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xBABIP Adjusted Lines for Rays Batters in 2009

Thanks to B Ray for posting the link to Chris Dutton's xBABIP calculator.  I wanted to take a look at which guys posted an actual BABIP that was close to or way off from their xBABIP.  As usual, this led me down some other interesting roads to get an idea of which guys over/under performed their expected lines.  First off, here is a link to the google.doc HERE and a link to the .xls download:   xBABIP Corrected Statistics

Let's start by looking at the xBABIP vs. Actual BABIP, sorted by highest xBABIP, for all Rays with >=30 AB:

Player
 xBABIP 
 BABIP 
Carl Crawford
B.J. Upton
Ben Zobrist
Jason Bartlett
Gabe Gross
Akinori Iwamura
Michel Hernandez
Evan Longoria
Willy Aybar
Fernando Perez
Reid Brignac
Gregg Zaun
Pat Burrell
Gabe Kapler
Joe Dillon
Carlos Pena
Dioner Navarro
Matt Joyce
    0.356
    0.338
    0.327
    0.327
    0.324
    0.324
    0.323
    0.322
    0.318
    0.317
    0.307
    0.306
    0.302
    0.299
    0.296
    0.292
    0.292
    0.291
   0.346
   0.312
   0.330
   0.368
   0.294
   0.355
   0.267
   0.319
   0.274
   0.304
   0.348
   0.319
   0.276
   0.259
   0.320
   0.253
   0.233
   0.136

More fun stuff continues, after the jump.

Star-divide

It makes sense that the guys that you think of as speed guys have the higher xBABIP's, while the inverse is true for some of the slower guys.  I think you can get a good idea of guys that seemed overly lucky (Bartlett, Iwamura) and those that were unlucky (Pena, Navarro, Upton) just by giving the list a quick perusal.  To extend on this, we can assume that the difference between the xBABIP and BABIP times AB should give an idea of how many hits a guy was robbed of or lucked into:

Player
AB
Diff
#H
Dioner Navarro
Carlos Pena
B.J. Upton
Willy Aybar
Pat Burrell
Gabe Gross
Gabe Kapler
Carl Crawford
Michel Hernandez
Matt Joyce
Evan Longoria
Fernando Perez
Joe Dillon
Gregg Zaun
Ben Zobrist
Reid Brignac
Akinori Iwamura
Jason Bartlett
376
471
560
296
412
282
205
606
99
32
584
34
30
94
501
90
231
500
-0.059
-0.039
-0.026
-0.044
-0.026
-0.030
-0.040
-0.010
-0.056
-0.155
-0.003
-0.013
0.024
0.013
0.003
0.041
0.031
0.041
-22
-18
-15
-13
-11
-8
-8
-6
-6
-5
-2
0
1
1
2
4
7
21

In this case, a negative number implies that the batter was robbed of that many hits, conversely, a positive number shows how many the batter lucked into.  It looks like a lot more of our guys were unlucky than lucky at first glance.  So what does this all mean to some of the basic statistics?  First off, here are the players' actual slash line statistics from 2009:

Player
AVG OBP SLG OPS
Ben Zobrist
Carlos Pena
Evan Longoria
Jason Bartlett
Carl Crawford
Gregg Zaun
Joe Dillon
Matt Joyce
Gabe Kapler
Willy Aybar
Reid Brignac
Akinori Iwamura
B.J. Upton
Pat Burrell
Gabe Gross
Michel Hernandez
Dioner Navarro
Fernando Perez
 0.297   0.405   0.543   0.948
 0.227   0.356   0.537   0.893
 0.281   0.364   0.526   0.890
 0.320   0.389   0.490   0.879
 0.305   0.364   0.452   0.816
 0.287   0.323   0.489   0.812
 0.300   0.400   0.400   0.800
 0.188   0.270   0.500   0.770
 0.239   0.329   0.439   0.768
 0.253   0.331   0.416   0.747
 0.278   0.301   0.444   0.745
 0.290   0.355   0.390   0.745
 0.241   0.313   0.373   0.686
 0.221   0.315   0.367   0.682
 0.227   0.326   0.355   0.681
 0.242   0.292   0.323   0.615
 0.218   0.261   0.322   0.583
 0.206   0.206   0.206   0.412

If we assume that every one of the hits that a player was robbed or lucky on was a single, then we can adjust these to show what each batter should have looked like:

Player
AVG OBP SLG OPS
Ben Zobrist
Carlos Pena
Evan Longoria
Jason Bartlett
Carl Crawford
Gregg Zaun
Joe Dillon
Matt Joyce
Gabe Kapler
Willy Aybar
Reid Brignac
Akinori Iwamura
B.J. Upton
Pat Burrell
Gabe Gross
Michel Hernandez
Dioner Navarro
Fernando Perez
   0.294    0.402    0.540    0.942
   0.266    0.388    0.576    0.965
   0.284    0.366    0.529    0.895
   0.279    0.353    0.449    0.802
   0.315    0.373    0.462    0.835
   0.274    0.311    0.476    0.787
   0.276    0.379    0.376    0.755
   0.343    0.404    0.655    1.059
   0.279    0.364    0.479    0.843
   0.297    0.370    0.460    0.830
   0.237    0.261    0.403    0.665
   0.259    0.328    0.359    0.686
   0.267    0.336    0.399    0.736
   0.247    0.338    0.393    0.730
   0.257    0.352    0.385    0.737
   0.298    0.345    0.379    0.724
   0.277    0.316    0.381    0.697
   0.219    0.219    0.219    0.438

This can be a lot to try to sort through, so lets just take a look at actual wOBA (AwOBA) vs. expected wOBA (XwOBA):

Player XwOBA AwOBA
Matt Joyce
Ben Zobrist
Carlos Pena
Evan Longoria
Carl Crawford
Gabe Kapler
Willy Aybar
Joe Dillon
Jason Bartlett
Gregg Zaun
Gabe Gross
B.J. Upton
Pat Burrell
Michel Hernandez
Akinori Iwamura
Dioner Navarro
Reid Brignac
Fernando Perez
   0.440
   0.398
   0.389
   0.366
   0.363
   0.359
   0.357
   0.347
   0.345
   0.337
   0.328
   0.325
   0.321
   0.321
   0.307
   0.300
   0.284
   0.191
   0.319
   0.400
   0.360
   0.364
   0.355
   0.328
   0.322
   0.366
   0.377
   0.349
   0.304
   0.304
   0.301
   0.274
   0.331
   0.251
   0.320
   0.180

Bear in mind, this is the original formula for wOBA that doesn't include stolen base numbers.  I have omitted ROE as well. 

Guys that appear to benefit quite a bit are Carlos Pena, Gabe Kapler, Willy Aybar, Gabe Gross, B.J. Upton, Pat Burrell, and Dioner Navarro.  Guys that seem like they were quite a bit lucky are Jason Bartlett, Gregg Zaun (includes time with Tampa Bay and Baltimore), and Akinori Iwamura.  Weird that 2 of those guys are now gone.  Also, check out Matty Joyce doing a Pujols!  IF ONLY WE ACTUALLY PLAYED HIM11!!!!111 To correct for asinine statements like these that are sure to come, we can look at wRAA, which will factor in PA as well as the league average wOBA of .321:

Player XwRAA AwRAA
Carlos Pena
Ben Zobrist
Evan Longoria
Carl Crawford
Jason Bartlett
Willy Aybar
Gabe Kapler
Matt Joyce
Gabe Gross
Gregg Zaun
Pat Burrell
B.J. Upton
Joe Dillon
Michel Hernandez
Reid Brignac
Akinori Iwamura
Fernando Perez
Dioner Navarro
33.9
40.0
26.3
24.8
11.6
10.5
7.9
3.8
1.9
1.4
0.1
2.1
0.8
0.0
-3.0
-3.3
-3.9
-7.5
19.6
41.2
24.9
20.1
27.7
0.3
1.5
-0.1
-4.7
2.4
-8.3
-9.3
1.4
-4.3
-0.1
2.3
-4.3
-24.9

Suddenly Navi does not look as bad, once we've stripped some of the unluckiness out of his balls in play.  Same can be said for Pena, who now looks like a stud, contributing 4.25 wins with his bat alone.  Another reoccurring theme is the Jason Bartlett normalization.  It suddenly appears that a hot-shot rookie that plays substantially better defense could replicate those runs.  Lastly, we can just look at the difference of the wRAA's as a kind of continuum:

Wraaluckiness_medium

via i273.photobucket.com

Click to embiggen

(Updated XwRAA & Continuum at 11:14 on 1/8/10)

Something that I didn't touch on throughout this was the fact that guys like Crawford, Longoria, and Zobrist a.k.a. THE CORE, were not relatively lucky either way.  They had genuinely good to great seasons according to this.  If this statistic has any predictive value then we can look forward to more of the same next year.  Also, I just realized that I forgot to include Kelly Shoppach, so I will post some of his relevant items in the comments.  Haters wanna hate?

Here are the Kelly Shoppach lines, I apologize for not doing this in the main stuff, but I'm not creating this post all over again.

xBABIP 0.328
BABIP 0.286
Diff -0.042
#H -11
aAVG 0.214
aOBP 0.335
aSLG 0.399
aOPS 0.735
awOBA 0.327
awRAA 1.6
eAVG 0.256
eOBP 0.370
eSLG 0.441
eOPS 0.811
ewOBA 0.358
ewRAA 10.5
DiffwRAA 8.9

  As you can see, Shopp was quite a bit unlucky in 2009.  Hopefully, he has a big bounce-back as a 0.811 OPS out of the catcher spot could really put this team over the top.

5 recs  |  Comment 21 comments |

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Good to see B.J. Upton with all his struggles would've been ~league average

With everything normalized. I think I get this feeling every offseason, but I’m really excited to see Upton in 2010. No surgery this offseason, will participate from day 1, started to click a bit in September. Of course, I thought he was going to go 30/30 in ’08 and then rebound in ’09 and we know what happened. Maybe the time is NOW!

www.draysbay.com, www.beyondtheboxscore.com, Twitter @trancel

by Tommy Rancel on Jan 8, 2010 7:48 AM EST via mobile reply actions  

Well, in all fairness, that league average is for all batters, CF is typically not a position of offensive powerhouses.

As I showed in THIS POST, the average AL CF hit at a wOBA of .327. League-average bat, with all-world glove makes for quite the player. I, as well, cannot wait to see him back as a vital cog of this team. I agree, that it just goes to show, how bad he was at the dish last year.

I'm a writer.

by Andy Hellicksonstine on Jan 8, 2010 9:20 AM EST up reply actions  

I use to share your optimism

However I am starting to think his 24HR was the exception not the rule. His HR/FB% that season was nearly 20%! I think his true talent is 13-18 HR. He can still be a stud though with his other skills.

P.S. I still hope I am wrong.

by mketchen on Jan 8, 2010 3:00 PM EST up reply actions  

Go watch the 08' ALDS/ALCS highlights, he was absolutely obliterating the ball.

08’ for most of the season his was tentative with his swing to save his shoulder, he opened up for the playoffs and thats what happened.

09’ he got a pretty late start and I think was still in recovery mode for a bunch of it.

No question 2010 is a year he is going to have a lot of pressure to perform, I think he certainly has the power and speed for 30/30 when he is healthy.

by twenty5psi on Jan 8, 2010 4:56 PM EST up reply actions  

Nice work Hellicksonstine

Now its my turn to piss on the Navi expectations since he will be in less favorable handedness situations if he is on the opening day roster. Cool stuff though.

Follow Me on Twitter @FreeZorilla

by FreeZorilla on Jan 8, 2010 7:54 AM EST reply actions  

Excellent stuff

For some reason, this really makes me anxious to have the season start already. I love the make-up of this team and I want to see them in action already. How many days until pitchers and catchers? Too many…

"I never threw an illegal pitch. The trouble is, once in a while I toss one that ain't never been seen by this generation." - Satchel Paige

by Steve Slowinski on Jan 8, 2010 9:45 AM EST reply actions  

Based on last season's pre-season projections

I had assumed that many Rays underperformed their true talent level. I’ve been waiting for this season to start since last season ended, and now that I’ve got a job as a school teacher, I get summers off so GAMES ALL THE TIME. So excited.

by staplemaniac on Jan 8, 2010 11:28 AM EST up reply actions  

Here is updated WAR (All baserunning has been omitted)

Name WAR
Ben Zobrist 8.5
Evan Longoria 6.9
Carl Crawford 5.8
B.J. Upton 3.6
Jason Bartlett 3.1
Carlos Pena 2.6
Gabe Kapler 1.8
Gabe Gross 1.5
Dioner Navarro 1.5
Willy Aybar 1.2
Gregg Zaun 0.7
Akinori Iwamura 0.7
Michel Hernandez 0.6
Pat Burrell 0.3
Matt Joyce 0.2
Joe Dillon 0.1
Reid Brignac 0.0
Fernando Perez -0.1

I'm a writer.

by Andy Hellicksonstine on Jan 8, 2010 11:27 AM EST reply actions  

Is that adjusted?

I feel like Pena should have been worth more than that.

by staplemaniac on Jan 8, 2010 11:32 AM EST up reply actions  

Good catch, not sure how I missed that one

Name WAR
Ben Zobrist 8.5
Evan Longoria 6.9
Carl Crawford 5.8
Carlos Pena 3.8
B.J. Upton 3.6
Jason Bartlett 3.1
Gabe Kapler 1.8
Gabe Gross 1.5
Dioner Navarro 1.5
Willy Aybar 1.2
Gregg Zaun 0.7
Akinori Iwamura 0.7
Michel Hernandez 0.6
Pat Burrell 0.3
Matt Joyce 0.2
Joe Dillon 0.1
Reid Brignac 0.0
Fernando Perez -0.1

I'm a writer.

by Andy Hellicksonstine on Jan 8, 2010 11:40 AM EST up reply actions  

Great read

Next season should be fun.

I just can’t help but think there is a GM out there who wants to trade us his top prospects for a 30yo SS coming off of a .320 BA season who still has a rep as a defensive whiz and is under team control for the next 2 seasons? Moore? Sabean? Anybody?

by ReyL on Jan 8, 2010 11:56 AM EST reply actions  

Wow! Great work Hellicksonstone!

You’ve taken this metric to great lengths! I love it!

Hooray for CubsStats.blogspot.com !

by B Ray on Jan 9, 2010 2:32 AM EST reply actions  

Well Pena's xBABIP is somewhat misleading

The shift probably results in a lower true BABIP for him than what xBABIP would suggest

by benderbrodriguez on Jan 10, 2010 2:14 PM EST reply actions  

We can still expect some regression back up though in terms of his batting average and whatnot.

by benderbrodriguez on Jan 10, 2010 7:44 PM EST up reply actions  

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