By Kelly Pfleiger
League 13
A Close Look at BABIP
Each and every game, the baseball is hit, and it travels to some destination on the field. Sometimes it is caught for an out; other times it falls to the ground for a base hit. Often, what determines a hit or an out is a matter of inches.
Along with other significant factors, ‘Batting Average on Balls in Play’ will affect a batter’s average, and conversely, a pitchers ERA. In recent years, BABIP has grown in prominence within the fantasy baseball world, but not everyone uses it properly.
As I have stated previously, the sum of all the parts tells the true story of a player’s performance.
By Kelly Pfleiger
League 13
Kelly Pfleiger is a regular contributor to FantasyBaseballMafia.com. This piece is re-printed from his fantasy baseball blog, www.fantasygameday.net.
Andy Sonnanstine has been playing very well this year, or did you not notice it? Not only does he play for the league leading Tampa Bay Rays, but he also has an eye popping ten wins this year. That is good enough to be ranked in the top ten in wins for the season. Could he possibly hit 20 wins for the entire season? Could he actually be in the running for the Cy Young award? Let’s look at his performances this year …
By Kelly Pfleiger
League 13
I love looking at pitching and evaluating who will be great and who will suck. I am all over any pitcher with a high strikeout rate and solid strikeout to walk ratio - especially the lefties. Somehow, I always end up with a roster full of southpaws. So how do I evaluate greatness?
Contrary to popular belief, I do not look (only) at hand dominance. Nor do I give much credence to traditional ERA, because it is mostly beyond a pitcher’s control. One of the stats that can help is Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) or batting average against, but these stats may only indicate a pitcher’s luck.
Instead, I like to look at Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), which is the expected ERA based on things the pitchers can control. Some sites refer to FIP as Expected ERA (xERA) or Component ERA (ERC). Here is the definition from Wikipedia:
By Kelly Pfleiger
League 13
The Houston Astros are a weak team in a very weak division. They went and hired Ed Wade as General Manager and spent most of the off-season acquiring worn out talent as if they were in the hunt for a title this year.
However, they do have a sizeable amount of fantasy goodness, especially on offense, lurking amongst all of their mediocrity. Fantasy Baseball owners will, most certainly, be trying to acquire a few Astros players in their drafts. Hang-on, the PA system just came on … paging Mr. Wade — paging Mr. Wade … The Houston Astros are still not any good!
By Kelly Pfleiger
League 13
Batting Average is a well-known stat to both beginners and experts in Fantasy Baseball. Almost every Fantasy Baseball owner has Batting Average as a statistical category in his or her league. In addition, throughout history we have defined a player as being a very good hitter if his batting average is over .300.
The actual stat has been around since the late 19th century when Henry Chadwick thought that dividing hits by the number of at bats was a good way to judge how well a player hit. So what is wrong with Batting Average?