You left that out. Supporting the BABIP conclusion.

There’s no question that BABIP alone can’t tell the whole story, but it does tell quite a bit. He was getting hits last year, that he won’t get in the future. Like Stephen said, his contact rate has been just about the same, so it goes to show that BABIP is a pretty big part of his “story” this year. His LD, as per Yahoo! is 11.7. http://sports.yahoo.com/fantasy/mlb/news?slug=ys-sabertable_hitters_082608

We could harp all day and all night about Hunter and plate discipline. Odds are, he will never develop into the patient “Moneyball” type hitter that stat-heads (myself included) love. Doesn’t mean that he can’t develop into a fine hitter. Perhaps his OBP never rises above .340, but I think if he becomes a Corey Hart type player, we should all be happy. A .340 OBP and a .500 SLG seems more than attainable for someone as talented as Pence is. He needs to improve at a number of things, some of which he doesn’t have a whole lot of control over. However, I’m confident he’ll control what he can, and the numbers that he can’t will adjust in the 2009 season. Hardball is telling us that the numbers may already start adjusting in these last 30 games.

If you knew that it wasn’t valid to compare Pence to Berkman, why do it at all? All it does is skew the analysis in an attempt bolster you nitpicking some small facet of what the post was about. It was actually about using an in-season MARCELS calculation to what we should expect from Hunter Pence moving forward. It was to suggest that we should expect his numbers to improve. We’re actually seeing that right before our eyes, but the combination legitimizes the improvement. The BABIP point was one possible explanation and a very valid one. I mean the guy sported a .380 BABIP last year so how does it fall .090 points? Comparing two totally disimilar players swing % (which has nothing to do with the point you were nitpicking) doesn’t answer the question. It does take it off in a totally different tangent, but again, the method doesn’t serve any purpose.

What about…Hunter Pence last year and this year? If his plate discipline is the problem, as you suggested, you should probably expect to see some distinct variations in the plate discipline measures.

However, Pence has barely altered his swing % on of the different measures you’ve thrown out there and the main point to consider, you didn’t though, is that his contact rate is the same.

Out of Zone Swing %
2007: 29.8
2008: 31.83%

In Zone Swing %
53.81%
51.96%

Swing %
53.81%
51.96%

Out Zone Contact%
52.07%
56.76%

Zone Contact%
85.09%
85.40%

Contact %
2007: 76.46
2008: 76.76%

His K% and BB% have actually gotten slightly better (10ths of a percent). So what is the difference. Can the 4% increase in out of zone contact be attributed to a .090 drop in BABIP? I mean, can .04 changed in a component be charged with taking BABIP down .090? It might be, but you didn’t even consider it. He has rolled over on a lot of bad balls, but he also swung at a lot of bad balls last year, so I don’t think that’s “the issue”. Clearly, though, he could use some more discipline.

His LD% has fallen off sharply and his IF% has increased 2, his FB is up 3, and his GB is up 2%. So he’s not making the same contact he was last year. He certainly would do better to lay off the outside stuff, but again, he also made a lot of contact with it last year. I’d love to see his numbers on sharply hit GB because I bet he has a ton of them. I’d also expect to see those turn into LD’s as he makes the full adjustment to MLB pitching. While “luck” might not the sole factor in a decrease in BABIP, the difference between hitting a sharp grounder and a LD aren’t that much at the contact point. I expect that we’ll see more LD’s and subsequently an increase of his BABIP next year.

While the expected BABIP stat is quick, don’t you think it probably isn’t the most exacting measure out there? The actual expected BABIP formulas are far more complex and account for various types of batted balls, as well as K rates, HR rates, etc.

Whatever the root cause is, we expect that Pence has a true talent level somewhere the gap between last year’s performance and this year’s. That’s what the MARCEL is telling us. That’s what the post was about.

the Braun comparison. I didn’t even check out your comment when I mentioned Corey Hart as a potential player that Hunter could become. And yes, he’s not running into bad luck per se, as far as hard hit balls being caught. But, after a season where his BABIP was above .370, I couldn’t not mention the fact that he’s come back down to earth in that category. And as of now, has a below average BABIP. That’s all.

He seems to be taking more outside pitches that he used to swing at. That improvement, which is just my perception, also seems to be producing better results for him.