I think I agre with your points. It seems like a highly scientific wasy of saying basically the same thing I said about Giambi, which is:

He’s already got a better chance of going bowling and missing all the pins without rolling a gutter ball. The only way he could get a hit is if he could somehow play all 7 fielding positions when he hits.

However, your way makes you sound far more schooled on the game than mine makes me sound.

Neither Giambi nor Cano are as “unlucky” as they may appear to be from their batting average of balls in play (BABIP).

BABIP is a relatively new statistic and there’s a lot of misunderstanding about it.

It was first developed to look at pitchers and how lucky and unlucky pitchers were.

In general for most pitchers BABIP is a pretty good index for two things – how good the defense is behind the pitcher and how “lucky/ unlucky” the pitcher is.

BAPIP has now come to be used more and more for hitters – again with the idea to look at how “lucky” the hitter has been.

For hitters however it’s not that clear cut. There is definitely some component of skill to what a hitters BABIP is. For instance, ARod hits the ball much harder than Alberto Gonzalez so there isn’t a great reason to think both should get hits 30% of the time they put the ball in play.

However it’s often assumed that all hitter should have a BABIP of around .300 – the idea being that 30% of all contact should turn into hits.

That’s a rule of thumb that isn’t a very good one for hitters because it assumes that a BABIP is completely luck – that there’s no skill involved.

One thing that’s come up with BABIP is that each hitter will likely settle into his own BABIP range and that range will depend on how he generally hits.

The one quantitative rule people have come up with for an expected BABIP for a particular hitter is their % of line drives + .12.

But even that is a general rule of thumb. For instance Jeter’s BABIP year in and year out is much higher than his LD% +.12. Ichiro is much, much higher because he gets so many hits using his legs.

With Giambi – he’s just not hitting many line drives. Only 13% of his contact is resulting in line drives. That’s probably his single biggest problem right now as a hitter. He’s just not making good contact and isn’t hitting that many line drives. 13% LD isn’t awful but it’s not good.

So off the bat Giambi’s expected BABIP is only .250 – not .300 as it was assumed in that CBS sportsline article.

Then on top of that is the issue of the shift. In essence, Giambit is only using 1/3 of the infield area. So his ground balls/ low line drives are going to be hits less often than expected. Similar things for his fly balls but not as dramatic.

So you could guess that Giambi’s expected BABIP may only be .200 – .220. Maybe lower given his complete lack of speed. Right now his BABIP is only .108 so there is some component to Giambi being unlucky but not by as much as you’d ordinarily think. Even if Giambi’s luck turn he may only wind up hitting .230-250 the rest of the way.

With Cano it’s a different picture. There’s definitely more of a component to him being “unlucky.”

But right now Cano is hitting 18% of his contact as line drives. So his expected BABIP is .300.

However, every year he’s been a pro Cano’s BABIP has been much higher than .300. If he settles in at a BABIP of .300 he’s not going to have nearly as good a year as he’s had in the past.

Right now Cano’s BABIP is .152 so there is a significant component of bad luck going on with Cano.

But it’s not as much bad luck as you’d think looking at his expected BABIP of .300 vs. .152.

The most troubling thing with Cano right now and the major thing that makes his low BABIP misleading is how often Cano is popping up.

Cano is hitting 15% of his contact as infield pop ups – that is very high. That doesn’t even count for the balls he pops up that make it just out of the infield.

There’s no reason to think that popping up the ball is “bad luck.” It’s just poor contact.

Last year Cano hit only 5% of his batted balls as infield pop ups so he’s popping up three times as often as he did last year.

Cano is also hitting fewer ground balls and more fly balls – not a good thing necessarily for someone who is not a power hitter.

Cano’s “luck” will change – but that probably will not be enough for him to turn around his season. This isn’t just a spell of things going badly for him.

He’s not making good contact – that’s got to change in order for him to have the type of season we’ve come to expect.

Cano’s just on his annual early-season cold streak. His percentage will improve in the 2nd half.

Matsui’s not as bad in the field as people think. He just doesn’t look like Carl Lewis when he’s running down fly balls. But he never did. At least he can run again, which is something he couldn’t do last year and is a large part of what’s behind the ‘defensive liability’ rep that still lingers over him.

Giambi, on the other hand, is as bad in the field as people think.

That’s it! Pavano is virtually gone, Igawa is away for now, but he’ll come up from Scranton then he’ll be labeled (cofirmed?) a bust again and cast away. I usually have one whipping boy and Giambi is my main man now.

If the other team moved their 3B and SS behind their 2B and 1B, staggering them and all 3 OFs at various depths between the RF power alley and the RF line, (making the shift about 2/3 as narrow an angle as it already is) he’d still hit directly into the shift. He’s already got a better chance of going bowling and missing all the pins without rolling a gutter ball. The only way he could get a hit is if he could somehow play all 7 fielding positions when he hits.

Yes, but it’s all we got.

Alrighty. Go Tigers

At least Vermont is made up of mostly dirty hippys, smoking tree and hugging tree. They seem pretty passive.

But the undercurrent of racism and hatred I’ve witnessed for the last 25 years in Massachusetts and Maine, the two states I’ve lived in, is surprising and horrifying at the same time…

Of course its bound to happen everywhere. But in states that are predominantly caucasion, its close to the surface.

IMHO.