Corey Adamson gettin’ lucky down under: BABIP, Part 1

Despite a sizeable support function, Deep in the Hole has always been a one-man band led by the indomitable Defensive Specialist…until now.  Big data is all the rage at the moment so the Defensive Specialist decided it’s about time that some of the behind the scenes number crunchers at Deep in the Hole got air time – after all, we’ll be reporting to these stat geeks at some point in time. Without further ado, the Defensive Specialist would like to welcome Tom Fee to the Deep in the Hole writing team.  Tom begins his Deep in the Hole sabermetric journey by taking an interesting look at BABIP, over to you Tom.

I suck at gambling.

There’s been a trend at the Heat lately where winning games results in trips to the Casino for much fun and frivolity. What I have found is that not only do I lose my money, I lose it immediately.

Later, when sober, I realise the great connection gambling has to baseball. Sometimes that line drive you hit just happens to dart straight into an open glove. That certain triple down the right field line lands just foul, or Mike Trout is the centerfielder.

Mike Trout - where flyballs go to die

Thanks to nerds, there is a statistic that exists to judge exactly how lucky a player is on the baseball field, and it’s called BABIP – or Batting Average on Balls In Play. The rules of BABIP state that on average, if a ball is hit in play then the batter has a 30% chance of being safe and a 70% chance of being out.

In other words, to calculate the stat you calculate a batting average that ignores at bats outside the field of play such as strikeouts, walks and home runs, but include “non at-bats” that are in-play such as sacrifice flies.

 BABIP =              H-HR          

                        AB - K - HR +SF

So, if a hitter puts 10 balls in play and nine of them are outs, he’s been unlucky. Similarly, a batter is lucky if five of these balls land safe.

Looking for aberrations like these might be able to explain some statistical anomalies that exist in the ABL, such as how a guy who hit .111 through 100 plate appearances this season in A ball is leading the league for average.

I am talking of one of my favourite Heat players in San Diego prospect Corey Adamson. Last week, Adamson was knocking on the door of a .400 season after struggling last year for the Fort Wayne Tin Caps. While only having two hits against the Bite this week has lowered this average somewhat, the 20 year old still leads the ABL with an average sitting at an impressive .352.

Corey Adamson

So while a decent hitter picks up a hit for 3 out of 10 balls in play, how many times out of ten does Adamson get a hit?

3.96 times out of ten.

With a BABIP of .396 this season, Adamson is getting an extra hit in every ten balls he puts in play than the average. Out of Adamson’s 160 plate appearances, 124 of these have been in play equating to an extra 12 “lucky” hits, which adds approximately 70 points to his batting average!

So now I have single handedly pish poshed all over one of my favourite player’s outstanding seasons, I’m going to explain why these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.

Plenty of great players have high BABIPs and never have the come down effect. Mike Trout managed a BABIP of .383, which is massive over a 162 game season. Does this mean we should expect Trout to be a one hit wonder and fall back to grace next season? Don’t count on it. Over his four seasons in Professional Baseball, Trout’s averaged a BABIP of .358.

What it means is that some players are good enough to rig the system. Let’s run Corey Adamson through some of the ways a player might be inherently lucky, and why BABIP isn’t the best indicator for all situations:

Corey Adamson might be really fast

If you’re a faster than average runner, you’re going to get to first base safely and beat out quite a few more throws than Prince Fielder. Adamson is known for being zippy around the bases; so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt that Adamson’s elevated BABIP may be partially contributed by some extra speed to gain a few extra hits, but probably not all 12.

SPEED – 3 extra hits this season than average

The ABL isn’t the Major Leagues

Having to endure the 12 errors put up by the Heat’s defence over the four game series this weekend, I can categorically say that the defence of the ABL is not near the standards on display in the Majors.

The Major Leagues BABIP in 2012 = .297

ABL BABIP This Season = .305

Clearly the ABL leaks quite a few more hits on balls in play thanks to a significantly lower standard. This eight-point difference gives Adamson an extra hit this season against the ABL defence than if teams were putting out big leaguers.

POORER LEAGUE DEFENCE – 1 extra hit

Line Drives

It’s doesn’t take a genius to see that hitting a ball really hard is going to get through a gap more often than a roller up the middle. Therefore one of the problems with BABIP is that it doesn’t take into account that a player might be a good contact hitter and be significantly better at hitting line drives over fly balls.

In 2012 a line drive landed safe almost 70% of the time in the Majors, whereas groundballs will only get you to first safely 22% of the time. Unfortunately for batters, line drives are much less common.

In the ABL, only 7.5% of balls in play are line drives, whereas almost 50% are grounders. Adamson’s line drive percentage is much lower than the league average – so you know those four hits I conceded to Adamson above? I’ll have to take a few of them back.

LOWER LINE DRIVE RATE – 3 less hits

	FLY	LD	GB	POPS
League	35.36%	7.56%	48.84%	8.24%
Adamson	33.33%	3.45%	57.47%	5.75%

So to summarise, Adamson’s great league average is not ONLY due to a great amount of skill from a talented youngster, he’s also been riding his luck along the way.But it’s not that bad for Adamson.

The “jibe” I made about him being a .111 hitter in A ball this season should also be brought into context. With a BABIP of only .126 at the Tin Caps, Adamson suffered dearly at the hands of the baseball gods. Not only is labelling Adamson a “.111 hitter” unfair, he’s clearly showing in the ABL why he’s going to be a great player for the Padres this season.

Applying the leveller that BABIP provides, my very rough calculations for Adamson for his polarising luck in America and Australia show a bit more consistency and that at only 20 years old we still have a great prospect on our hands.

	Avg	BABIP	Estimate of Avg if he had a .300 BABIP (Dosage: 1 grain of salt after meals)
ABL	.352	.396	.280
A Ball	.111	.126	.260

And before anyone starts to think the Heat’s been getting lucky with their best hitter, take a look at these BABIPS of some of this season’s luckiest guys:

TEAM	PLAYER	BABIP
CAN	Adam Jacobs	0.556
CAN	Antonio Callaway	0.444
BRI	Hirotoshi Onaka	0.435
CAN	Ryan Stovall	0.413
MEL	Josh Davies	0.408
MEL	Elliot Biddle	0.400
PER	Corey Adamson	0.396
PER	Allan de San Miguel	0.379
SYD	James Robbins	0.378
ADE	Adam Kam	0.375
ADE	Chris Adamson	0.373
CAN	Jeremy Barnes	0.364
CAN	Jack Murphy	0.356
CAN	Kody Hightower	0.353

To come: Who’s been unlucky? Who’s the luckiest team in baseball? Who’s on first?