A Couple of Notes about BABIP

For the uninitiated, a pitchers’ BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is thought to be almost entirely dependent on luck.  On the other hand, a good hitter will often register a better BABIP than, say, a Rey Ordonez.  However, over short periods, an individual player’s trend or change in BABIP can often be attributed to luck (i.e. batted balls are falling in for hits).

With that in mind, I’m not sure that anyone should be too excited about Jeff Francoeur’s first week with the Mets (stat line: 7 games, .345 AVG, 1HR, 7RBIs). 

First off, we’re still waiting for Francoeur’s first walk in a Met  uniform. In fact, he’s yet to reach a 3-0 or 3-1 count.  Also, his BABIP is .360 as a Met compared to .300 in his career.  So, over a week, he’s had a couple of extra balls fall in that he usually does buffing up that batting average.  To his credit though, Francoeur is swinging at fewer first pitches as a Met (42% compared to 48% in his career) and is he seeing more pitches per at bat (3.86 vs. 3.40 in his career).  So maybe he and Hojo are on to something, although at some point he’s going have to draw a walk.

On the topic of BABIP – its also worth noting that David Wright continues to lead the NL in BABIP at .419, well higher than his .345 career mark.  As we’ve pointed out before, Wrights high BABIP (and his resulting high batting average) is compensating somewhat for his lack of power in 2009.

Just for fun though, let’s imagine that Wright was doing everything the same this season except that he was hitting to a .345 BABIP instead of .419 (i.e. if he wasn’t hitting into what is probably good luck). 

If we take away enough hits to make his BABIP .345 this season, Wright would have 86 hits instead of 104.  His batting average would be .250.

We’d all be pretty worried.  And if Wrights luck changes and he doesn’t find his power stroke, he’s going to be a very unproductive baseball player.