Lewis’ isn’t being platooned, he has a night off. There is a difference. He’s not sitting agains all (or even most) lefties (except last night).

all centerfielders

Even as a lefthanded hitter, it isn’t likely that Freddie Lewis’ BABIP is likely to hold up at anything approaching .413. For starters, that is about 75 points higher than even Tony Gwynn, who was a much better hitter and had a little speed himself.

Let’s take a look at Freddie’s BABIP in the minors, remembering that players almost always see their BABIP come down in the majors due to better positioning, fielding and, yes, even pitchers.

Freddie’s .282 minor league average was built in great part on a .358 BABIP—which is far short of .413. And let’s see if we can come up with someone similar to Freddie who had a similar high BABIP in the minor leagues and see how that guy’s BABIP reacted to the majors.

I’m going to start out with Shane Victorino. I have no idea how he will compare, but he’s a fast lefty hitter with a modicum of power.

Shane batted the same .282 in the minors as did Freddie. But his .282 was based on a more realistic .317 BABIP. That has fallen to .302 in the majors through the end of last season.

Let’s say that Freddie’s .358 BABIP fell by the same 15 points as Shane’s did. It likely will fall by more, since .343 is a HUGE BABIP, but let’s just see how high Freddie would be batting if his BABIP this season were .343 instead of .413.

Instead of .333, Freddie would be batting .282. Now that’s not bad, but it’s not likely All-Star caliber. And that is giving Freddie as high an average as I can think would be at all reasonably possible. I personally think Freddie is about a .250 hitter. Maybe .260.

Let’s see who else we might come up with as a comp. Baseball Prospectus’ 2008 Handbook lists Pat Kelly (not Roberto, Freddie’s hitting coach) as a comp. Pat hit .335 on Balls In Play in the minors and .299 in the majors. Let’s see how much Freddie would be hitting with a similar 36-point drop.

That would put Freddie at .322 on Balls In Play. That’s a very high BABIP, one that Freddie is unlikely to exceed. This season if Freddie were hitting .322 on Balls In Play, he would be batting .265 this season.

I would be very surprised if Freddie is more than a .265 hitter in the long run—unless he can cut his strikeouts and increase his home runs, thereby improving his batting average on balls NOT in play.

I would LOVE to see Fast Freddie continue at his present .333 clip. But he doesn’t have anywhere near a 33.3% chance of doing so.

It seems highly likely that the Giants won’t be playing well enough to have more than the required single All-Star representative—and that the one representative will be Tim Lincecum. As has been pointed out here, Freddie Lewis, Bengie Molina, Aaron Rowand, Jonathan Sanchez and possibly even Matt Cain could be considered. But at this point, Lincecum looks like the likely one.

If Tim pitches another strong outing tomorrow night, he has a fine chance to be the NL pitcher of the month of April—although I believe last year’s Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy is already 6-0 this season and would certainly be a viable candidate. Likewise with the guy who beat the Giants, whose numbers are startlingly similar to Tim’s right now. And the last time I looked, I had to admit I thought Ben Sheets had been the best.

But Tim is drawing comparisons to Steve Carlton in 1972, a year when Steve incredibly fashioned nearly half of the Phillies’ wins.

That is just $$$ away, too. Who says the Giants can’t contened in 2009?

However: If the wind blows, we might get disoriented and back Carney.