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So...Trout's getting better


Angelsjunky

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Check out his walk and strikeout rates over the last four years:

BB%: 11.8%, 13.5%, 17.0%, 18.5%

K%: 26.1%, 23.2%, 20.1%, 17.8%

2017 was the first year that his BB% was higher than his K%, with career bests in both. 

Of course the big complaint is that Trout's performance plummeted over the last month or so, so even though his season line of .306/.442/.629 is impressive, he hit .232/.394/.472 from August 21 on, or 36 games.

Another thing to consider is that his BABIP was .318 for the season, which is well below his career average of .355 and easily a career low.

So imagine BABIP equalizing and and his walk and strikeout rates remaining stable...we could be heading for a truly monster year, his best yet - at least with the bat - and maybe even another 10+ fWAR season.

Here's my guess for Trout's 2018 line: 156 games, .314/.448/.647, 43 HR, 118 RBI, 132 Runs, 31 SB, 187 wRC+, and 10.1 fWAR. Maybe I'm an optimist, but I'll take it!

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1 hour ago, Angelsjunky said:

Of course the big complaint is that Trout's performance plummeted over the last month or so, so even though his season line of .306/.442/.629 is impressive, he hit .232/.394/.472 from August 21 on, or 36 games.

 

Its prettt crazy that trout seemed to struggle bad the last month....and still put up close to a .900 OPS

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During his slump, he had an .898 ops with a babip of .229.  

which means he missed out on about 10 hits on BIP.  bumps his avg to .330 for the year.  

He was terribly unlucky last year.  Or was he?   

Here's my guess as to why - someone pointed out that striking out looking is about as worthless as anything you can do in an at bat.  

He's actually swinging a shade more in the zone, a shade less out of the zone (fucking amazing btw relative to his previous plate discipline).  His zone contact rate is a bit up as is his overall contact rate.  

I think he's putting a few more balls in play via weak contact as opposed to whiffing.  

 

 

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I don't know if there is data on this but I swear Mike gets called out on more pitches just a hair off the plate than anyone.

Most guys are protecting, but Mike knows it's not a strike, unfortunately he has better eyes than the umpire's. I think in the days before pitchtrax umpires would give elite hitters the benefit of the doubt.

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This is great news, about Trout. My only complaint about him has always been the K rate and the fact that he takes so many first pitch strikes. If memory serves me, hitters statistically have the highest batting average on the first pitch of an at bat. But memory does let me down, as I age.

As an aside, how should one look at a statistic like BABIP? What am I looking for here? What is a number that says a hitter is a great hitter and what is a number that says a hitter was lucky and can't maintain this number? What is the correlation between league average BABIP and a hitter's own average? 

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1 hour ago, WeatherWonk said:

As an aside, how should one look at a statistic like BABIP? What am I looking for here? What is a number that says a hitter is a great hitter and what is a number that says a hitter was lucky and can't maintain this number? What is the correlation between league average BABIP and a hitter's own average? 

This is a great question and I’m looking forward to the answer.  I would just assume because of his speed his bapip will be a little higher than most or at least contribute to it being higher.  No different than being super duper slow contributes to Albert having what I would assume a very lower bapip.  @Inside Pitch, give us your thoughts.

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7 minutes ago, Stradling said:

This is a great question and I’m looking forward to the answer.  I would just assume because of his speed his bapip will be a little higher than most or at least contribute to it being higher.  No different than being super duper slow contributes to Albert having what I would assume a very lower bapip.  @Inside Pitch, give us your thoughts.

I am sure this is all correct. It seems Trout's speed has really declined the last few years. Of course he is still very fast, but when he came into the league he was probably a top 5 runner, and now he probably isn't even top 20. That may explain some of the decrease in his BABIP.

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1 hour ago, WeatherWonk said:

This is great news, about Trout. My only complaint about him has always been the K rate and the fact that he takes so many first pitch strikes. If memory serves me, hitters statistically have the highest batting average on the first pitch of an at bat. But memory does let me down, as I age.

As an aside, how should one look at a statistic like BABIP? What am I looking for here? What is a number that says a hitter is a great hitter and what is a number that says a hitter was lucky and can't maintain this number? What is the correlation between league average BABIP and a hitter's own average? 

I guess you could look at average exit velocity. As an example, Aaron Judge had a .357 BABIP this year. You might say that he got "lucky" and to a degree, he did. But he hits the ball hard like most of the time. He had an average exit velocity of over 94 this year, which is way above the league average of 87.32. Could Judge be a candidate to regress? Yes but it doesn't look like he will regress to a level that you can say that he will be a "scrub" next year. Someone who has a high BABIP but low average exit velocity is getting "real lucky". The harder someone hits the ball, the less time a fielder can react and make a play.

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Exit velocity certainly makes sense. The harder a ball is hit, the less chance that someone can get under or to it, to field it. Thanks for that.

And it makes sense that faster runners can turn ground balls into hits, more readily than slow runners.

Any other factors?

Has the rise of defensive shifts been accounted for in any fashion with BABIP? 

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So BABIP has some primary components:

  • Obviously speed is a factor because it allows the hitter to run out and beat a slightly higher average of balls in play
  • Power hitters tend to have a slightly higher BABIP because they get the ball out of the infield more on a regular basis
  • Line drive hitters have some of the highest BABIP's because they keep the ball off the ground and don't pop out
  • Some batters know how to manipulate the bat better and are able to spread their hits to all fields resulting in higher BABIP
  • Additionally as someone else said above higher exit velocity off of the bat results in less reaction time for infielders or outfielders to get to the ball resulting in higher BABIP

League average BABIP usually hovers around .300 year to year so that can give you an idea if a hitter is getting luckier (>.300) or unluckier (<.300). However you also have to consider the batter's own historical career BABIP number in comparison to how he is doing that year. For instance if Dee Gordon has a career .340 BABIP and for the 2018 season it is .310 he is beating league average but he is well below his career number indicating that he is unlucky.

The primary factor in BABIP is a high line drive rate. Additionally heavy pull hitters tend to suffer with low BABIP's because they get shifted a lot so hitters that can hit the ball to all fields (the "up-the-middle" approach you will see me mention from time to time) will also generally have higher BABIP's as well (bullet 4 above basically).

Edited by ettin
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The main thing I think BABIP is good for is comparing a player's performance in one year relative to his career - it gives us a sense of what kind of regression will likely happen the next year. It is similar to FIP, which is a better indicator than ERA in terms of future performance.

So what Trout's low BABIP in 2017 (for him) tells us is that he was overall unlucky, and should get a boost in his overall numbers next year - assuming he performs at the same level. My predicted line is assuming a regressed BABIP to .350+ and similar offensive performance. Of course if his BABIP returns to normal AND he continues to improve, then he could hit .330/.460/.670, but I don't want to get greedy!

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3 hours ago, WeatherWonk said:

Exit velocity certainly makes sense. The harder a ball is hit, the less chance that someone can get under or to it, to field it. Thanks for that.

And it makes sense that faster runners can turn ground balls into hits, more readily than slow runners.

Any other factors?

Has the rise of defensive shifts been accounted for in any fashion with BABIP? 

I think ballparks can also affect BABIP. Home runs doesn't count towards BABIP. So it is just singles, doubles, and triples. Coors Field inflates BABIP because that park gives hitters so many cheap hits (not counting homers) that would be outs at most other parks like Angels Stadium.

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2 hours ago, WeatherWonk said:

How would you conclude that Trout became "unlucky" instead of simply hitting balls less hard or becoming slower last year? What in the numbers tells you that it was luck?

You can use the eye test with regards to speed.

In general I take a huge decline in BABIP vs recent track record BABIP to be a fluke. If I want to check in on this hypothesis the first thing I look at is the number of infield pop ups. Subtract any increase in infield pop ups from the decrease in BABIP (because INF pop ups are a skill, and will directly impact BABIP).

If the disparity remains I would check in on the players average exit velocity. If you see a huge drop I would be very skeptical of the decrease in BABIP being just a fluke. You can also check in on the batted ball distribution. If there are changes to that profile then its possible that is leading to easier outs or a player becoming easier to defend.

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3 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

The main thing I think BABIP is good for is comparing a player's performance in one year relative to his career - it gives us a sense of what kind of regression will likely happen the next year. It is similar to FIP, which is a better indicator than ERA in terms of future performance.

So what Trout's low BABIP in 2017 (for him) tells us is that he was overall unlucky, and should get a boost in his overall numbers next year - assuming he performs at the same level. My predicted line is assuming a regressed BABIP to .350+ and similar offensive performance. Of course if his BABIP returns to normal AND he continues to improve, then he could hit .330/.460/.670, but I don't want to get greedy!

Personally, I've always liked RBBIP.  It's simply the number of batted balls (minus homeruns) that result in a hit or an error.  In that respect it very much encompasses hard hit balls.  Trout's last season was .347.  He's typically up in the .350's or .360's with a couple appearances up toward and past .400.  The average major league player is typically around .310. 

That'll tell you all you need to know right there.  When he makes contact, he's somewhere between 40 and 90 percentage points higher than the average player.  Trout was a bit unlucky last year.  It's possible that he'll do quite a bit better than predicted, though AJ doesn't want to be greedy.  

It's within the realm of possibility that Trout hits .330/.500 next year with more than 50 HR's (assuming they don't change the ball again).  

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3 hours ago, Scotty@AW said:

Personally, I've always liked RBBIP.  It's simply the number of batted balls (minus homeruns) that result in a hit or an error.  In that respect it very much encompasses hard hit balls.  Trout's last season was .347.  He's typically up in the .350's or .360's with a couple appearances up toward and past .400.  The average major league player is typically around .310. 

That'll tell you all you need to know right there.  When he makes contact, he's somewhere between 40 and 90 percentage points higher than the average player.  Trout was a bit unlucky last year.  It's possible that he'll do quite a bit better than predicted, though AJ doesn't want to be greedy.  

It's within the realm of possibility that Trout hits .330/.500 next year with more than 50 HR's (assuming they don't change the ball again).  

If we fired the scorekeeper and brought in someone who wasn't a Nazi, Trout would probably have 8 or so more hits each year.

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What, a scorekeeper that isnt overly generous? That seems a real rarity to me.

I almost never see plays that should be scored a hit, called an error. The opposite is much more prevalent.

Scorekeepers are always so generous;  no matter whether it's home or away, with respect to any team. Home scorekeepers will protect home players from errors and grant home players hits, when an error should probably be given to the opposing fielder. 

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