defense. As many people said about Trevor Cahill after 2010, he succeeded in part because of an incredibly low BABIP. Had he had a worse defense, for example the one the A’s have this season, he wouldn’t have been so good. And it seems to be true; Cahill has a .290 BABIP this year, compared to just .236 last year. However, he had 12 unearned runs last year, but just 5 so far this year.

If the pitchers, too, had different defense every couple of at bats, it seems likely they would have the similar influence on their BABIP as hitters do.

As a pitcher, I’ve pretty much spent the last year or two trying to reconcile my understanding of how the numbers show that there is little predictive ability for the pitcher’s BABIP, and that, when pitching, it really is all about trying to get weak contact, throw pitches that can’t be squared up, etc. That along with the fact that I’ve been trying to understand how something could be controllable for the batter and uncontrollable for the pitcher, when there seems to be such an interaction between the two during the course of a pitch. You’ve answered that, and I am very excited.

I find it beautifully counter-intuitive – in particular, the quote that King Richard included above.

In that I mean this – if you think about BABIP as a regression, BABIP = a1*pitchers influence + a2*batters influence + a3*defensive influence+ a4*climatic influence + a5*what pitcher ate last night + e, it would seem that if you have the same defense night after night, (i.e., the defensive influence is constant), the biggest thing that changes from day to day (and at bat to at bat) is the batters influence. Over the season that would tend to even itself out, as would climatic factors and indigestion. So, you’re left with pitchers influence, however minor a factor that would be, which you should be able to solve for. Except the data shows that we can’t.

Not in any way discounting what you’ve said, just saying that looking at it from one perspective, it seems counterintuitive.

I dont think i came to a different end opinion on BABIP, but it did reassure what i was thinking and backed it up with some solid numbers. I was curious about the Nasty Factor, so that was really helpful. Nice work again, you’re on fire.

First off…you guys measure in terms of picometers? I thought a balance with a resolution of 10 micrograms was good. Wow.

Also, nasty factor is incredible. Those correlations are immensely strong. A 0.95 R2 with swing and miss? I’m floored.

And, as always, a tremendous explanation of a statistical idea, just like every single PxP. Rec this post, people.

That’s so retro!!!

j/k. great work + insights, elcroata.

I will fix that by going to the game early today, settling in my seats by the visitors bullpen, and heckling CJ wilson while he warms up. That ought to dumb me down again.

Rec’d.

I’m coming to absolutely adore your articles, both about stats and about other things. Well done.

As usual, I will have to bookmark this page, as it will take me a while to absorb it all. Definitely not something I can appreciate in one sitting. Thank you for the work.

And now imagine how small a single baseball would be somewhere inside that marble. That’s a picometer.

Isn’t a baseball bigger than a marble and wouldn’t it be kinda hard to put one inside said marble?

I probably have a better chance of climbing Mount Everest after going on a date with Natalie Portman while flying the Space Shuttle with Chuck Yeager and Chewbaca as my co-pilots.