Is Ryan Braun a great hitter, simply a good hitter, or just really lucky?
by backtocali on Apr 10, 2010 1:40 AM EDT
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PrintRyan Braun, LF, of the Milwaukee Brewers is no doubt one of the most productive young power hitters in the game right now. He has counting stats totals, in his first 3 seasons that compare with players such as Joe Dimaggio, Albert Pujols, and Frank Robinson. His most favorable comps according to Baseball-ref are Manny Ramirez and Hall of Famer Chick Hafey, and also compares well with other HOF'ers Ralph Kiner and Willie McCovey. Those are some pretty nice comps for Braun as he builds his resume.
I attend many, and get to see almost all of Ryan Braun's games either in person or in market on tv. I hear a lot of talk from announcers, read stories from reputable baseball magazines and blogs about how Braun is an amazing hitter and how people see him as a possible batting champion some day. But are these expectations and comparisons worthy?
Last season, while Braun compiled 203 hits, I noticed quite a lot of seeing-eye grounders, Texas Leaguers and balls hit just barely out of reach of an outfielder or infielder, and it got me thinking about BABIP.
During his rookie season, Braun hit an impressive .324, followed up by a .285 season as a sophmore and last season hit .320. All very good years accompanied by the power he is so lethal with. But in his 2 above .300 seasons, his BABIP was .361 in 2007 and then .353 in 2009, both way above average.The year he hit .285 his BABIP was a modest .305. Do we believe that BABIP measures luck still?
Let's say that Braun was just a bit lucky each of those 2 years, but was still in the "not necessarily unlucky, but also not necessarily unlucky" range, and had a BABIP of .310. Doing the math, that would give him batting averages of .286 in his rookie season (with 129 hits instead of 146) and .286 again last season (with 175 hits).
Is Ryan Braun a .286 hitter who happens to just be really lucky? Time will tell. There's nothing wrong with a player who has a .286 lifetime average to go along with 30 HR and 100 RBI seasons.
A career .306 hitter with Braun's power output puts him in very select company, but a .286 player with his power output drops him down a few notches to the Andres Galaragga, Nellie Foxx, Miguel Tejada type of range.
None of this even begins to address the issue of how much this "luck" has played in Braun's WAR to date. I have attempted to illustrate before how Braun is eclipsed by fellow 2007 rookie Troy Tulowitzki, SS of the Colorado Rockies, but how much less would his WAR have been so far if he werent so "lucky?" Even with the luck, Braun's defense has put him nowhere near even the worst 3 year spans, WAR-wise to players he has been comped to.
Over the past 3 seasons, Ryan Braun has the 20th highest BABIP in baseball. There are players above him who have batting titles, as well as players with consistently high batting averages (i.e. players who could safely be considered "great hitters"), but there are also players with more modest credentials as hitters such as BJ Upton, Brad Hawpe, Akinori Iwamura, Mark Reynolds...He also has the 20th LOWEST Lind drive rate in the game over that same period of time. It just doesn't add up.
What if Ryan Braun has an "unlucky" (.290 or below BABIP) season, what happens to his numbers and value then? Pujols' career BABIP is .317, a bit lucky, compared with Brauns .339. And when Pujols has an "average" BABIP type year, he's still hitting well above .300.
Can Braun sustain such a high BABIP? Is this a fair assessment of Ryan Braun's true hitting ability? is it too early to tell?
What do you think?
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Lots of changes in Batted Ball Profiles
The changes in BABIP make some sense when you look at his batted ball numbers. I’ll try to keep this short, but sufficient. His pop-up rate has increased 5% each year, which explains his first 2 years’ BABIP, but not 2009. He hit 6% more FB than GB his first 2 years, but reversed that to 12% more GB than FB last year. The more groundballs and a 2% rise in LD usually results in a higher BABIP. His HR/FB% was 22% his rookie year, and has dropped to about 18% the last 2 years.
Using my ok-but-not-great BABIP predictor, I have Braun’s BABIPs at .310 in 2007, .306 in 2008, and .327 in 2009. That .327 BABIP last year would have given him a .300/.368/.526 slashline, about a .385 wOBA, in the territory of Hawpe, Kubel and Justin Upton. I live in WI, so I also see a lot of Brewers games on TV. I’d guess the extra bloopers that fall in are due to him using a heavy bat. His speed also gives him a few extra hits a year. I’d be more worried about his defense than hitting luck.
HS team nickname: Redmen, College team nickname: Warriors, Amateur team nickname: Chiefs, Favorite MLB team: Braves. Holy political incorrectness...
Batted ball profile doesn't tell the whole story
He obviously has a lot of power and guys with more power often have higher BABIPs since they hit the ball so hard, especially for power guys with speed like Braun. He’s also improved his K rate every year in the bigs, starting with 22% in his rookie season followed by 19% and more recently 17% last season, due to a rising contact rate on pitches in the zone. All of that has been accompanied by an increased walk rate in every season.
Braun is the real deal, and while he may not post .350 BABIPs every season, I’d comfortably peg him for an above average BABIP each year, and he’s shown he could still be improving. Even if he was a bit lucky in his first few seasons, that improvement will mask it in his stats and he should continue to put up amazing lines year in and year out.
There is skill to BABIP
There is a lot of skill to having a high BABIP as a batter. There might be a fair amount of noise too, but don’t forget the skill component. There is skill to it for pitchers also, but it just doesn’t show as much.
So...
Are you saying then that Braun isnt as good as his stats, or that he is as good, regardless of his BABIP?
With regression towards the mean Braun’s BA drops, as does his production, if only by a bit.
The whole point was that there are better “hitters” who have had lower BABIP than Braun has in his first 3 years, leading me to believe that there is a bit of luck in there. There are also other hitters with better BABIP over that same span who arent considered great or good hitters.
How are you defining "better hitters"?
The whole point was that there are better "hitters" who have had lower BABIP than Braun has in his first 3 years, leading me to believe that there is a bit of luck in there.
BABIP is certainly a strong skill for hitters, not that you don’t need some regression. The other things that helps batting average are SO-rate (where Braun is decent) and HR-rate, where Braun is good.
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Cabrera, Helton, Pujols,
I am just trying to get an understanding of how much “luck” actually goes into it.
We obviously have the two things that are constants (at least in the equation) with the K and HR rates. Hit a lot of HR and not K as much you get a nice BABIP, but then there is the added bonus of a guy who also hits for high average like Braun has 2 of his 3 seasons to go along with that. add to it that Braun is in the top of the league in K% and that throws in even more of the “luck” factor.
I just think that theres something to the fact that the one year that Braun had an only average BABIP, he only hit .285. And if you plug in an average BABIP number to his seasons, he winds up at .285 each time. Theres a lot of luck from .285 to .335. And then what does that say about his hitting ability, and how much does it affect value if/when he regresses to the mean?
After 4 years, you expect his BABIP to be a lot closer to his career average than league average
Most projection systems expect his BABIP to be pretty close to .333.
Most also expect him to be a top 10 hitter.
"Pinch-bunters don't have a ton of value, even with the Twins"
by Steven Ellingson on Apr 14, 2010 12:33 AM EDT up reply actions
Also, just look at the rest of the top 10 hitters of any list
most of not all of them, have career BABIPs significantly above average.
BABIP is a skill for batters! it’s just more volatile than things like K% and BB%. After 4 years, you have a pretty good idea of what kind of BABIP someone will put up.
"Pinch-bunters don't have a ton of value, even with the Twins"
by Steven Ellingson on Apr 14, 2010 12:37 AM EDT up reply actions
One could look at it like the .300 BABIP season was unlucky for Braun.
Like Steven said, BABIP is a definite skill for hitters. Just like you shouldn’t look at his 35 HRs and think he’s been lucky since the average hitter hits 15, you shouldn’t look at his .340 BABIP and think he’s been lucky since the average hitter hits .300.
(Well, for each, you DO regress a bit, the point is that it’s really not THAT much, even for BABIP.)
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Not sure how much of a difference this makes, but I tossed Braun's numbers into the xBABIP calculator over at THT
2007: .325
2008: .322
2009: .333
Not sure exactly how accurate the estimator is, but it seems that Braun’s batted ball data would push him towards a similar BABIP every season. He was probably a bit lucky in 2007 and 2009, but he was pretty unlucky in 2008. Eventually, probably this season, you’ll see him move closer to the .325-.335 range with his BABIP.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
Funny that Steve mentions his projected BABIP is .333 -- almost exactly his average xBABIP.
And by “funny” I mean, “Huzzah!”
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by Sky Kalkman on Apr 14, 2010 10:00 AM EDT up reply actions
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