BABIP Leaders and Laggards

by faketeams on May 19, 2008 11:45 AM EDT in Baseball

Here are two lists. The first are those starting pitchers who have been especially unlucky with their BABIP. Also included is the pitcher's K/BB ratio and whether or not they start on Monday or Tuesday.

Starting on Monday or Tuesday would mean the pitcher is in line to get two starts this week. There are off days for most teams, but I didn't wnat to assume these pitchers managers would or wouldn't skip turns. Knowing whether one of these pitchers will pitch twice this week can also assist fantasy owners in deciding who can have a great week by regressing from a high BABIP or who can have an awful week by regressing from a low one.

As for the K/BB, I am trying to see how lucky low BABIp pitchers have been. If the pitcher is walking as many as he strikesout, I will be prone towards thinking the pitcher is going to flame out rapidly (Gavin Floyd, Greg Reynolds, Scott Olsen). If the pitcher has a 2+ ratio (Shaun Marcum), I am prone to believing the regression could be more gradual and that the pitcher is "for real".

With High BABIP pitchers, I tend to think those with low K/BB are just bad pitchers. Higher K/BB could just reflect fewer balls in play and therefore the high BABIP could be expected.

These are just hypotheses because I am not sure of the utility of BABIP the deeper we get into the season. However, it does provide a statistic to back-up what we normally just describe as "luck". What will be interesting is Tuesday's match-up of High BABIP Chris Sampson versus low BABIP Ryan Dempster.

High BABIP Pitchers:

NAME	TEAM	BABIP	K/BB	M/T?
Jorge De La Rosa	COL	0.432	2.14	Yes
Jo-Jo Reyes	ATL	0.415	2.43	No
Matt Belisle	CIN	0.395	1.8	Yes
Nick Adenhart	ANA	0.391	0.31	No
Andrew Miller	FLO	0.39	1.84	No
Miguel Batista	SEA	0.372	1.1	No
Bronson Arroyo	CIN	0.37	2.39	Yes
Chris Sampson	HOU	0.366	2	Yes
Clay Buchholz	BOS	0.365	2.15	No
C.C. Sabathia	CLE	0.364	2.59	Yes

Low BABIP Pitchers:

NAME	TEAM	BABIP	K/BB	M/T?
Justin Masterson	BOS	0.071	1	No
Claudio Vargas	NYN	0.154	1.5	Yes
Shaun Marcum	TOR	0.178	3.06	No
Greg Reynolds	COL	0.179	0.75	No
Armando Galarraga	DET	0.182	1.71	No
Gavin Floyd	CHA	0.193	0.96	No
Darrell Rasner	NYA	0.194	5	No
Ryan Dempster	CHN	0.211	2	Yes
Scott Olsen	FLO	0.214	1.04	No
Aaron Laffey	CLE	0.214	2.8	No
Tim Redding	WAS	0.215	1.7	Yes
Daisuke Matsuzaka	BOS	0.22	1.44	No
Erik Bedard	SEA	0.227	1.95	No
Shawn Estes	SDN	0.227	1.5	No
Matt Albers	BAL	0.23	1.78	No
Daniel Cabrera	BAL	0.237	1.54	Yes
Ben Sheets	MIL	0.241	3.58	No