Posted Tuesday, February 02, 2010 10:44 AM
The most important aspect for me in handicapping baseball is finding value, most around here do the same, but it tends to get tricky when we start discussing “how we find value”. One of the stats I like is BABIP, or Batting Average Balls Put in Play. This stat can be used with hitters and pitchers, and it’s important to note that the MLB average usually hovers right around .300. This is one stat that we can use to measure a player’s luck. ERA can be very misleading, especially when using a small sample size. How many times have you seen some pitcher with a 0-2 record and era north of 8.00 in his last 3 starts win easily as a +145 dog in that 4th start?
For me, I like BABIP because it can allow one to find value in either backing one team, or in fading another team. Most players will regress to the mean over time. There are some exceptions, for instance, Eric Byrnes has historically been a pop fly hitter, and those pop ups rarely fall in for hits, so his BABIP is typically below major league average.
Looking at last season, there were 139 pitchers that had at least 10 starts before the All-Star Break, and one finds that Dan Haren posted the best BABIP in the majors when he clocked in at .234. This led to an overall opp. avg of .189 over t... [More]