bryant sucks bandPUBLICACCESS

[Gilby]

And I think even the contact problems are overstated. He's showing that he's EXACTLY the type of player that can be a star with a 30% K rate. He's sustaining an elite walk rate and playing good defense at a difficult position, while hitting for some power that hasn't fully shown itself yet. I guess I don't see why we should be concerned over his contact problems when it's only the difference between him being a regular star instead of an elite player. It's not like it's causing him to be bad or only pretty good.

 

 

So you think his floor at this point is "regular star" or would that be putting words in your mouth?

 

I'd love for you to be right.

 

Well, when he's at 3.9 fWAR through 101 games in his rookies season despite a only a .192 isoSLG which was supposed to be his calling card...yes, I think regular star is his floor.

 

(to be fair you could point out that maybe he just isn't going to hit for as much power in the majors as people were expecting, which, fine, that can be an opinion, but I refuse to live in a world where he won't maintain a mid 200s ISO as his career goes on)

[Guest]

And I think even the contact problems are overstated. He's showing that he's EXACTLY the type of player that can be a star with a 30% K rate. He's sustaining an elite walk rate and playing good defense at a difficult position, while hitting for some power that hasn't fully shown itself yet. I guess I don't see why we should be concerned over his contact problems when it's only the difference between him being a regular star instead of an elite player. It's not like it's causing him to be bad or only pretty good.

 

 

So you think his floor at this point is "regular star" or would that be putting words in your mouth?

 

I'd love for you to be right.

 

Well, when he's at 3.9 fWAR through 101 games in his rookies season despite a only a .192 isoSLG which was supposed to be his calling card...yes, I think regular star is his floor.

 

(to be fair you could point out that maybe he just isn't going to hit for as much power in the majors as people were expecting, which, fine, that can be an opinion, but I refuse to live in a world where he won't maintain a mid 200s ISO as his career goes on)

 

there's also the .341 babip (allowing him to hit .249) and the positive defensive rating which doesn't necessarily fall in line with what was expected/said by scouts.

[Guest]

The important thing is that all successes must be scrutinized for signs of impending doom, for our baseball fandom must mirror humanity's cold and unyielding march to the grave.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

And I think even the contact problems are overstated. He's showing that he's EXACTLY the type of player that can be a star with a 30% K rate. He's sustaining an elite walk rate and playing good defense at a difficult position, while hitting for some power that hasn't fully shown itself yet. I guess I don't see why we should be concerned over his contact problems when it's only the difference between him being a regular star instead of an elite player. It's not like it's causing him to be bad or only pretty good.

 

 

So you think his floor at this point is "regular star" or would that be putting words in your mouth?

 

I'd love for you to be right.

 

Well, when he's at 3.9 fWAR through 101 games in his rookies season despite a only a .192 isoSLG which was supposed to be his calling card...yes, I think regular star is his floor.

 

(to be fair you could point out that maybe he just isn't going to hit for as much power in the majors as people were expecting, which, fine, that can be an opinion, but I refuse to live in a world where he won't maintain a mid 200s ISO as his career goes on)

 

there's also the .341 babip (allowing him to hit .249) and the positive defensive rating which doesn't necessarily fall in line with what was expected/said by scouts.

 

Eh... he's also really fast and hits the ball really hard. So .341 isn't really out of line for his BABIP. ZiPS has him at .342 for the rest of the year. And I think he's passed the eye test defensively and looks more comfortable at third now.

[Guest]

i remember when starlin could obviously sustain a .340 babip

 

i was one of the people saying it

[Aaron_Kennelly]

i remember when starlin could obviously sustain a .340 babip

 

i was one of the people saying it

 

You probably shouldn't have said that then. He isn't the type of guy that can sustain that. Freakishly athletic guys with lots of power can, though.

[Guest]

i remember when starlin could obviously sustain a .340 babip

 

i was one of the people saying it

 

You probably shouldn't have said that then. He isn't the type of guy that can sustain that. Freakishly athletic guys with lots of power can, though.

 

i said it because he did it for his first 1200 PAs

[Sammy Sofa]

And he'll do it again, too.

 

http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/theemosthappiee/27932321/13987/original.gif

[Aaron_Kennelly]

i remember when starlin could obviously sustain a .340 babip

 

i was one of the people saying it

 

You probably shouldn't have said that then. He isn't the type of guy that can sustain that. Freakishly athletic guys with lots of power can, though.

 

i said it because he did it for his first 1200 PAs

 

Which is why I said you "probably" shouldn't have said that. There are some bad-ball hitters that have managed to keep that up, but it usually the guys that just rip the ball with authority that do. I wouldn't have argued you at the time you said it. But, looking back, you probably shouldn't have said it.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

i remember when starlin could obviously sustain a .340 babip

 

i was one of the people saying it

 

I said he couldn't! Yay me!

[TruffleShuffle]

starlin castro could sustain a .340 babip when his line drive rate was 20%, his soft contact rate was like 15% and his hard contact rate was over 25%. now he's pulling weak ground balls all the time. yeah no [expletive] his babip has dropped. it wasn't purely lucky before and it isn't purely unlucky now.

 

by the way, bryant's soft contact rate is 14% and his hard contact rate is 37%, so yes his babip should be high.

[Guest]

I know what Kyle's reply is gonna be but I'll let him do it

[TruffleShuffle]

Yeah but then I won't see it :-(

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I know what Kyle's reply is gonna be but I'll let him do it

 

I will let it go preemptively. It doesn't matter.

[Burt Macklin, FBI]

I'm not sure what Kyle was going to say (probably something about sustainability of Hard%/BABIP?) but this seems like a good place to bring up one of my favorite idiosyncrasies of the hard hit%: You can't use it to predict BABIP. At all.

 

http://i.imgur.com/AbSptmq.png

 

Perhaps it's best summed up in this graph: you can use it to great effect to predict power (slugging), but not at all to predict average:

 

http://i.imgur.com/D0Re1NT.png

 

*Fangraphs 2012-2014 seasons, all qualified hitters

[TruffleShuffle]

that seems counterintuitive. how are hard hit balls not more likely to be base hits?

[squally1313]

I remember the standard shorthand for determining BAPIP used to be 1.2 x LD%, no? Yeah Bryant kills the ball, but when a lot of those hard hit balls (not sure on the requirements for that....exit velocity?) are ending up in the seats or caught at the warning track, it doesn't seem like that would lead to high BAPIP.

 

I'm hoping Bryant can keep up the BAPIP too, but his batted ball profile (high FB%, relatively low LD%...below Castro's career average by about 6%) wouldn't seem to lend itself to that. Maybe he's making up for it with his baserunning skills, and ZIPS obviously thinks it is for real, but from a quick glance I would think it's due for some regression (which would then be cancelled out by a more appropriate HR/FB%).

[jersey cubs fan]

that seems counterintuitive. how are hard hit balls not more likely to be base hits?

 

There seems to be a minor increase, but you probably have two things working against you.

 

The hardest hit ground balls may get through, but the softest hit ground balls can also more easily turn into hits when compared with the typical ground ball. Plus, line drives often get caught while lots of bloopers fall in front of the outfield.

 

Hitting it hard works best for SLGing purposes and especially for HR. But in a league with near elite defenders all over the diamond, plus defensive shifting in play, it makes sense that it would not guarantee a higher BABIP.

Edited August 12, 2015 by jersey cubs fan

[Burt Macklin, FBI]

that seems counterintuitive. how are hard hit balls not more likely to be base hits?

 

I think it's important to note that this data doesn't say "hard hit balls are not more likely to be base hits". The hardest hit balls are usually line drives, which have a much higher BABIP (~.730 depending on which article you read) than ground balls (~.240) and fly balls (~.150).

 

This data says "Fangraphs hard hit% doesn't influence how likely base hits are". That arises because they normalize it to the batted ball type. In other words, they decide whether it's a fly ball, line drive, or ground ball, and then assign a soft, medium, or hard rating, such that you've normalized out the enhanced BABIP from line drives. Once you get past that, I think all the factors that Jersey mentioned come into play.

[BigSlick]

that seems counterintuitive. how are hard hit balls not more likely to be base hits?

I think it fundamentally gets down to how hard hit balls are more likely to be fly balls, and batting average on fly balls are lower than ground balls

 

Or rather, what Burt Macklin (who I thought retired, smh) said above me much better

[Guest]

Also a decent number of truly hard hit balls escape BABIP as home runs. Not enough to tilt that graph significantly, but some.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Hard-hit balls are often hit by slow, lumbering sluggers. Bryant is the opposite of that. Even though his IFH% is likely to drop, he is still going to be well above the average guy with his batted-ball profile. Also most dead-pull hitters hit a lot of hard-hit balls. And there is an inverse correlation to pull% and BABIP. And Bryant isn't a dead-pull hitter.

[Little Slide Rooter]

The past 7 games, Bryant's hitting .304/.429/.652. So you can all stop with your words and sentences. He's going to be fine. Numbers don't lie. Words do. And seeing as sentences are nothing more than a series of eloquently connected words, they lie too. .304/.429/.652. Nothing else matters. End of story.

[chuckywang]

Lock Bryant in long term right now?

[Proven Veteran]

Lock Bryant in long term right now?

 

No, it's time to sell high, of course.