Most outs made in MLB, year to date

[NWinAZ]

As I explained in my other two posts, 2/3 of it is bad luck. If his BABIP was the same as it was last year, he'd be hitting .284.

My point is that it isn't bad luck but bad adjustment. They are playing him behind 2B which they did not do last year or in years past and he hasn't adjusted. Bad luck to me is a fluke play that 99 out of 100 times would have been a hit but not that one time. I haven't seen that. I have just seen him hitting at the infielders where they are played.

 

[cezero]

I think cezero said it last week about Cano and the bad luck B.S. He is gotten out a lot with balls hit up the middle and that is not bad luck, that is lack of adjusting. They are playing him there.

exactly.

it doesn't matter what the proportion of grounders is to me. for some reason, he's hitting right into the shift with astonishing regularity this year, and he has no answers. it's really sad.

it has nothing to do with luck/magic, and the stats prove it pretty overwhelmingly.

 

[NWinAZ]

For me BABIP is the most useless stat in baseball (not picking on you because a lot of people use it for some reason). BABIP doesn't indicate luck (bad or good). It indicates when a player makes contact what percentage of the time he gets a hit. I can stick my bat out at the ball so to not strike out and hit tappers to the pitcher all day long and it will show a very low BABIP. Does that mean I am unlucky or that I am just hitting weak balls at defenders?

BA is my best way of telling if a guy is hitting. BA is an average meaning it evens out when you get lucky with a ball that gets through or drops or when it looks like a hit but it becomes an out.

 

[cezero]

For me BABIP is the most useless stat in baseball (not picking on you because a lot of people use it for some reason). BABIP doesn't indicate luck (bad or good). It indicates when a player makes contact what percentage of the time he gets a hit. I can stick my bat out at the ball so to not strike out and hit tappers to the pitcher all day long and it will show a very low BABIP. Does that mean I am unlucky or that I am just hitting weak balls at defenders?

BA is my best way of telling if a guy is hitting. BA is an average meaning it evens out when you get lucky with a ball that gets through or drops or when it looks like a hit but it becomes an out.

BABIP is a supplementary type stat, imo. it can fluctuate wildly, but it can really help clarify a hitter's (or pitcher's) real problems over a defined/short period of time.

 

[NWinAZ]

BABIP is a supplementary type stat, imo. it can fluctuate wildly, but it can really help clarify a hitter's (or pitcher's) real problems over a defined/short period of time.

Maybe I am misunderstanding it true value, but it only says to me what a hitter is average when he puts a ball in play. Am I wrong? That alone doesn't point to any one strength or weakness of a hitter just what he averages when he makes contact. Like my example above stats, tapping a ball to a fielder so not to strike out gives me a low BABIP but doesn't show I deserved better or worse. Am I wrong?

Again, not arguing just seeing if I am misunderstanding its value. I mean you can choke up on the bat all day long to make contact and still not be more entitled to a higher average. Ted Williams use to say when asked about hitting with a shift on and he would say "Hit through it". He did that pretty well I believe. It all comes down to hitting them where they are not.

 

[cezero]

It all comes down to hitting them where they are not.

which is what BABIP measures.

it's one of many supplementary stats that effectively destroys the sentiments of the magical/luck crowd who love to talk about how hard a player hits the ball even if it results in jack shit, among other things.

it's not a stat that you use to put together a roster. it's a stat that can help diagnose individual pitcher's and batter's problems, and correlates strongly with long-term decline if it doesn't bounce back to near-career average quickly.

 

[seahawksfan234]

BABIP is a supplementary type stat, imo. it can fluctuate wildly, but it can really help clarify a hitter's (or pitcher's) real problems over a defined/short period of time.

Cano's BABIP has been pretty consistent throughout his career, typically ranging between .320 and .330. If you don't like BABIP, then what about the fact that he's still hitting line drives, ground balls and fly balls at nearly the same rate as last year?

@NWinAZ You mention him hitting more soft grounders, take a look at this:

2014: 22.6% Line Drives 52.6% Ground Balls 24.7% Fly Balls
2015: 23.1% Line Drives 52.8% Ground Balls 24.1% Fly Balls

Okay well, he must not be hitting the ball as hard, right?

2014: 17.6% Soft 53.6% Medium 28.5% Hard hit
2015: 14.6% Soft 51.4% Medium 34% Hard hit

Cano is actually hitting more hard hit balls.

You mention defensive adjustments being made, why is it that Cano's BABIP on fastballs and breaking pitches are nearly identical to last year? Are you trying to say that the adjustments made against him only work on off-speed pitches? That wouldn't make any sense. Yet Cano's BABIP on offspeed pitches has dropped by. 200 points. That is huge! That can't just be a regression, that is way too big of a drop to be a drop in performance considering his BABIP on fastballs and breaking balls is nearly the same.

Cano's bat is not the problem, it's his discipline. The real concern with Cano is that he is striking out at a rate of 17% in comparison to his 10% rate of last year.

You adjust for bad luck and his BA rises to around .280. If he lowers his K rate back to last year, he's hitting above .300.