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The 2021 Cleveland Baseball Organization

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Derek said:
Small correction, but the league average BABIP is typically much higher than .270

In 2019, our last full season, the worst BABIP in the league was .280, and 15th in the league was .297.

Last year, 15th was still .291, but last was .245 (Cincy had atrocious luck)
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are there metrics which mitigate those babip's based on d shifts? ie a non-power (esp) pull hitter like josh naylor can a) hit the ball, b) hit the ball hard - yet with 3 IFs on the right side his % of base hits would be expected to be lower?
 
xmasbuck said:
are there metrics which mitigate those babip's based on d shifts? ie a non-power (esp) pull hitter like josh naylor can a) hit the ball, b) hit the ball hard - yet with 3 IFs on the right side his % of base hits would be expected to be lower?
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BABIP is just batting average on balls in play. Yes, some guys are more likely to have higher or lower BABIP based on how and where they hit the ball.

However, over time, it's likely to stay within a certain range.

If you look at the last 10 years, all but two batters with 2000+ PA falls between .250 and .350 (Yelich at .356 and Teixeira at .240).

In a given year, there's a little more fluctuation. However, even then, guys who consistently hit the ball hard don't typically end up with an extremely low BABIP.

ETA: Also, Naylor isn't a pull hitter. He's actually hit the ball to the opposite field more than he's pulled it this year.
 
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thanks - so the mass of numbers incorporate defensive positioning
 
Andrew Scheid said:
Anyone here concerned with Plesac?
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My only concern is that history is filled with pitchers that had a nice run of success before settling back to be pretty "meh" the rest of their careers. The short season last year gave all pitchers a chance to have that good run without enough time for a pull back. I want to see what him and Civale look like over 160+ innings before I make a judgment as to what they really are.
 
Andrew Scheid said:
Anyone here concerned with Plesac?
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I was before the season and even more so now. That 4.4+ career FIP and xFIP hinted at negative regression. Tough to repeat 92% LOB and 224 BABIP. Plus, he's already had TJ.

If Civale is mini Kluber, Plesac's mini Clevinger
 
Plesac's xFIP is 3.67 as opposed to 3.50 last year. His strikeouts are down, from 9.27 last year to 6.75. He's giving up a lot fewer fly balls (30.2% versus 40.7%) and more ground balls (50.8% versus 39.3%).

What's killing him is his BABIP, which went from .224 last year to .328 so far this year. Also, batters are hitting more balls to center this year, 36.5% against 23.9% last year.

So batters are hitting a lot more balls on the ground and up the middle as opposed to last year when he was getting more fly balls. The result is a lot more balls are falling in for hits. Since he's striking out significantly fewer hitters there are more balls in play and they are finding holes at a high rate.

I don't know if he would have been able to sustain that .224 BABIP over a full season last year and I assume he'll improve on that .328 this year. Also, he had the one disastrous start that skewed his numbers. I'm not sure why hitters are making better contact this year and putting more balls on the ground. According to Statcast his average launch angle is down from about 17 degrees to about 11 degrees and his hard hit percentage is up from 32% to 45%.

I don't know if the hitters have changed their approach but they're hitting the ball harder, at a lower angle, and up the middle.
 
Wham with the Right Hand said:
Plesac's xFIP is 3.67 as opposed to 3.50 last year. His strikeouts are down, from 9.27 last year to 6.75. He's giving up a lot fewer fly balls (30.2% versus 40.7%) and more ground balls (50.8% versus 39.3%).

What's killing him is his BABIP, which went from .224 last year to .328 so far this year. Also, batters are hitting more balls to center this year, 36.5% against 23.9% last year.

So batters are hitting a lot more balls on the ground and up the middle as opposed to last year when he was getting more fly balls. The result is a lot more balls are falling in for hits. Since he's striking out significantly fewer hitters there are more balls in play and they are finding holes at a high rate.

I don't know if he would have been able to sustain that .224 BABIP over a full season last year and I assume he'll improve on that .328 this year. Also, he had the one disastrous start that skewed his numbers. I'm not sure why hitters are making better contact this year and putting more balls on the ground. According to Statcast his average launch angle is down from about 17 degrees to about 11 degrees and his hard hit percentage is up from 32% to 45%.

I don't know if the hitters have changed their approach but they're hitting the ball harder, at a lower angle, and up the middle.
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And that's why SSS is very noisy. According to that, he's been better than Civale this season and I think we can all agree that has not been the case. Over a larger sample (career), his xFIP stabilizes and in line with FIP. The outlier was the ERA, which is now catching up.
 
Plesac basically has just one season of starts under his belt right now despite pitching across three seasons.

He has solid raw numbers, but has outpitched his peripherals by a noticeable margin (not huge, just enough that it’s noticeable).
33 GS
189.2 IP
7.54 K/9
2.28 BB/9
3.65 ERA
4.40 FIP
4.47 xFIP

This year will be interesting. As I’ve said before (and got lambasted), we’ll have a much better idea of what kind of pitcher Plesac will be by the end of this year.

My guess is he’ll be in that Rick Porcello/Masahiro Tanaka tier and keep his ERA right around 4 (sometimes worse, sometimes better) while eating almost 200 innings/year.
 
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Derek said:
Plesac basically has just one season of starts under his belt right now despite pitching across three seasons.

He has solid raw numbers, and outpitched his peripherals by a noticeable margin (not huge, just enough that it’s noticeable).
33 GS
189.2 IP
7.54 K/9
2.28 BB/9
3.65 ERA
4.40 FIP
4.47 xFIP

This year will be interesting. As I’ve said before (and got lambasted), we’ll have a much better idea of what kind of pitcher Plesac will be by the end of this year.

My guess is he’ll be in that Rick Porcello/Masahiro Tanaka tier and keep his ERA right around 4 (sometimes worse, sometimes better) while eating almost 200 innings/year.
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..and turns into Cy Young reincarnate when facing anyone but the Sox..
 
Derek said:
BABIP is just batting average on balls in play. Yes, some guys are more likely to have higher or lower BABIP based on how and where they hit the ball.

However, over time, it's likely to stay within a certain range.

If you look at the last 10 years, all but two batters with 2000+ PA falls between .250 and .350 (Yelich at .356 and Teixeira at .240).

In a given year, there's a little more fluctuation. However, even then, guys who consistently hit the ball hard don't typically end up with an extremely low BABIP.

ETA: Also, Naylor isn't a pull hitter. He's actually hit the ball to the opposite field more than he's pulled it this year.
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The Moneyball chapter about the BABIP "revelation" in the SABR community is great. Until then, it was always assumed that pitchers greatly controlled the outcome of balls in play. But the reality is that the results were much closer between good and bad pitchers than anyone understood. Be interesting to see if the constant refinements in shifts will impact the BABIP results as there does seem to be predictable areas of where balls in play end up so the better defensive alignment will likely damage some hitters much more. If Naylor never develops power, at least spraying the ball won't hurt.
 
Wham with the Right Hand said:
We appear to be catching them at a good time although I was hoping Donaldson would be out longer.
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There's not a chance in hell we're catching the Twins at a good time. Any good team--and the Twins are very good--that has lost 9 of 10 games is not anyone I want to play. Heck, the Yankees were playing MUCH worse than the Twins were, and I didn't want to play them either. When you play teams like that and you give them hope--like we did the Yankees tonight, not stepping on their neck when we had the chance--well, they're going to feel like their fortunes have turned. Now we've really got our work cut out for us.
 
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