Second Half BABIPs

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nsacpi

Expects Yuge Games
Inciarte .397 (.324 career)
Garcia .318 (.301 career)
Freeman .388 (.341 career)
Kemp .340 (.341 career)
Muk .333 (.317 career)
Flowers .397 (.322 career)
Peterson .279 (.290 career)
Swanson .375 (.309 in AA)

I was curious to see which ones have out-performed their career norms the most. I think there are some takeaways worth emphasizing:

1) Flowers is the one who has the biggest gap between 2nd half and career BABIP. I've seen a few advocate not acquiring a starting catcher this off-season on the grounds that Flowers is good enough to be our starting catcher. I think this would be a mistake.

2) Swanson's AA numbers might understate the underlying BABIP he can sustain going forward but probably by less than his major league numbers overstate it.

3) Peterson's improved second half performance is due to better walk and strikeout rates. I think that means he can probably sustain something close to his second half slash line of .243/.368/.358. He also continues to have pronounced platoon splits, which suggests that a bench or platoon role is what he is best suited for.

4) Freeman and Inciarte are our best position players, but very likely are not quite as good going forward as they have been in the second half. If those two were to sustain their second half performances for a full season, they would be MVP candidates.

5) Adonis Garcia's second half has included better walk and strikeout rates and a higher ISO in addition to a modestly higher BABIP. His second half OPS is .801. I think a reasonable expectation for 2017 is an OPS of around .770 or .780.
 
Ender and Flowers are the big ones where you expect regression going forward. Swanson is up in there and I don't expect his BABIP to be that high going forward but his xBABIP is 352 so I think something in the mid 300's range is certainly achievable going forward. Freeman I think you can expect to be 350+.
 
Freeman and Inciarte may not be able to sustain their 2nd half performance, but I think they can sustain their overall performance for the year, which is plenty good enough in both cases.
 
I can't disagree with most of what you are saying... The one that I think we may be underrating a bit is Ender. He is in his second full season as a major leaguer. He was good as a rookie, and better in his second year. .397 better? Probably not. However, I am not sure we can attribute all of his improvement to a hot streak or to luck.

With good young players I think you can look at trajectory. His performance is certainly on an upward trajectory. I expect him to keep getting a little better each year for a few more years as he enters his prime.
 
People tend to have severe recency bias and forget the longer trends that have established themselves in the past. Players have hot and cold streaks over a season, and their true talent level is the sum of all those hot/cold streaks.

Ender put up an insane (for him) .950 OPS in August, a great .794 OPS so far in September, and putrid OPS's that started with 5's and 6's in all other months of the season. All this has summed up to an overall OPS of .736, which falls right in line with the kind of hitter he is.

Last year, Ender put up some good months just like he did this year (.851 in July, and .810 in Sept), as well as several poor months. It all summed up to a .747 OPS, which again, is right in line with the type of hitter he is.

Just because the good months this year happened recently does not mean they are more likely to be repeated, or that Inciarte is suddenly a good hitter. He is what he is, and that's an elite defensive CFer with a .700-.750 OPS with minimal power. The encouraging sign is that he may be playable vs LHers now, but I'd have to dig into that a bit more than looking at his 125 ABs against them this season.
 
mfree80 said:
I can't disagree with most of what you are saying... The one that I think we may be underrating a bit is Ender. He is in his second full season as a major leaguer. He was good as a rookie, and better in his second year. .397 better? Probably not. However, I am not sure we can attribute all of his improvement to a hot streak or to luck.

With good young players I think you can look at trajectory. His performance is certainly on an upward trajectory. I expect him to keep getting a little better each year for a few more years as he enters his prime.
Click to expand...

He won't sustain a .397 BABIP, but his overall BABIP for the year is just .329, which is exactly what it was last year. He likely won't be the player he's been in the 2nd half, but I think he can definitely sustain, and perhaps improve somewhat, the performance he's had on the whole year, which is very similar to what he posted last year. He's about a 4 WAR player and should be at least that moving forward.
 
A note on Freeman. Yeah his 2nd half BABIP is now 397 which is ridiculous but he's not getting super lucky. His xBABIP is .385. Now there are obvious questions to whether that is sustainable and I'll just say that no it's not. But Freeman is just killing the ball right now. 48.5% hard hit balls in the 2nd half. 300+ ISO slg. He's putting the ball in the air or on a line and it's going fast.
 
OPS isn't a good measure for Inciarte because he lacks power. His value comes from getting on base and using his speed. If he hits leadoff and puts up a .350 or better OBP then I am happy with his bat. I don't expect him to repeat this second half but I think it's worth noting that Inciarte has improved every season in the majors so far.
 
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