I don't disagree with you, Jim, but I'd still be careful ascribing these numbers as "lucky." Yes, USUALLY, in LARGER SAMPLES, a low line drive rate would correlate with a low BABIP, and possibly even suggest he is not hitting the ball well, and that an unusually large percentage of his ground balls are sneaking through.jim wrote:I don't, but the general formula is BABIP = LD% + 12%. So based on his LD rate, the average MLB hitter could expect a BABIP of .223. Even with as hard as he hits the ball you have to think he's getting "lucky".Michael wrote:Transmogrified Tiger wrote:Holy cow, only a 10.3 LD% and a .321 BABIP to start the year. That's uber-lucky. Of course, last year he had the opposite fortune of having a 23.5 LD% and a .278 BABIP.
Any idea what his stats would be if you normalized those numbers?
In this case, though, we're talking about a grand total of 20 batted balls. 50% of his fly balls have gone for homers and half his base hits have been for extra bases. Add in the fact that he is walking and striking out at pretty close to his career rates, and it sounds to me more like hot streak (swinging the bat pretty well and hitting it hard -- explaining the high BABIP, balls more sharply hit thru the infield and fly balls carrying further) than luck (balls falling in fortunate spots).