Fantasy Baseball Statistics: BABIP
BABIP stands for Batting average on balls in play. It is a baseball statistic used to determine how often a hitter puts the ball in play and gets a hit. It is also a measurement of how effectively a pitcher keeps the ball in play with the lowest number of hits.
The popularity explosion of Fantasy Baseball and the availability of every conceivable major league baseball statistic has allowed avid Fantasy Baseball leaguers to breakdown baseball statistics and come up with new measures to evaluate baseball talent, and BABIP is one of these Fantasy Baseball statistics derived from baseball scorecards.
Some fantasy baseball managers use BABIP as an indication of a pitcher having a fluky baseball season. Pitchers with an extremely high BABIP can be expected to improve in the following season, and those pitchers whose BABIPs are extremely low can often be expected to regress in the following season.
The most common calculation of BABIP is (H – HR)/(AB – K – HR + SF).
where H is hits, HR is home runs, AB is at-bats, K is strikeouts, and SF is sacrifice flies. This formula does credit hitters for hitting an inside the park home run (IHR). However, the rarity of IHRs do not skew the overall BABIP percentage.
Some baseball statisticians believe that BABIP can be a misleading statistics. Some believe that breaking down BABIP into delineated categories for line drives, ground balls and fly balls, lead to more precise correlations between player tendencies and at-bat outcomes.
There are other factors that some statisticians believe are essential to making BABIP a reliable baseball statistic for fantasy baseball. One of these is the effect of the homefield park dimensions.
There is no doubt that fantasy baseball statistic formula will continue to deviate. These breakdowns will no doubt increase the interest, popularity and controversy of these fantasy baseball statistics.
Learning about scoring baseball is absolutely essential for becoming a competitive Fantasy Baseball Player.
