Relax, the pitching is probably a little better than this

by antinous on May 17, 2009 3:54 PM PDT Comment 17 comments

BAbip stands for batting average on balls in play, meaning fair balls that don't leave the yard. The theory is that BAbip is more or less out of the pitcher's control - except for knuckleballers and, to a lesser extent, extreme sinkerballers - and thus we should expect it to regress to a mean over time. This mean is generally considered to be about .290, though this season the average BAbip in the NL is .299 so far.

Giants pitchers and their BAbips:

Lincecum - .380
Johnson - .346
Affeldt - .333
Medders - .321
Howry - .318
Wilson - .314
Sanchez - .300
Zito - .299
Valdez - .289
Cain - .278
Miller - .271
TEAM - .319

Of course, part of this lies at the feet of our below-average defense, but still, luck this bad cannot be sustained. Only Miller and Cain would project to get worse if these numbers regressed to the .290 range.

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I really do think our defense is bad enough to keep the BABiP above league average.

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by Azmanz on May 17, 2009 4:04 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

You're probably correct

But maybe that means .305 – I don’t think .319 is sustainable. And Timmy’s .380 has to change.

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by antinous on May 17, 2009 4:06 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, that's true.

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by Azmanz on May 17, 2009 8:49 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Lincecum should go on a tear pretty soon

FIP is second in the league to Greinke and xFIP is first, last time I checked. His K/9 + K/BB are career bests….the babip and LOB % are the only things out of whack

by superk1ng on May 17, 2009 5:09 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, he’s been “bad Lincecum”, which is really just “good Lincecum with shitty luck.” He’s so good he dominates even when he doesn’t dominate.

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by JakeS on May 17, 2009 10:09 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

But he’s also lost some velocity. I want to see more starts from him before I make a judgement though..

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by WalrusMan on May 18, 2009 12:52 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Also, Johnson’s HR/FB is pretty insane. That should come down.

I hope.

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by groug on May 17, 2009 8:39 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, that seems unsustainable. On the other hand, we don’t have a lot of evidence that 45-year-old left handers don’t suddenly start giving up crazy homers at the end of their career.

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by JakeS on May 17, 2009 10:08 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Affeldt has really impressed me lately. I hated him earlier in the season (mostly just because he was part of the Giant bullpen, and I hate everyone in the Giants bullpen), but today he came in and struck out Sheffield, then got a double play from Pagan, and also had a very impressive inning yesterday or two days ago or whatever. That he has an unlucky BABIP is very encouraging.

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by GrahamCrakalaka on May 17, 2009 10:53 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

so far

i think Affeldt seems to have been our best off season move.

by FPTV on May 17, 2009 10:56 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

It was a very good move thats for sure.

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by daveinexile on May 18, 2009 7:15 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

have people been freaking out about the Giants pitching being terrible?

by FluLikeSymptoms on May 17, 2009 11:05 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I haven’t.

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by Natto on May 17, 2009 11:15 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

The bullpen, maybe.

Always tough to project relievers.

Honestly, though, it’s probably more a reaction to the team’s margin for error. The Giants’ Brass has designed the squad to win by pitching alone, so a “merely” good pitching staff is a failure (from the win now standpoint, anyway). If you’re going to field a bottom three offense, anything less than a top three pitching staff is going to look pretty bad. They also walk alot of guys (4th in the league in walks allowed) which is always frustrating.

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by Bhaakon on May 18, 2009 1:57 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs