Comments on: BABIP Splits

By: Rosette Anderholm

Rosette Anderholm — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:18:29 +0000

hey there and thank you for the information you have — I have undoubtedly discovered new things from your blog. I nonetheless discovered some onsite difficulties browsing this site. I have been wondering whether your web hosting service is fine? Not I am filing a complaint, however slow loading times might likely influence your position in yahoo and can damage your excellent articles on this blog. Well I’m adding this Rss feed to my personal feed reader and can look out for even more of your helpful content..

By: Daniel Knil

Daniel Knil — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 13:16:30 +0000

Sagt mal, was ich schon immer mal wissen wollte: Hei?t es der Blog oder das Blog? Ich bin echt *verwirrt*! Helft mir. LG

By: AM

AM — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:31:56 +0000

@Scott–Are away ballplayers really away from their girlfriends? Maybe they aren’t, and their hitting goes down as a consequence.

By: Joker

Joker — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:15:17 +0000

For a discussion elsewhere, to calculate .302 and .295, did you simply average the 14 year-end results or did you average all batted balls over the 14 years?

By: Fresh Hops

Fresh Hops — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:13:35 +0000

“(Personally I prefer to express it as (K-BB)/G by multiplying by 40 — scale is more intuitive.)”

On a related note, I wish everyone would go the THT system for measuring K and BB rates, which is K/PA and BB/PA times the league average number of batters in each game, which gives a number similar to K/9 and BB/9 but doesn’t have the flaws of the per inning system (most notably, outs and hence innings are a function of fielding defense as well as pitching and so aren’t really DIPS.)

Personally, if I’m evaluating a pitcher, I use FIP, tRA, xFIP or something and avoid evaulating without considering the third true outcome; it’s awfully important and the info is so available it’s almost fallacious not to look at it.

By: MattS

MattS — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 06:37:25 +0000

http://www.thegoodphight.com/2008/7/3/564256/homefield-advantage

Have a look at this– I did it last summer. I pointed out this and several other very distinct differences between BABIP– the ratios of triples:doubles is very very different at home and on the road. Everything is affected, even SB% and HBP are statistically significantly different at home/away.

Certainly a large difference in HFA is the batter’s eye and the mound. K/BB ratios are very different and that seems to be a source of things. HFA is much larger for teams that play each other less– even controlling for distance traveled.

I also did a study of which games of the series HFA was largest for. I thought it was the earliest game due to jetlag/travel days/etc., but it was actually the MIDDLE game that had the largest HFA. Have a look at that too if you’re interested:

http://www.thegoodphight.com/2008/8/17/595739/home-team-dominance-the-mi

By: KJOK

KJOK — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:44:28 +0000

Nice article. I had an article along the same theme here:

http://seamheads.com/blog/2008/10/24/how-the-home-team-wins/

and have a follow-up in the works, which will address some of the issues raised in comments above.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:32:19 +0000

Dave are there any noticeable home/away gaps at different parks? E.g. the Boston pitchers at Fenway have a more significant BABIP reduction compared to their road starts?

It would be interesting to see if certain teams (with particular rosters) had a greater home field advantage in BABIP than others.

By: salb918

salb918 — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:09:35 +0000

Guy – thanks for the link. Don’t know how I missed it.

So, there may be a home field advantage for infield grounders. As you noted, it need not exclude the fielding explanation. But one could argue that the pitcher is “giving up” easier to field ground balls, if there is such a thing.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:31:42 +0000

I’ve always bought into Jeff’s idea – the effect of travel. Not only that but all of the other distractions of being on the road – a lot of new things to do; being away from the wives and girlfriends – you know. If the home field advantage in baseball were only due to baseball things (familiarity of the field, official scorers, batting background, etc.) then the explanation wouldn’t do anything to help explain why there are also home field advantages in basketball, football and hockey. The travel is really the only common element. The effect of travel will translate into baseball things – poorer fielding, worse batting eye, etc., but I think those things are the effect and not the cause.