THT Leaderboard: BABIP and LD%

Stats and graphs have been updated, through games of June 17. We’ve added a couple of new stats, including BABIP for batters. That’s Batting Average On Balls In Play. It’s a measure of how many batted balls (so it excludes strikeouts) have fallen in for hits, not including home runs.

Because we also collect the percent of batted balls that are line drives (LD%), it is interesting to compare the two. Ideally, BABIP should rise with LD%, and vice versa. So here’s a top ten list of major league hitters whose BABIP most exceeds their LD%.

Player        LD% BABIP Diff
Harvey K.    .163  .405 .242
DaVanon J.   .149  .370 .221
Sanchez A.   .184  .399 .215
Stairs M.    .094  .305 .211
Everett A.   .119  .327 .207
Overbay L.   .216  .421 .206
Mora M.      .186  .391 .204
Grieve B.    .130  .333 .203
Nix L.       .157  .359 .202
Ramirez M.   .181  .373 .192

Alex Sanchez is helped by his bunting ability, but the rest of these guys may be in for a bit of a fall. Here are the batters whose BABIP least exceeds their LD%:

Player       LD%  BABIP  Diff
Polanco P.  .252   .258  .006
Jones C.    .176   .204  .028
Delgado C.  .226   .258  .032
Phillips J. .176   .215  .039
Wilkerson B .217   .260  .044
Spiezio S.  .197   .246  .049
Palmeiro R. .200   .251  .051
Kennedy A.  .223   .276  .053
Munson E.   .189   .243  .054
Rollins J.  .243   .297  .054

Oy. Poor Placido Polanco, the unluckiest batter in the major leagues this year.