Carl Last Year

We've discussed Peter Bendix and Chris Dutton's great work on BABIP before. When I was looking over the players that's xBABIP were extremely out of line with their actual BABIP, I was pleased to see CC's name at the top of the list for unlucky players.

Last year CC's BABIP (the way they define it) was .294, but his xBABIP was .330. If he had neutral luck and his BABIp alligned with this .330 figure, then his average would have gone up from .273 to .303. I also divied up the added hits based on how they broke down between 2B/3B for the year. His new slash line would be .303/.345/.442/.787.

With this added offense, Carl would have been an even more valuable player. His wOBA last year was .320 and would have been .348 in the scenario I outlined above. Last year CC was worth 3 wins. If he had had neutral luck, then he would have been worth over 4.72 wins. That doesn't even include any gains he might have had in baserunning if he had been on-base more or not hampered by injury.

Carl definietly had a tough year last year. Between injury and luck, Carl seemed to put in his worst year since his first full season. Hopefully, next year he will bounce back and be a .350 wOBA guy with great defense. If he does that for 600 PAs he'll be worth nearly 5 wins. He'll also be a huge bargain considering he'd earn $20 million and only make $8.25.