Useless Sabermetrics Stat Of The Month: BABIP

This is my first installment of pointing out terrible sabermetric stats. Note before this first article gets underway that I don't dismiss all sabermetrics stats and/or formulas. Just the lame, repetitive statistics that were clearly meant for MLB scouts, but somehow sabermetric guys in a last ditch effort to make themselves sound fantasy relevant pull them out in hopes they will sound smart and informative. (Was that a run-on sentence?) Sabermetrics does provide us with some very useful stats like OBP, Strikeouts per 9 innings, and OPS amongst a few others. Those will not be the ones that I point. However, I will point out stats that have zero value to a fantasy manager and in most cases will create so much work that you may in fact damage your team by the sheer volume of time you waste applying these statistics to your fantasy team.

This month is Batting Average Balls In Play or better known as BABIP. The pure and simple definition of this stat is the accurate batting average based on the number balls put in play by an individual batter. If that is not clear enough, its the batting average minus the at bats where the batter gets a strikeout. If you like formulas, try this:
(Correction 1/7/2009 ) I did simplfy the formula, because it was a repative formula to begin with the actual formula is
BABIP = (Hits - HR / AB - HR - SF)

The reason I simplified it was it was misleading. most players donot sacrifice at all or that much, especially the players we care about. removing HRs was a mistake, and I should have kept that in there. Everything else in the article still applies because I was basing it on the actual formula.

BABIP= Total Hits / (Total At Bats - Strikeouts)

Wow. It is because of stats like these that I refuse to call sabermetric guys experts because they don't analyze baseball, they analyze and twist numbers. Otherwise, teach Algebra.

First lets cover what this statistic was originally meant for. If you don't already know sabermetrics (SABR Society for American Baseball Research), was the brain child of Bill James, but made more famous by Billy Beane and Theo Epstein. It was a tool developed for scouts to use in order to evaluate players on more of a team value basis. BABIP would be a significant tool used by managers and scouts to determine how often the hitter gets a hit when he makes contact. This is a great stat for young players because scouts feel they can be taught to make better contact, or used for pitch-hitters. Either way its far to random and not very useful for an everyday batter.

So I'm going to tell why BABIP (Batting Average Balls In Play) is not only meaningless, but its a repetitious, misleading, and in general stupid statistic. Its repetitious because from a fantasy point-of-view its the same thing as batting average! Really, it's just a better average because you remove one way a player can make an out. Call it IABIPO, (Inflated Average Balls In Play Only). Am I the only person who sees that its the same thing as regular old batting average only inflated by removing a key stat, strikeouts. Let's examine this from a fantasy baseball perspective because what's important in all this is how helpful it is to a fantasy baseball manager. If a batter has a batting average of .333, is he a good fantasy baseball player? Are you going to draft him or are you going to need to see his inflated BABIP of .370 to know he's truly good and worth drafting? The same goes for bad players, besides what does it tell you that batting average doesn't tell you?

Now, the reason it's misleading is you can't remove strikeouts or eliminate homeruns from your fantasy players, so why have a stat that does that for you? Seriously, why have a stat that does something no fantasy league does, nor does Major League Baseball for that matter do? On the back of a baseball card do you see BABIP? I can see why it works for scouts, but for fantasy baseball it's wrong and misleading. So unless your fantasy league removes strikeouts of doesn't allow homeruns (LOL) for a batter then BABIP it is in fact 100% misleading. I'll make sure this is clear. If a batter has a batting average of .250 (100 hits in 400 at bats 20 homeruns), his BABIP would be .2 with 50 strikeouts. So, not to be repetitious like BABIP can be, but unless your league will use the .242, its meaningless!!

Finally, its just stupid. The whole point of a batting average is the number of hits divided into the number of at bats. Everyone uses it that way, all experts, MLB, and all fantasy leagues, so why should you use a statistic that leads you down the wrong path. Its like looking at a discounted retail item with a price tag that says $42.99, but when you get to the cash register they say $57.99. They tell you, "oh, we just removed the discount to inflate the price."

Alright, I'll be fair and try to be positive and think of a reason I would use it. Let me think.........................................................................................................Give me a second.................................................................hold up, I'm onto something..............nope, nothing.

Sorry can't think of one reason. BABIP reminds me of kung fu in movies. You always see all those kung fu guys doing all those useless showoff moves with their hand and legs flailing all over the place before a fight, but in the end it does nothing to win the fight. That is BABIP, lots of show, but absolutely hollow. Of course when some of the sabermetric guys read this they will try to talk over your head with fancy diatribe to get you to believe in this stat and say what an idiot I am. So the next time some sabermetrics analysis brings up BABIP ask them one simple question.
"In the context of fantasy baseball, how is BABIP effective with batting average already established and how is it applied to an individual player in a fantasy format?" I guarantee you will stump the sabermetrics experts and he'll probably mumble, "luck" or something.