Tom Brennan - METS' BABIP AND RISP OBSERVATIONS

No BABIP Pictures, so here’s a sunset shot instead!

Various statistics give  insights as to players currently on your favorite team (the Mets, who else?) and players you may wish to target for your team.

BABIP is one of those very pertinent stats - BATTING AVERAGE ON BALLS IN PLAY.

BABIP for any given player is a function of how hard a guy hits balls - and just plain luck.

BABIP will virtually always be higher than a player's batting average, for obvious reasons, as long as guy strikes out at least once in a season, but HRs are also excluded from BABIP since they are out of the park and hence out of play.  

The larger the difference between a player's BABIP and his batting average, the more likely it is that the gap between the two in the future will normalize.

The Mets as a team had a  3rd-highest .321 BABIP in 2020, 1 point behind the Red Sox and 2 points behind the MLB-leading Braves.

Which player had the highest BABIP in all of baseball last year?  

There Mets' Michael Conforto, with a .412 mark, per MLB statistics, vs. a BABIP of .290 in 2019.  Considering his 2020 average of .322 was a whopping 90 points lower than his BABIP, vs. a difference of just 33 points in 2019.  One would imagine there will be some regression for Conforto in 2021 in that BABIP vs. AVG. gap.

Dominic Smith had a BABIP of .368, 11th highest in all of baseball and 52 points higher than his .316 average.  But Smith hits the ball hard a lot, as his prior year BABIP of .320 indicates, a year in which his BABIP exceeded his AVG. by 38 points.

Jeff McNeil put up a .335 BABIP, 35th highest in baseball, and remarkably consistent with his 2019 BABIP of .337.  His BABIP for those 2 seasons was hardly higher than his actual batting averages of .318 and .311, remarkable due to his relatively low strikeout rate, and a strong indicator that he could hit for a really high average in 2021 if he gets a little luckier.

Brandon Nimmo clocked in with a .326 BABIP, (39th in all of baseball) up from .293 the prior year.  Given that he fans a lot, his pitch selection and pure hustle seems to keep his BABIP high.

Pete Alonso?  .242.  Why so low?  He hits a lot of homers, which don't add to BABIP.  His BABIP in his 53 HR rookie year was .280, with that higher BABIP number being an indicator that he just hit more balls HARD in 2019.  May he return to that in 2021.

JD Davis had a Mets-best .355 BABIP in 2019, clearly hard to sustain, and it slipped to .318 in 2020.  One might expect that 2019 was an outlier year for Davis.  That may be a factor in the Mets needing to go to arbitration for his 2021 salary.

Amed Rosario had an extremely high .338 BABIP in 2019, which slipped to a still-high .305 in 2020 - one wonders if his average will ever approach 2019's .287 - but that is Cleveland's concern now.

Looking to other guys, Francisco Lindor's BABIP was a surprisingly low .280 in 2020.  In 2019, it was .291, but his substantial HR rate was higher in 2019, so my take is that we don't have to worry about Lindor's BABIP being unsustainable as he arrives in Citifield.

George Springer was 115th in baseball with a .259 BABIP in 2020, a substantial drop from 2019's .305 BABIP.  Thus, it would not be surprising to see his average and BABIP spike a bit upwards in 2021.

Jackie Bradley Jr. raised his BABIP excellently, from .281 in 2019 to .343 in 2020.  Apparently, he changed his hitting approach to use all fields more in 2020 and not strive for HRs.  If so, that was very successful for him in 2020, and he should continue that Jeff McNeil approach to hitting in 2021.

Lastly, James McCann - he had a career high .359 BABIP in 2019, followed by a career 2nd best .339 in 2020.  He improved on his hitting approach in those years, but he will be challenged to keep those BABIPs that high going forward.  Hopefully, he can keep the upcoming Mets seasons in the .320 or higher range, so fans do not have Realmuto regret.

Next time around? Mets' RISP.