Baseball Terms/Stats that you don't know

[maddash]

This question should probably be it's own thread. But what constitutes a "cup of coffee"? Is one Major League at bat enough for a cup? Is 600 at bats too much for a cup? What's the window?

[greenback44]

The first time i heard it suggested that pitchers don't have the ability to control BABIP I couldn't believe it. I know it's found that it's not really true, pitchers do have some control, but it still seems to be alot smaller than what I would have believed before I saw the numbers.

Once you filter out 99.9% of the baseball-playing population, a lot of weird stuff kicks in.

[TGantz]

This isn't really a "term" I don't understand, but I couldn't pick out a "balk" if my life depended on it. I know what it is and why it's against the rules to do it, but when a pitcher supposedly does it I'm like .

I'm an umpire, and what I was taught is that the main rule is that if the pitcher makes a move towards home, he has to go home. He also can't turn his shoulder to look at the runner while he's on the rubber. But another major factor is consistency.

For example, in Kip Wells' first start, my brother asked if he was balking when he has that hesitation with his left foot. My dad, who has been umping for decades, said that as long as he does that foot hesitation every time he's out there, it can't be considered a balk. As long as he comes set at some point in the wind-up, it's not a balk.

[skmsw]

I think the SABR guys are doing things now with vector data, where they are looking at distance/trajectory etc.. of balls put in play.

The first time i heard it suggested that pitchers don't have the ability to control BABIP I couldn't believe it. I know it's found that it's not really true, pitchers do have some control, but it still seems to be alot smaller than what I would have believed before I saw the numbers.

The last time I did a quick, down-and-dirty multiple regression analysis, if I recall correctly the pitcher accounted for about 10% of the outcome of an average ball put into play.

If you look more at well-hit balls in play -- simplistically, using extra-base hits or IsoP, or if available, using vector-based data -- pitchers have a lot more control, close to 50% if I recall correctly. At the professional level, pitchers have a lot less control overall than most people think. But they also have a lot more control over allowing well-hit balls than a lot of sabermetrically-inclined folks realize.

[Hungary Jack]

(H-HR)/(AB-SO-HR)

I don't know what good that stat is for if you have to subtract HRs.

It tells you how much bad defense or bad luck has played into a pitcher's record. A pitcher with an abnormally high BABIP has gotten poor defensive support or has had an inordinate amount of groundballs/flyballs/line drives find a hole.

A pitcher with an unusually high BABIP is liable to see his ERA decrease moving forward. Contrarily, a pitcher with an unusually low BABIP is liable to see his ERA increase moving forward.

RC - Do you think that BABIP has some use for evaluating a hitter's performance too? I think a player who is experiencing a low BABIP (relative to career or recent norms for that player) might simply be experiencing a run of bad luck, or a player with a high BABIP might be enjoying a stretch of good luck.

I think BABIP takes on more meaning when compared with LD%. It adds another set of data for assessing a batter's performance. I would imagine that there is a decent correlation between the two.

Your thoughts?

[skmsw]

(H-HR)/(AB-SO-HR)

I don't know what good that stat is for if you have to subtract HRs.

It tells you how much bad defense or bad luck has played into a pitcher's record. A pitcher with an abnormally high BABIP has gotten poor defensive support or has had an inordinate amount of groundballs/flyballs/line drives find a hole.

A pitcher with an unusually high BABIP is liable to see his ERA decrease moving forward. Contrarily, a pitcher with an unusually low BABIP is liable to see his ERA increase moving forward.

RC - Do you think that BABIP has some use for evaluating a hitter's performance too? I think a player who is experiencing a low BABIP (relative to career or recent norms for that player) might simply be experiencing a run of bad luck, or a player with a high BABIP might be enjoying a stretch of good luck.

I think BABIP takes on more meaning when compared with LD%. It adds another set of data for assessing a batter's performance. I would imagine that there is a decent correlation between the two.

Your thoughts?

I'm interested in RC's take on this, but speaking only for myself, for hitters, BABIP is not random. It is a repeatable skill.

I believe that it is for pitchers too, but like I said above, it is a skill that contributes a fairly small percentage towards the outcome, someplace between 10 and 30%.

For batters, it is higher. Batters who consistently hit the ball hard have more of their balls in play turn into hits. For hitters, the ability to turn balls in play into hits is a much higher contributor to outcomes than the ability to limit it is for pitchers; someplace between 50 and 75%.

[Jmodene]

This question should probably be it's own thread. But what constitutes a "cup of coffee"? Is one Major League at bat enough for a cup? Is 600 at bats too much for a cup? What's the window?

Generally speaking, a "cup of coffee" refers to a short, temporary, callup from the minor leagues. IIRC, the term was coined by Dodgers (later Padres outfielder) Al Ferrara in the mid-1960's, who, in referring to his first callup said, "I was only up long enough for a cup of coffee".

Cate's recent callup, thus, would be a "cup of coffee", since he was sent back down within a week. Cavazos may wind up in that same category. Jimenez, OTOH, has been with us now for over a month (first game 4/27) so he's passed, I think, the "cup of coffee" designation and would be properly referred to as a "mid-season callup".

The kids called up in September would be considered "cup of coffee" callups, although you don't see as many of them as you used to. Time was when a team would call up 15 kids from the minors (think McCarver in 1959 or Simmons in 1968) and give them a couple of AB's here and there, depending on whether the team was still in the race or not.

Nowadays, though, it would cost a team about $1.5 million to call up 15 kids - between the prorated one-month's major league salary ($63K for each player for the month, total about $950,000) and the cost of 15 extra hotel rooms (no such thing as roommates in baseball any more) and meal money and the other stuff, and it's just not worth it. That's why teams will generally call up four or five, maybe six players at most - a third catcher, a couple extra bullpen arms, an extra infielder or outfielder. And that's it.

[Hungary Jack]

(H-HR)/(AB-SO-HR)

I don't know what good that stat is for if you have to subtract HRs.

It tells you how much bad defense or bad luck has played into a pitcher's record. A pitcher with an abnormally high BABIP has gotten poor defensive support or has had an inordinate amount of groundballs/flyballs/line drives find a hole.

A pitcher with an unusually high BABIP is liable to see his ERA decrease moving forward. Contrarily, a pitcher with an unusually low BABIP is liable to see his ERA increase moving forward.

RC - Do you think that BABIP has some use for evaluating a hitter's performance too? I think a player who is experiencing a low BABIP (relative to career or recent norms for that player) might simply be experiencing a run of bad luck, or a player with a high BABIP might be enjoying a stretch of good luck.

I think BABIP takes on more meaning when compared with LD%. It adds another set of data for assessing a batter's performance. I would imagine that there is a decent correlation between the two.

Your thoughts?

I'm interested in RC's take on this, but speaking only for myself, for hitters, BABIP is not random. It is a repeatable skill.

I believe that it is for pitchers too, but like I said above, it is a skill that contributes a fairly small percentage towards the outcome, someplace between 10 and 30%.

For batters, it is higher. Batters who consistently hit the ball hard have more of their balls in play turn into hits. For hitters, the ability to turn balls in play into hits is a much higher contributor to outcomes than the ability to limit it is for pitchers; someplace between 50 and 75%.

It would be great to examine the correlation between BABIP and LD%. I would imagine that some sabermathematician has already done so.

I was examining Joe Mather's performance in 2007 compared to past years. His BABIP is actually lower than in years past, but his BA is considerably higher because he's mashing HR at an unprecedented rate (for him).

Is Mather a better hitter now than in 2006? The lower BABIP in 2007 suggests that he actually might be "suffering" from a bit of bad luck this year, because his LD% and GB% are nearly identical to 2006 figures. He is putting roughly the same number of balls in play (while putting more balls out of play) while getting slightly less beneficial results. It appears that he is blossoming as a hitter.

[jim]

It would be great to examine the correlation between BABIP and LD%. I would imagine that some sabermathematician has already done so.

LD% + 12%. It's an oversimplification, but as a general starting point it's what I have seen used.

[Jmodene]

I'm looking forward to seeing BAPIP and LD% in the daily box scores.