Another Thing at Which These Cubs Are Best
Just as a recap, here’s some things at which the Cubs have proven to be among the best this year. They’ve been among the best at getting fans to the stadium. They’ve been the best at not pitching to Bryce Harper. They’ve been the best at drawing walks (perhaps that we’ve ever seen), and they’ve been the best base-running team. Basically, they’ve looked like the perfect baseball team. Maybe this seems like overkill, all the Cubs posts already and another one here right now. Or maybe they’re just deserving of all these posts, on account of how dominant and unique they’ve been thus far. I’d argue the latter, but I know that’s not a unanimous opinion.
Either way, here comes another Cubs post! There’s another record they’re pursuing, but it’s not a particularly sexy record, nor is it one that necessarily indicates skill and skill only. Definitely some skill involved, but it’s the kind of record where you’re not too sure how to feel about it, or what, exactly, it means. Even right now, the Cubs are doing this thing, and I’m not totally sure what to make of it. That’s what this post is for!
Lowest team BABIP allowed
- Cubs, .250
- Dodgers, .265
- Blue Jays, .279
- Nationals, .280
- Indians, .282
That’s the basis of this entire post. The Cubs have allowed a really low batting average on balls in play. Like, super low. Almost impossibly low. If the Dodgers were in first place at .265, they’d be an outlier, potentially an outlier worth writing a post about. The Cubs are an outlier from the outlier.
Just in case it’s not clear enough how crazy this is, let’s gain some historical perspective. Let’s look at team BABIP allowed compared to the league’s BABIP, covering the entire expansion era beginning in 1961. BABIP+ is just like any other indexed stat with which you’re familiar, where 100 is league average and every tick above or below is a percentage point differing from the league average.
| Year | Team | BABIP | LgBABIP | BABIP+ |
| 2016 | Cubs | .250 | .295 | 85 |
| 1999 | Reds | .262 | .298 | 88 |
| 1975 | Dodgers | .245 | .277 | 88 |
| 1969 | Orioles | .243 | .273 | 89 |
| 2001 | Mariners | .260 | .292 | 89 |
OK, we’ve got our historical context. Now we can say this and all be on the same page: what the Cubs are doing right now is preventing hits on balls in play like no other team in modern baseball history.
Weird! But, what?
We still don’t really understand BABIP. I mean, we “understand it.” We understand that there’s a luck component involved, thanks to bloop hits and at ’em balls, but that that luck component gradually gets stripped out with a larger sample of balls in play. We understand that, in certain cases, players can have some amount of control over their BABIP. On a team level, we understand that shifts and defense can have an impact on BABIP. We understand these principles, but we still never know with any real amount of certainty what’s going into a BABIP that looks out of line to us. But that can’t stop us from trying!
The first place one might think to look is shifts. Especially when that team is managed by Joe Maddon, who was shifting before it was cool. Maybe the Cubs are kings of the shift?
Fewest defensive shifts
- Marlins, 236
- Cubs, 267
- Royals, 268
- Red Sox, 276
- Phillies, 284
Maddon has reversed course. Once the most shift-happy manager in baseball, Maddon’s Cubs have shifted fewer times than all but one team. Why? We can’t be certain. The Chicago Tribune’s Mark Gonzales prodded Maddon about this subject a couple weeks back, but this was all he got:
“There are not as many prolific left-handed pull hitters as I saw a couple of years ago in the American League,” Maddon said. “Maybe it’s the natural organic evolution of shifts. Guys (have stopped) trying to pull the ball and hit home runs (so much). Maybe they’re trying to hit the ball the other way.”
Well home runs are way up, and while pull percentage has dropped somewhat, this isn’t a satisfying answer. Here’s another recent Maddon quote from CSNChicago:
“…I think the decline in offense or batting average is really related to the proliferation of data in video and the ability to put guys where you want to,” Maddon said.
More video. Better positioning. We saw this with Dexter Fowler earlier in the season. Maybe instead of the radical overshift we’re used to, the Cubs are just doing more subtle positioning on each play? There’s no proof to this theory, but there’s no proof to any of this. We’re just searching for answers.
For what it’s worth, even though the Cubs haven’t shifted much, they’ve shifted very efficiently. According to data provided by Baseball Info Solutions, the Cubs have saved seven runs thanks to the shift this year, despite using the second-fewest number of shifts. Perhaps this lends some credence to the notion that the Cubs are just adept at correctly positioning defenders, and that perhaps the overshift isn’t always necessary?
| Team | Shifts | Shift_AVG | Shift_wOBA | ShiftRuns | ShiftRuns/600 |
| Mets | 289 | .260 | .272 | 11 | 22.8 |
| Padres | 440 | .289 | .296 | 16 | 21.8 |
| Rockies | 661 | .310 | .324 | 19 | 17.2 |
| Phillies | 281 | .274 | .281 | 8 | 17.1 |
| Cubs | 262 | .252 | .256 | 7 | 16.0 |
So they’ve shifted well, and because of that (and also due to a strong infield defense), the Cubs have allowed the lowest batting average on ground balls of any team in the league this year. But it’s not just grounders where the Cubs have excelled. It’s everywhere:
Batting average by batted ball type
- Grounders: .203, 1st of 30
- Fly balls: .179, 3rd of 30
- Line drives: .590, 1st of 30
The Cubs have also had one of the best outfield defenses, and have thus turned air balls into outs better than anyone. But it can’t all be defense and shifts. Some of this has to be the pitchers, too, and Chicago’s pitchers are doing their part. Jake Arrieta may just be the king of weak contact. But Chicago pitchers as a whole are among the league leaders in suppressing both exit velocity and distance on batted balls, and that would theoretically make life even easier for their defense.
The Cubs have a .250 BABIP more than one-third of the way through the season. Even if they run a perfectly league average .295 BABIP over the final 100 games of the regular season, they’d finish the year at .277, which would put them in the upper 5% of all team seasons since 1961, adjusting for era. But we shouldn’t expect them to run a league average BABIP, because the Cubs aren’t an average team. Surely, some good fortune has contributed to their total thus far. But they’ve got arguably the best defense in baseball, so we should expect them to turn more balls in play into outs than most teams. Their pitching staff as a whole generates soft contact, so we should expect them to turn more balls in play into outs than most teams. Perhaps the Cubs have something of an edge when it comes to positioning, and if that’s indeed the case, we should expect them to turn more balls in play into outs than most teams.
The Cubs have a .250 BABIP more than one-third of the way through the season. They’d need to run a .267 BABIP over the final 100 games of the regular season to finish with the lowest adjusted team BABIP in the history of the expansion era. We can’t know for sure where the Cubs’ true-talent team BABIP lies. It’s somewhere between league average and the .250 mark they’ve run so far. What we can say for sure is that the Cubs aren’t like most teams.
August used to cover the Indians for MLB and ohio.com, but now he's here and thinks writing these in the third person is weird. So you can reach me on Twitter @AugustFG_ or e-mail at august.fagerstrom@fangraphs.com.
You guys are just trolling the angry ‘OMG more Cubs articles!’ crowd at this point
I’m sure this comment is at least partially tongue-in-cheek, but really I’m just writing about what I find interesting.
Oh, it’s totally interesting, I just smile when I see Cubs articles because I know they inexplicably infuriate some people.
I know, right? “My team is boring and sucks, and the Cubs are interesting and don’t, so obviously you should write about my team. There’s so much bias here, and the fact that you don’t do that proves you hate my team and love the Cubs!”
“And you stupid commenters don’t know what BABIP is. It’s the measure of bloop hits”
– You know who, just yesterday
Although I’m a Nats fan, I do like the Cubs. But it is a bit boring constantly hearing about the greatness of the Cubs. I mean, don’t they have any potential weaknesses? How do other teams beat them? A more diverse approach like that at times, would be more interesting.
Most obviously, pitchers with good control would give them problems. They’re average in terms of batting average and homeruns and below average in contact, the only thing their batters are particularly good at is walking, they depend on mistakes, they aren’t like for example the royals the last few years who can somehow figure out how to score no matter how good the other pitcher is throwing. In the series they played against the giants this year they looked kind of lost against pitchers who could throw strikes, and that’s obviously what happened with the mets last year.
Pitchers with good control give everyone problems.
Yes but they give more problems to teams which depend on walks, like the cubs. They’re used to taking more pitches and against pitchers with good control that just gets them behind in the count. That’s one of the reasons the royals consistently surpass expectations in the playoffs, they go up there swinging and they can score even against good pitchers who are throwing strikes. Just look at how much better they did hitting the mets pitchers than the cubs did.
So it is false to say that pitchers with good control give the Cubs problems?
As I said, they give them more problems than they give other teams.
You seem to imply that this is a bad thing 🙂
I think it’s not so much a “crowd” as it is “johnforthegiants”
Interesting. Just calculated Z-Scores since 2006 for the 2016 Cubs (I know imperfect).
BABIP Z-Score: -4.17 (lowest since 2006)
LOB% Z-Score: 3.21 (highest since 2006)
GB% Z-Score: 2.21 (10th highest since 2006)
HR/FB Z-Score: -0.10 (171st lowest since 2006)
ERA-xFIP: -0.96 (widest negative spread since 2006)
ERA-FIP: -0.71 (widest negative spread since 2006)
IMO, there’s a lot of luck going on here. They’re obviously a great team as seen in there excellent K/9; GB% and a good BB/9 rates. But you have to figure at some point there will be more base runners, and that it’s unlikely they can keep the LOB% where it’s at.
Yeah, I agree… they’re both really good and well managed… and lucky at the same time. And there’s nothing wrong with saying any of that.
While acknowledging that the Cubs have had some luck (as a couple of commenters have pointed out *repeatedly*), at the risk of some downvotes, ever since Ricketts hired Epstein, he’s poured money into the team and basically given Theo the freedom to hire or build (new DR facility, new ST facility, Wrigley renovations)… they’ve really rebuilt the entire organization from the ground up. Part of what they’ve done was hire some really smart people. I’m not saying that there aren’t other smart organizations or that the Cubs are the smartest… but there are a lot of smart people behind the scenes gathering data and the management team seems pretty adept at using said data. Of course they’ve had some luck and are outplaying the projections, but they are legitimately good at baseball and intelligent as well.
Cubs are underplaying according to Pythagorean and BaseRuns.
I’m just trying to get ahead of another GiantsFanJohn snoozefest and avoid feeding the troll.
Just a thought about this, but could it be that they’re underperforming the Pythagorean because they blow so many teams out?
Hypothetically, they knock the starter around and are off to a 4-0 lead, then the opposing team isn’t going to use its best relievers because they have no shot, letting the score run up to 9-1.
In contrast, on close games, people are pulling out all the stops to try and keep the close game close.
I think what I’m trying to get at is that the fact that they’re underperforming the Pythagorean win/loss isn’t surprising because they have so many blowouts. Whether you beat a team 3-2 or 10-1, it can still only give you one win.
This is the problem with the Pythagorean estimate. It doesn’t consider the quality of pitchers which hitters face. Of course this is a general problem in statistical analysis, but in the case of Pythagorean estimate, it’s systematically misleading because batters face worse pitchers when the game isn’t close. Any team which has a lot of close games is going to simply face tougher pitchers on the average than a team which plays in a lot of blowouts. It’s what I call the ‘Mike Schmidt effect’ because Schmidt was the first player I noticed who clearly radically padded his statistics by hitting exceptionally well when the game was already decided and the other team had their worst pitchers in (although Sammy Sosa later surpassed him in this respect).
What has happened is that statistical analysis has reached the point where it has been demonstrated that run differential is a strong predictor of wins but it has not yet reached the point where the quality of pitchers faced is considered in evaluating a hitter’s performance over the course of a year. At this point in time people who base their thinking on which statistics are readily available without thinking about what’s behind them will place a great value on Pythagorean estimate.
What I think has been overlooked is how Theo has absolutely dominated the trade market. For all the talk of the young kids, many of those young kids were actually acquired via trade—Rizzo, Russell, Hendricks all came over via trade (and gave up Cashner, Shark, and Dempster respectively for them). And that’s before you factor in the Arrieta trade.
Yeah, I totally agree… they do a lot of small things really well… kind of what I was trying to get to with the defense…
Remember that story a few years ago when Maddon was still with Tampa and they talked about having to be 2% better than everybody else… I think they’re doing that here.
But not every trade he made has worked out. For instance, I don’t think he would mind trading Ian Stewart for DJ LaMahieu/Tyler Colvin. Not that they would necessarily still be on the roster but that was a deal that decidedly didn’t work out.
On balance he has done really well in trades, but the acquisition of Arrieta was a fluke. He was solid but not really “special” until the 2nd half last year.
And more and more of their core is draft picks. Bryant is VERY good (2013), Baez (2011) is quietly putting together a decent year for a 23 year old, Schwarber (2014) has the look of someone who could be special. The guys mentioned acquired in trades were all close to finished products when they were acquired with the exception of Hendricks. In 5-6 years it will be interesting to see how much of the Cubs success in future years–I think their success will continue–will be based on draft picks/IFA signings and which ones are due to trades and which ones are due to FA signings.
That’s the one bad trade, tommy la stella for vizcaino is a wash most likely. But rizzo, russell, hendricks, arrietta, strop, rondon(rule 5), fowler. That’s all above average at their positions, with 3 of them top 5 1st their positions in all of baseball. Lemehieu is average, valbuena average, Castillo is average after framing. So when the worst you give up is average is it really a bad deal?
Meh, I’ll call Viz a loss too. But NO ONE wins all of their trades. When you’re way higher in the + than the – side of the ledgers, you’re pretty good at your job.
The main consolation of that deal is “Would LaMahieu even be playing with the Cubs?” Maybe, but maybe not. Also, if he plays well and they win a couple more games suddenly Kris Bryant is in Colorado.
As an aside, they’ve accomplished this despite starting a pitcher once every 5 days who literally can’t field his position.
Shields plays for the White Sox.
“Shields plays for the White Sox.”
You owe me a cup of coffee, and I wish that I could upvote that comment 100 times
Of their five starters, only Lackey has a negative DRS (-1). That’s really not all that bad, especially given how terrible defensive stats are in general and how small SP defensive sample sizes are.
It’s also worth noting the type and quality of contact allowed. They generate the 2nd highest GB, second fewest LD, second highest soft contact, and second lowest hard contact. That would seem to be a good starter recipe for low BABIP.
Yes but not 45 points below the average.
how many points then? exactly?
I hate to say it but I agree. There is a strong element of luck in holding teams that low in BABIP.
I made a long post below to try to guess. Between 5 and 10 points is what I concluded (maybe another 12 for defense). I wouldn’t mind using things like LD% and Hard% to estimate but most people here seem to prefer exit velocity/distance and comps with other years, so I did that. There are some problems with the measures you mention for the Cubs–the LD% and Hard% are excellent but the True Infield Fly % is very low–this is very important because essentially all infield flies are outs–and the Oppo% is very high (27.7%), and that works against the defense.
Sorry, I forgot that you have no ability or desire to take things in any kind of context. I said “starter recipe” because inducing lots of softly hit GB and FB rather than sharp LD will result in a suppressed BABIP. Yes, obviously there is some luck involved, as well as other factors mentioned in the article. But there is a lot less luck than if the Cubs were in the bottom or merely average in terms of limiting hard contact.
i was looking at babip years ago as a measure of the skill of a pitcher. and while the prevailing wisdom was that babip that deviated from ~.300 was mostly a measure of luck, I always assumed that it indicated how well a pitcher was at doing their job, which is not allow hard contact. however i hadn’t factored defensive efficiency into the equation, because it was very rarely talked about even around like 6-7 years ago. now i will say that im not dense enough to think that babip alone tells one about how good a pitcher is at reducing the odds of allowing a hit. obviously hard%, soft% LD%, etc%-es very much matter. but the point is that it is encouraging to see that when we see statistically dominant babips (from the pitcher’s perspective [though batter’s babip prolly have similar tendecies in reverse]) it wont be simply washed aside as “being lucky” and encourages more thorough investigation of the catalyst of that manifestation.
now on to the other point of this article, which is the defensive shifts and Maddon’s increased independency from them, i wonder out loud how much of the necessity of defensive shifting has to do with overcompensating for the skills of the defenders. does it behoove a team with lesser defenders to overshift more than a team that is above average defensively at every position? obviously the quality of the pitching staff matters too.. but how could we investigate that further?
And here I thought only johnforthegiants understood BAPIP… hehe…
i wish i understood that reference..
Gems from yesterday…
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-mariners-offense-is-both-good-and-endearingly-quirky/#comments
have fun!
egad..
Based on the timing of it and the title I thought this article today would be about irking johnforthegiants
I did make a post recently about exactly this topic (cubs babip against). This is actually much more important than any of the other articles written about the cubs, which have focused on relatively minor things like baserunning and arrieta’s contact management, i’ve been trying to get people to talk about this topic for a while, so i’m certainly not irked.
I would add that this is not the first time that johnforthegiants took an article that was not about the Cubs and turned it into a flame war about the Cubs in the comment section.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-nationals-hot-start-has-had-some-help/
This team is 93-44 since Schwarber was recalled for good at the All Star break. 106-56 in their last 162.
There’s probably been 10-15 Cubs & Non-Cubs articles he’s done this too… he’s also given the same treatment to Xander Boegarts. He’s petty, obsessive little boy…
I pointed it out to him yesterday and he denied it, saying instead that us idiotic Fangraphs readers are the ones who turn every article into a Cubsfest
I’ve always wondered about evaluating babip too. It’s usually just written off as something as simple as “he’s fast, so his babip is gonna be higher” or he hits it really hard so it will be too.
I think it’s a very interesting area of analysis that hasn’t really been tapped into yet.
This cubs team seems to be a pretty solid mixture of good control managers, smart management, strong defenders, and some luck. I’d be really curious to see how much of a difference having a very strong defensive team helps a pitcher’s babip.
See what i wrote below. I guessed maybe 12 points in the cubs case. The big problem is that the defensive statistics themselves are problematic.
If we consider (1) 2016 BABIP, (2) 2015 BABIP, and (3) Career BABIP, the numbers for the Cubs starters are Arrieta .241/.246/.269, Lester .259/303/.299, Lackey .254/.295/.304, Hendricks .244/.295/278, and Hammel .251/.288/.301. This gives an average of .250/.286/.290, as opposed to a league average of .295/.296/.294 (the last number being the average since 2002, the year Lackey started pitching). This means that over the course of their careers, the Cubs’ starters have been 4 points lower than league average in BABIP, while in 2015 they were 10 points below league average, while this year they are 45 points below average. The most favorable spin which can be given to this is that they are doing 35 points better than would be expected this year for some reason or another (while it’s true that their numbers were better last year than over the course of their careers, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that their BABIP data last year wasn’t a fluke).
How about if we look at the distinctiveness of the Cubs’ pitchers in a different way? It is suggested in the article that the reason for the Cubs BABIP results are contact suppression, with references made to exit velocity and batted ball distance. However, there are seven teams in the league with lower exit velocities than the Cubs, and their average BABIP is .288 (only 7 points better than the league average), so for some unknown reason the Cubs are doing at least 38 points better in terms of BABIP than would be expected. There are five teams in the league with shorter distances than the Cubs, and their average BABIP is .288, so here again for some reason the Cubs are doing at least 38 points better than would be expected for some unknown reason (in fact, the Astros and the Cardinals are better than the Cubs in terms of both exit velocity and distance, yet their BABIPs are .292 and .309). Exit velocity and distance might explain why the Cubs’ pitchers are a few points below the league average in BABIP, as was the case for their starters in 2015, but they give no explanation for why the BABIP is 36 points lower in 2016.
What about defense? Statistics like batting averages on different kinds of hits and turning air balls into outs mean nothing because they simply replicate the BABIP data. The statistic which would seem to be appropriate here would be UZR, because it reflects how many balls the fielders can get to with some objective measure of difficulty. The Cubs are indeed the best team in baseball in this respect, and in fact have the 6th highest UZR of any team since UZR data started being kept in 2002. But the five teams ahead of them have an average BABIP of .282, which is only 12 points better than the average BABIP for this time period.
So some of the variation might be explained by pitching and some might explained by fielding, but well over half clearly can’t, and is presumably luck.
If we consider BABIP, 2016 (1), (2) in 2015 and his career BABIP BABIP (3), these figures clearly Arrieta waste. 241 /. 246 /. 269, Lester. 299/259/297 me. 254 /. 295 /. Hendriks, 304. 244 /. 295/279 and Hummel. 251 /. 295 /. 301. This provides an average of 250 /. 295 /. 282, not an average League. 295 /. 295 /. 294 (The last question is the average in 2002, started throwing servants). This means that, during his career, the starters were lower than the average in the league BABIP, while in 2015 was 10 points below the average in the league this year is 4 points 45 points below the average. Top Spin that can be given for this is that the longer you wait this year for some reason (if it is true that last year more than the amounts in his career, to give them the benefit of doubt and assume that their data BABIP last year was not a coincidence) 35 points.
How do you want people to see our young pitchers differently? It was in an article that is the reason for the Mets BABIP induction in combat results, reference is made to escape the speed and distance, push the ball. However, there are seven teams in the league the Cubs with a lower rate and they average BABIP. 288 (only 7 points better than the league average), but for some reason pandas at least 38 points better on BABIP, as expected. There are five teams in the league with a distance less than the average of the Cubs and their BABIP. 288 and again, for some reason, pandas are better than expected for a reason at least 38 points (in fact, the Tigers and the Cardinals are better than in the first Panda speed and distance, but BABIPs. 292 309). Escape velocity and distance may explain why, in despair pitchers were rated below average BABIP league, as is the case for the start of 2015, but gave no explanation as to why BABIP is 36 points less than in 2016.
And the Ministry of Defence? Statistics like batting average on the different types of attitudes and turn Air Ball output makes no sense because the only copy BABIP data. Statistics, it seems quite appropriate here cause because it reflects how players cans eggs on the level of the weight of the lens. Pandas really are the best baseball team in this field, and the fact is that there are six major groups of causes by the AO data from 2002. However, the five teams ahead of them BABIP inadequate. 286, which is better than average BABIP only 12 points for only the period.
So, part of the changes may be due to improve and some can explain Fielding, but it seems it is not possible for more than half, and it may be in luck.
Do you watch any of their games? Or are you simply scouting the stat sheet?
Tell me why we should care about lackeys babip from over 10 years ago or lesters like 8 years ago at Fenway? Or hammels in the a.l east? Basically you just demonstrated that all of the cubs have been above average total for the last 2 years, which begins a trend that maybe with that defense they just can maintain elite babips? I think some regression is in store, but you exaggerate the luck factor in all this, there is some, but like maybe they lead the league by 10 points and not 15.
I didn’t say we should care about their averages years ago. I gave that as one possible way of evaluating their ability and their performance in 2015 as another way, and I said okay, in evaluating what we should expect, let’s use last year as a baseline and say their ability accounts for about 10 points above average rather than 4 points (you see where I wrote that?). In terms of how much regression to expect, the relevant number is relative to league average, not to how much they lead the league by (especially because the Dodgers also have an usually low BABIP against). So let’s give them 10 for pitching, 12 for fielding, that would put them at .273. Obviously these are just guesses.
Here’s the thing – this would be a much stronger argument if the returns across the board were less uniform. But in statistics, when we observe that some independent variable (pitching in front of the Cubs defense) leads to the same result in a dependent variable (allowing a ~.250 BABIP), regardless of subject, we tend to assume the effect is statistically significant.The Cubs effectively suppressed BABIP last year. Then, they began to field an outfield with players who have a much better defensive reputation. Now, they supress BABIP much more.
It seems likely that, regardless of how sustainable it is, the Cubs defense is indeed the main component in the Cubs BABIP. Not to mention, one might assume that the Cubs are giving their pitchers scouting reports that not only play into opposing batters weakness, but also their defenses strengths. If Player A tends to take Pitch X in location Y, and hit a fly ball to right field, well, the Cubs have Heyward there, and they’re willing to gamble Player A won’t hit it anywhere he can’t get to. That’s bald speculation, but making advances in that granular department, when you have sufficient defensive strengths, could allow a team to suppress BABIP even while relying less on shifting.
So, the Cubs have this fabulous UZR, pitchers leaning into taking advantage of it, and both the pitching and defensive acumen to maximize the gains from it. Does this theoretical model allow us to determine precisely how much of this is luck?
No! Statisticians cannot say things like “some of the variation might be explained by pitching and some might explained by fielding, but well over half clearly can’t, and is presumably luck.” Statisticians have to run a linear regression on these inputs, with a fudge factor for non-luck unknown causes. Or, some kind of ANOVA test – literally, an ANalysis Of VAriance. I can’t even think of how to do this, because it’s late, and I’m also not that smart. But that’s not the point.
The point is, if the players on a team are uniformly lucky, to a similar degree, over a decently sized composite sample, it makes sense to start treating that “luck” as something other than noise. Like, maybe the Cubs make so few OOZ plays because the plethora of good defenders ensures fielders can use only subtle positional shifts to have overlapping zones? Maybe, Cubs pitchers are doing something as a group to get the kinds of contact they want – a philosophical approach adopted by the team? Maybe, luck explains 18% of the variance, but 67% is good pitching and good defense, and 15% is generally crappy opponent hitting talent?
But to categorically assume well over >50% of the variance is luck? You can’t just say “Well, here’s a fudge factor of 7% from exit velocity and distance, and here’s a 12% one for defense, and that adds to 19%, which is much less than 22.5%, which is half of 45%.” Forget that this isn’t how variance analysis works. If nothing else, one might theorize that these variables probably have a strong interaction effect, where allowing weaker contact in front of a stronger defense leads to greater effect size than simply adding expected individual effects. So, the analysis would have to start with teams that have a comparable UZR and a comparable batted-ball profile.
You can’t reject analysis of greater nuance because it doesn’t agree with a shallower survey. We have to specifically test August’s arguments to reject them, and not just handwave them away, because we prefer a more easily explainable picture.
I totally understand what you’re saying. I made a comment above about the Cubs being really well managed and part of that is getting the defense set correctly… but the general idea of what you’re saying…
“The point is, if the players on a team are uniformly lucky, to a similar degree, over a decently sized composite sample, it makes sense to start treating that “luck” as something other than noise.”
Isn’t this what Royals fans have been arguing about the last couple seasons?
That isn’t what the Royals’ fans which I know have been arguing at all. They’ve been arguing that elite relieving and contact hitting aren’t valued highly enough.
What a surprise, you totally missed the point of my comment…
Non-Royals fans have been saying that the Royals have been outplaying their projections due luck and will regress back to their normal level.
Royals fans have been arguing that there are actual reasons, such as relieving and contact, that the team is doing so well and it’s the projections that are wrong…
Jesus dude, you really need to stop being such and argumentative prick to every commenter here and read the context of what they’re saying. I swear, if a comment isn’t completely black and white, you can’t pick up at all what people are saying.
It isn’t the same thing. Regarding elite relievers the issue with the royals is not doubt about whether the statistics are real–everyone rexognized that the royals have been very good in thise categories–but whether they are accurately weighted in performance models. Regresiion is not an issue. With the cubs the question is whether or to what extent the statistics themselves are real. Cubs fans are not pointing to stats not directly related to babip in an effort to explain the team’s performance, they are arguing that the babip data can be explained. It’s a completely different thing.
What’s going in with the cubs is more like the discourse about the orioles, in which oriole fans claimed that their manager had some magic formula which enabled them to win so many one-run games, similar to cubs fans believing that maddon has some magical way to put gis fielders where the other team will hit the ball which othet managers don’t know. Royals fans never claim that yost has some mysterious powers like that, the whole discourse is different.
No, that’s nonsense. “People” are suggesting the Cubs have a really good defense, and pitch to soft contact well. Those are skills just as real as the Royals’ contact hitting and really good defense. The bullpen was never a doubt.
I suggested Maddon might have better pitch-to-hit-location data than other managers, and then rejected my own theory as a statistically rigorous explanation, because one can’t just write whatever things one wants and pretend they explain variance. You have to actually investigate.
They are explaining the cubs babip data (or part of it) by referring to other factors. They are not bringing in factors unrelated to babip. Royals supporters were bringing in different factors which they believe should have more weight in the overall model. I agree about the implausibility of the positioning claim, for the reason you say and more specifically because the inside edge fielding data suggest that if anything the cubs have worse positioning than the average team because they have relatively fewer routine plays. You can clearly see the difference between the cubs/orioles discourse as opposed to the royals discourse because a crucial part of the cubs/orioles discourse is attributing unique and practically supernatural abilities to the managers, whereas in royals’ discourse yost is if anything ridiculed.
They were good at BABIP last year (287) but that’s nothing like this year (250). Something else is clearly going on. I agree that evidence suggests that the low BABIP is more due to the defense than the pitchers (in fact I’ve been saying this all along about the Cubs, although for some reason I’ve gotten roundly booed for it), but it’s hard to give that much weight to the defensive changes which have been made. I mean if Heyward really has such an effect on BABIP, you’d expect the Cardinals’ BABIP to go way up as the Cubs’ has gone way down, but in fact the Cardinals BABIP has also gone down this year (from .297 to .286) (for that matter you could say the same thing about Lackey, but that’s a different topic).
As I mention elsewhere here, the problem with the ‘brilliant positioning’ argument is that in fact according to Inside Edge data, the Cubs have the 3rd lowest number of routine fielding plays in the majors this year.
Obviously I’m taking a wild guess with regard to how much is due to luck. Some people here asked for estimates and I tried to make a guess as best I could. You’re hypothesizing something about interaction between the factors and that’s possible but there’s no evidence for it.
To be honest, I have the feeling that the OOZ data is simply the result of the Cubs (and Marlins) statisticians having a different definition of OOZ than other teams, because I don’t see any other explanation and it seems like a very subjective thing to categorize.
Well, the Cardinals BABIP has a lot of contributing factors. For example, with the Cubs, it’s not just Heyward: it’s also the lack of Schwarber.
“You’re hypothesizing something about interaction between the factors and that’s possible but there’s no evidence for it.”
That’s willful ignorance. The Cubs are evidence for it. You’d have to investigate other teams with a similar batted-ball profile and similar UZR to find more evidence for it, though.
That’s what i tried to do, as i wrote. I found the five teams with a better uzr than the 2016 cubs since uzr records have been kept and i checked their average babip, it was 12 points better than the league average, as i wrote. If you have a better suggestion how to estimate the effect of fielding on babip, i’d be interested in hearing it. But the problem which comes up is that we still have to explain the 35 point difference in babip between the 2015 cubs and the 2016 cubs. That’s a pretty tall order. Heyward is a factor, as is russell and also zobrist and as you point out the lack of schwarber. But 35 points?
Something to add to the discussion. The Cubs defenders, unsurprisingly, have above average marks across most measures of fielding range. Yet, as a team they have made by far the fewest out of zone plays. You would think that good defensive range and a low BABIP allowed would predict a high number of OOZ plays. I think there are two drivers of this effect. #1- the Cubs pitchers allow less batted balls (3rd in K%). This certainly would not fully explain such an extreme effect. #2- The Cubs have displayed superior defensive positioning – providing further support to Fagerstrom’s article.
Yes, I noticed this statistic also and it’s seems very strange. The obvious conclusion is that they’re very good at making relatively easy plays but very rarely make difficult plays. The problem with the K% explanation is that the Tigers and Marlins, the next lowest OOZ teams, are 10th and 24th in K%, while the Nationals and Dodgers, who have a higher K% than the Cubs, are 14th and 24th in OOZ. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious correlation. The problem with the better positioning explanation is that according to Inside Edge Fielding, the Cubs have a LOWER proportion of routine plays than the average team (they are #28 in 90-100% fielding plays). It’s noticeable that the Marlins show the same pattern as the Cubs (#3 in RZR but #28 in OOZ) and they are the only team which shifts less than the Cubs, but I have no explanation for why this might be correlated.
For the record: I’m a Reds fan who has rooted for the Giants the last (roughly) calendar year since they traded for one of my favorite players (Mike Leake) and then signed another (Cueto). Also, I’ve always hated everything about the Cubs (see: am a Reds fan).
However, Johnforthegiants has been so insufferable this season, I’m now rooting for the Cubs and Giants to meet in the NLCS, so the Cubs can beat the Giants in 5 (I will still hope for a Cueto win). I can think of no better October scenario, given my current rooting interests.
I would like for the Giants to play the Cubs in the NLCS too. I’m afraid that the Giants won’t be able to get past the Nationals but I’m also afraid that the Cubs won’t be able to get past the Mets, and the Mets’ pitching really is scary, plus they’re young and they won’t run out of gas in the postseason like the Cubs’ pitchers did last year.
My condolences for losing Cueto. He really is great and so much fun to watch, actually I rooted for him even before he was on the Giants. On the other hand you got Duvall. The Giants really blew it on that one. This year Giants’ fans are freaking out because the outfield is a mess and they’re saying they should pull out all the stops and get someone by the trade deadline, who cares about prospects. They don’t understand that this short-term thinking is what got the team into this mess in the first place, if they hadn’t given up Duvall for half a season of Leake this wouldn’t be a problem.
So I go to Team Pitching Stats and sort by BABIP and search for my team starting at the top (The Twins unfortunately). They are currently allowing a .330 BABIP! August Fagerstrom — Can you do a follow up post and discuss why the Twins have been so bad? I know their defense isn’t THAT bad is it? The 19 point spread between them and the Rockies seems crazy.
As a supporting member, I’d like to request many, many more articles on the Cubs, and none at all ever on the stinking Giants. Thank you for your consideration.
There is a strong (0.57) correlation between LD% and BABIP across the league.
Additionally, there are strong correlations between BABIP and several defensive metics. Here are the correlations and the Cubs’ ranks:
RngR (-0.73), Cubs Rank: 1st
UZR (-0.624), Cubs Rank: 1st
UZR/150 (-0.525), Cubs Rank: 1st
Def (-0.588), Cubs Rank: 2nd
Yes but as i wrote, things like this can explain maybe 20 points, but the cubs are 45 points below rhe league average.