Pitcher and Hitter Luck: Putting It All in One Place
In fantasy baseball, owners are always looking to take advantage of the lucky and unlucky players by selling high and buying low. I wanted an easy, yet comprehensive stat to find players under or over performing their season’s stats. The final results led me to Luck.
Hitters
For fantasy purposes, the two hitter “luck” factors are BABIP and HR/FB rate. A few extra infield hits or nicely place pop ups that fall and a player’s stats can be inflated. I wanted to show how far a player’s stats deviate from where they should be. Right now, I am only looking at whole season numbers. I will look into per PA values later this week.
Using slyde12′s xBABIP formula, I subtract the players BABIP from their xBABIP. Then I multiply difference by the batted balls in play to get the number of extra non-home run hits the player gets in the season.
To get the projected number of home runs, I took their home runs minus the number of FB times their regressed HR/FB rate. Since home runs are more damaging then regular hits, I doubled the value of them. These numbers (1 for hits, 2 for HRs) line up with the general run values for these types of plays.
The two numbers are added together and then adjusted so the luckiest player has a value of around 10 and the unluckiest has a value of around -10.
Here are 2011′s luckiest and unlucky hitters:
Note: Right now the numbers are not park or league adjusted, but I hope add those factors soon.
| Name | Luck |
| Gonzalez Adrian | 9.8 |
| Bautista Jose | 7.7 |
| Kemp Matt | 7.3 |
| Morse Michael | 7.2 |
| Pence Hunter | 6.3 |
| Escobar Alcides | -7.3 |
| Suzuki Ichiro | -7.5 |
| Janish Paul | -7.6 |
| Figgins Chone | -8.1 |
| Rios Alex | -9.5 |
The luckiest hitter for the season is Adrian Gonzalez. His BABIP (0.381) is about 50 points higher than his xBABIP (0.330). Also, he has a HR/FB% of 16.9%. This value is about twice the league average of 9% HR/FB.
Pitchers
With pitchers, I followed the same format as the hitters with the exception that I also added LOB%. I subtracted the league average BABIP (0.290) and HR/FB% (9%) from the player’s values. Additionally, I subtracted the pitcher’s LOB value from the league’s LOB%. Then, I multiplied the LOB% difference times the number of runners the pitcher allowed to get on base.
Again, I added up all the values, used a multiplier to set them to a -10 (unlucky) to +10 (luckiest) scale. Here is a list of the 2011 luckiest and unluckiest pitchers:
| Name | Luck |
| Weaver Jered | 10.8 |
| Hellickson Jeremy | 10.0 |
| Verlander Justin | 9.1 |
| Beckett Josh | 8.6 |
| Cain Matt | 6.9 |
| Porcello Rick | -7.4 |
| Niese Jonathon | -8.0 |
| Lackey John | -8.7 |
| Duensing Brian | -9.4 |
| Volstad Chris | -9.5 |
Jered Weaver comes in as the luckiest pitcher. It should not be that much of a surprise since he has a 0.257 BABIP, 5.4% HR/FB and a 80.7 LOB%. Each is significantly better than the league average.
Final Thoughts
I feel the basic framework is there to get a quick reference stat to find under and over valued players. Let me know what you think. Is there would be any other factors to be added? Is the -10 to +10 scale easy to follow? Thanks.
I don’t get it. Are you saying that A-Gon is getting lucky in the HR department because his HR/FB% is above league average? Shouldn’t we compare current HR/FB to past HR/FB or something? Calling guys like Bautista and Gonzalez “lucky” because they hit HR’s at a better clip than league average doesn’t seem like a good idea. If I’m just misreading your methodology please feel free to correct my misunderstanding.
I wanted to added HR/PA. 3 HR in 3 games. A rate that a player can not maintain. the problem is getting the HR rate. Right now, the regressed value is set to 300 PA of league average and the rest if off the player.
Since it is at the end of the season, his projected/regressed HR/FB rate has him at 14.3%.
The dilemma is if one season or career numbers should be looked at for the player’s Luck.
One other note on Adrian, he is above average, but not the league leader then the stat is rate per PA. Reed Johnson is aiming for #1.
Ok, so you are using specific projections of HR/FB for each player, not just regressing to league average. That makes more sense. The phrasing in the post seemed unclear in terms of what you were comparing current HR/FB to.
So 300 PA of league average still seems like too much projected regression for players who are known for being ahead of the curve when it comes to power. After all, A-Gon has only had one full season below 15.0 HR/FB so to project him at 14.3% seems strange. I guess I vote for the “career” numbers being used over the single season.
I suppose it’s important to define what exactly luck is and what a skill is.
It is not a coincidence that the lucky/unlucky lists for hitters and pitchers show the superior players were in the luck category every time. It’s too strong of a correlation not to force us to change the word “lucky” to “more skilled”. The difference between the skills of AGonz, Bautista, Kemp, Verlander and Weaver versus the “unlucky” players is clearly due to more than luck. Not only are they lucky in addition to their top level skills, but they are the single LUCKIEST players by this metric. Suspicious to me.
Yes, there is a luck component, but it means nothing if it isn’t compared to how much skill the pitcher brings to the table.
It is correct to say that regression to mean will lead to Weaver’s LOB% decline next year and this will cause his ERA to rise. But his ERA will stay low overall if his skills (such as SwStr%, FStrk%, IFFB%, GB%, etc.) remain high.
His skills include a high IFFB% which allows him to be an ace despite a Slowey-level FB rate. Note that by measuring IFFB%, we can disprove the myth that Slowey has been unlucky during his career, and Weaver lucky. There is a reason Weaver has a lower HR/FB% than a comparable GB/FB profile. Hellickson is the same way. High FB%, high IFFB%, “lucky” results. We will see if Hellickson keeps his IFFB% high, but Weaver has been consistently good at it. Just as Pujols, Bautista, Howard and Reynolds have consistently had “lucky” HR/RB rates, and haven’t regressed anywhere near the league mean.
So is Weaver at his true level this season and the >900 IP he pitched in previous seasons, with a worse BABIP, LOB and HR/FB%, were not his true talent in the previous seasons?
What ever happened to the “age 27 season” factor, a clear-cut, elegant statistical phenomenon that jibes with what we see and know about how players progress?
Are not all of the “lucky” players in their prime? To answer your question about Weaver. First of all, we already know that we will never have a metric that perfectly predicts outcomes. The point is, is he closer to his true talent level than far away from it? If we look at pitchers with already elite skill sets heading into their primes, like Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, on and on, we see exactly what Weaver is doing. Is his ERA sustainable year in and year out? Of course not. Is it likely, with him having this season when he’s having it relative to his age and experience, that he’ll keep up something like it barring injury for the next four or five years, yes.
I suspect Jose Bautista’s run will end in a couple years and he’ll be overpaid in the last year of his deal. And people will say he was a fluke or stopped taking roids. In truth, his talent, playing time, and specific adjustments took place about three years late and his skills are likely to diminish quicker to give him a short run of high production. I don’t call that luck. Not everybody in the statics world calls outliers luck. If you want to interpret outliers or right tail events as luck, that is up to you. It is not an automatic.
No question he has been somewhat lucky. Only difference I can see versus last year, among the metrics that are not captured by BABIP, HR/FB, xFIP, etc is the IFFB% going up to a career high 16.5%. Hellickson is at 16.4% IFFB. These numbers allow them to have a below expected HR/FB, and therefore are “lucky” because their stuff induces pop-ups for whatever reason. I will be interested to see if these trends continue going forward.
Hellickson in particular is really an odd case, where nothing matches in his skill profile.
High SwStr% but low K
High FB% but high IFFB%
High SIERA/xFIP, miniscule ERA
Low BABIP
You could make a whole bunch of arguments about Hellickson’s prospects for next year given that data. He is simulateneously unlucky with K/9 given SwStrk, but lucky on BABIP. And yet, one wonders if he will permanently be “lucky” given the high IFFB%.
A great man once said, “You are lucky, as you are good.”
I take that to mean the better you are, the luckier you CAN be.
Chick Hearn was a great man! RIP
Jeff, interesting article. A few comments:
On the hitters, the top 5 and bottom 5 hitters have an (unweighted average) O-Contact % of 67.8% and 79.2%, respectively. This suggests that their “luck” is related to the quality of contact put on the ball outside the zone. Does O-contact % correlate with your Luck stat?
For pitchers, does Luck fluctuate year-to-year or do some pitchers have consistently high/low Luck?
I will look in the O-contact.
I am getting a few year’s worth of data for the next article. I know Shields was at the extreme of unlucky in 2010 and has been a bit on the lucky side this season.
Thanks, this was a good article. Just one thing; it isn’t slyde12, but it is slash12. Again, this was a good read.
Sorry about the name.
I like the idea, but clearly the framework needs work when you are listing the best hitters as the luckiest and some of the worst hitters as the unluckiest (ditto for pitchers).
How are you getting Bautista’s regressed HR/FB? Are you using numbers from his pre-Ruthian days?
Just this season. He is being compared to a value of 17.3% right now with his actual value of 21.7%.
One key I am seing if that if a player is a little bit “lucky” and pitched or hit a ton of times, they will be in the leader board. Looking at Bautista’s numbers per PA, he has a 3.7 value. Not close to being a league leader.
Jeff,
You can’t just regress HR/FB rates for hitters. Each has a unique number per year. Its too variable to justifiably say “this is luck” or not.
For hitters, just use the following formula:
1. xBABIP-BABIP converted into luck hits (+/-), or xH
2. Add xH to actual hits (aH), divide by AB for xAVG
3. Use (xH+aH) in the OBP formula
4. Subtract SLG-AVG (ISO), and add to xAVG for xSLG.
That will give you the best “luck reduced” measured triple slash line, in my opinion.
Converting luck hits into home runs, though, is foolish. That presumed robbed home runs, which are very rare. “bad luck” and “good luck” on hits tends to be on non-home run plays, meaning that the luck would not have likely translated into home runs. I personally prefer to keep ISO constant, to presume steady power, but alternatively, you could just pessimistically presume +/- xH all singles…