I’m back with the triumphant return of the hitter side of BABIP. If you recall from the last full week of Leaders & Laggards articles, this metric was curiously missing. I will now come out and admit the truth- I had the whole article all typed up when suddenly I clicked something, and 95% of it disappeared. Needless to say, I was quite annoyed and didn’t have the energy to retype it all again. So we welcome back hitter BABIP with open arms as we’ve gone almost a month without it.

 
How does Matt Holliday continue to post way above average BABIPs? Last year he was at .380, yet that came with just a 19.8% LD rate. This year at least it’s up to 22.1%, but that’s still nowhere close to where you’d expect it to be given a .384 BABIP. Looking at his splits, we see that his home BABIP is above .400, but his away BABIP is still well above .300. Obviously he’s benefiting from Coors, but he’s still putting up above league average BABIPs on the road. Anyhow, this gives me a chance to give Holliday owners some early advice if he’s traded by the Rockies- Although it may be obvious, I’ve actually been having an argument back and forth with a league mate who disagrees, but you MUST trade him immediately for as close to full value as possible if he leaves Coors. Of all the owners in your league, you’ve got to think there’s one guy who doesn’t look at Holliday’s home/road splits and won’t understand the impact that leaving Coors will have on his performance. Let’s see what he’s done in his career at home and on the road, assuming a 600 AB pace:

 
In a standard 12-team mixed league, he goes from being about a $45 player at home to $19 on the road. Clearly he still has good value on the road because of his SBs, but he goes from an elite fantasy player to a Torii Hunter clone if he’s traded.

Matt Kemp’s average has finally fallen below .300, yet his BABIP is still a very high .381. He’s hitting line drives though at a very good 25.8% clip, so with that and Kemp’s good power/speed skills, we could believe that his current BABIP is actually legit. However, that LD% ranks 3rd in all of baseball, so although it’s certainly possible that he continues at that rate, the percentage play is to bet that it falls, bringing down the BABIP and causing his average to plummet further.

Milton Bradley’s magical season continues, but we knew he wasn’t going to make it through a full season healthy, as he’s been missing games here and there with knee problems. You don’t need me to tell you that he can’t possibly continue at this level of performance, especially given the inflated BABIP, but unfortunately I have a strong feeling that your competitors won’t be willing to give up much for him if you’ve been fortunate enough to own him.

Fred Lewis has been a pleasant surprise for fantasy owners as even on a horrible offense he’s on pace for a 10/28 season with 104 runs scored. The scary thing, however, is his pathetic 72% contact rate. For a guy with below average power, there’s no excuse for striking out so often. Even with a .368 BABIP, he’s still only hitting .279! His line drive rate is only 18.3%, but he hits a ton of ground balls, so let’s be generous and assume a .330 BABIP the rest of the way, all else equal. That would leave him with just a .252 average, cutting into his run scoring and steals potential and making him just a 2-category hitter.  

Adam Jones was a nice sleeper who I drafted in one of my leagues this year, but so far he has a disappointing 5 HRs in 317 ABs. The .281 average has been nice, but I don’t see it being sustainable as his high BABIP and only 18% LD rate attests. He still has 20/15 ability for next year, but he’s got a lot to work on before he has any chance of fulfilling his potential.

 
I’d see if Adam Dunn’s owner is getting sick of his low average as his skills are all in line and he’s actually posting the highest HR/F of his career. His LD% is actually just 16.6% this season, but it’s been 19.7% for his career, so that should increase, providing the catalyst for a small batting average surge.

Jason Giambi’s comeback is even more amazing when you realize he’s doing it with just a .250 BABIP. However, we need to keep in mind that the .307 BABIP in the above table is his career average, but he’s only averaged a .258 BABIP in the past 6 seasons, including this year. So unfortunately for Giambi owners, we really can’t expect to see much improvement on the BABIP or batting average front.

Amazingly, Joe Crede, AL All-Star, is lagging all of baseball with the lowest line drive percentage of just 12.4%. He’s at a respectable 18.2% for his career, so one has got to wonder what has caused Crede’s inability to hit liners this year. Though even given that decent career LD%, his career BABIP is only .263. A major part of that is because he’s an extreme fly ball hitter, and fly balls fall for hits at the lowest rate out of the 3 major batted ball types. This year, Crede is at an insane 55.8% FB rate, which certainly helps his HR totals, but does his BABIP no favors. As such, I don’t see much upside in his batting average.

Rickie Weeks has returned and is sporting the 2nd lowest LD% in baseball with just a 13.2% rate. If he can’t figure out how to get that back up near his career average of 18%, he’s going to disappoint once again in the batting average department. I still believe that one of these years he’s going to have a major breakout to the tune of a 25/30 season while hitting at least .270, but it’s getting quite tiring waiting for him to realize his supposed vast potential.

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