Line Drives, BABIP, and Minute Maid Park

by clack on Jan 7, 2009 11:21 PM CST

Here is an interesting article at Fangraphs which touches on all of the subjects in the title of this post. The author demonstrates that line drive rates and Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) vary by ballpark. The article questions the validity of comparing the "Line Drive % + .12" rule of thumb to BABIP rates. However, in the course of doing so, the article identifies significant differences in line drive rates by ballpark.

This, in itself, is intriguing. And Minute Maid Park is at ground zero of this phenomona. As stated in the article:

Four of the lowest six LD rates belong to Michael Bourn, Geoff Blum, Ty Wigginton and Hunter Pence, and Minute Maid Park has the second lowest LD park factor at 0.82. This is not saying that Houston batters hit fewer line drives - it’s that Houston and it opponents both have 18% fewer balls scored as liners in Houston than they do on the road.

Why? Well that is the intrigue I mentioned. Could this amount to human bias in the coding of batted balls as line drive, flyball, etc. ? Are factors like the batting background, atmospheric conditions, foul territory, and the like causing differences among ballparks?

In some previous posts regarding Hunter Pence, I expressed concern about his seemingly depressed line drive rate this year. Now I see that maybe this has as much to do with the ballpark as it does Pence's skill.

The article derives a simple linear equation using line drive, flyball, and groundball rates as variables which proves to be very accurate at predicting hitters' BABIP. However, when the formula is turned around to predict pitchers' BABIP, he finds that certain pitchers consistently beat the prediction:

Even so, some pitchers consistently defy the estimates. Roger Clemens, Brian Bannister, Chien-Ming Wang, Carlos Zambrano, Dan Haren, Brandon Webb, Chris Young and Greg Maddux all do at least .020 better than estimated. On the other end, Zach Duke, Sidney Ponson and Glendon Rusch all under perform by at least .020. Is it the ballpark? Is it their defense? The batters they faced? Or is it their own skill or lack of it?

The author of this article seems to be finding that the normally accepted precepts of DIPS are more nuanced than it is often presented. He hopes to present more detailed research in the future which disaggregates batted ball types and fielding conditons by ballpark in more detail.

This may or may not totally bore you. The article is somewat dense to read. But I have to say that this article seems to be challenging accepted views on BABIP and DIPS in an interesting way.

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That's a really interesting finding

But I take issue with the DIPS theory Cartwright presents. Sure, Voros proposed the “pitcher’s have zero control” theory, but it really has become extremely nuanced leading to the DIPS 3.0 method I used last year, or Stat Corner’s tRA method.

I’m interested to what light can be shed about Houston’s LD rates. I wonder if we can get our hands on player level, home/road LD rate stats? That could really answer some questions about MMP suppressing LD’s.

The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

by Stephen Higdon on Jan 7, 2009 11:51 PM CST reply actions

Insane

I mean, that’s really amazing. It’s fairly easy to understand what makes a park hitter or pitcher friendly.

But this just seems weird. He first mentions the Metrodome and MMP as parks that depress LD%, so one might think it has to do with air conditioning. But the third-ranked LD depressor is Anaheim, then Turner and Fenway. How very odd.

by Only_A_Lad on Jan 8, 2009 2:06 AM CST reply actions

step one for the author (it seems to me)

Find the source of raw data, BIS, retrosheet, gameday or otherwise and compare with another source if it exists.

I have to say, I thought it was kind of a joke when some new statistic would refer to the consideration of “velocity” to describe some guy looking at a video and deciding which category to stick a batted ball in.

by ol Pete on Jan 8, 2009 7:44 AM CST reply actions

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