This is the first article in a new (hopefully) weekly series looking at the various luck metrics for both pitchers and hitters. Each article will take a look at both the top 10 leaders and laggards of one luck metric, highlighting who I think are good buy low/sell high candidates. Although it isn’t even two weeks into the season yet, I know readers are already itching to find out who’s for real and who isn’t. So I figured it couldn’t hurt to start things up.

First up is pitcher BABIP. For those who aren’t yet down with BABIP and think it’s a follow up to the classic Naughty by Nature tune, O.P.P., here’s a quick primer: BABIP stands for Batting Average on Balls in Play, and it was first shown by Voros McCracken that Major League quality pitchers possess very little difference in skill for controlling hits allowed on balls in play, which excludes HRs. Therefore, a pitcher’s BABIP should regress toward league average, which is usually between .300-.310. Some rare exceptions to the rule have been noted by the many follow up studies to the original landmark article, but in general, a pitcher sporting a BABIP dramatically higher or lower than league average should be expected to see their ERAs improve or worsen, assuming neutral luck in all other metrics.

With that said, let’s move on to the players.

With a career GB% of 58%, Aaron Cook will always have league average ERAs and be more valuable to the Rockies than your fantasy team. His 4/4 K/B ratio in 13 innings this season, though, illustrate that he’s not on his way to an unexpected breakout year.

Justin Germano might be tempting while pitching in cavernous PETCO, but he’s also a member of the non-strikeout team, having only K’d 6 in 13 innings this year. On the plus side, he’s also a groundballer, though not to the degree Cook is.

And last is Edwin Jackson, who was just picked up in my main 12-team mixed league. Some might believe Jackson is finally on his way to reaching his potential, and even Rotoworld is jumping halfway onto the bandwagon with this quote:

Perhaps this is the breakthrough he’s always been capable of, but we doubt that he’ll really turn into a consistent winner this year. It is possible that he could finish with a 4.50 ERA and 180 strikeouts, making him a solid AL-only pitcher.

His walks are slightly down, albeit in such a small sample size, and his K rate is nothing special whatsoever. He’s also only been a slight GB pitcher in his career, but has only induced 36% on the ground in his first 2 starts this season. So far, the underlying skills do not portend a breakout or even a partial one for this year, and I’d still stay far away. His “good start” to the season and miniscule ERA are really the result of the BABIP luck, and not any real improvement in his skills.

I first wrote about Sanchez as part of the Five Players series, which could be found here. He is expected to battle Kevin Correia to keep his rotation spot when Lowry returns, so he has limited time to turn his luck around. I won’t repeat what I wrote in the link above, but the summary is that his strikeout potential, while obviously not as high as his current K/9 suggests, plus AT&T Park to hold in all his flyballs (he’s an extreme flyball pitcher), makes him an intriguing pickup. Control is still a problem, but his skills look quite similar to those of Matt Cain.

Why am I not surprised to see Vazquez already on a bad luck list? This guy seems to show up on the bad luck list of a different metric every single year! Last year shows what his ERA could be when he has neutral luck, which is quite rare for him. If the owner in your league is getting antsy and starting to think maybe last year was the fluke, pounce.

Jurrjens is a nice little sleeper this year. He didn’t dominate the minors, but he posted consistent GB rates in the 50% range, while displaying good control and above average K rates. For such a high BABIP, it’s surprising to still see a 4.38 ERA, but that’s because he hasn’t allowed a HR yet. He might only have a little bit of value in mixed leagues since I don’t see too much upside, but he should be a nice value in NL-Only leagues and should be good for a low-4’s ERA.

Well that wraps it up for the first edition of Leaders & Laggards. The rest of the series will look at HR/F and Strand Rate for pitchers, along with BABIP and HR/F for hitters.

Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.