Interesting note on Reynolds...

johnfluharty · Post by **johnfluharty** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:03 am

CBS Sports: Pirates rookie Bryan Reynolds won't win Rookie of the Year, but he might break a longstanding hitting record.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/pira ... ng-record/

DemDog · Post by **DemDog** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 11:23 am

SSS for sure but hearing his name among 4 of the greatest hitters ever in MLB including Carew and Roberto is very encouraging. Time will tell but maybe NH got lucky in the Cutch trade.

ChitownBucco · Post by **ChitownBucco** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 2:41 pm

well that's unfortunate as BABIP is mostly seen as derived from a bit of luck.

hope we don't see a huge regression next year

SammyKhalifa · Post by **SammyKhalifa** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:43 pm

0F242538233B220E392F2F234C0 wrote: well that's unfortunate as BABIP is mostly seen as derived from a bit of luck.

hope we don't see a huge regression next year
I think he's probably good but not THIS good

iabucco · Post by **iabucco** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:34 pm

I really think BABIP has a lot of luck involved. Certainly, if you are hitting the ball hard it will increase but Reynolds has seemed to get a high number of flare hits. I do really like Reynolds and love the way he plays. I think his power will pick up. He is one of the few things that has been fun this year.

Bobster21 · Post by **Bobster21** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 7:03 pm

626A697E6868640B0 wrote: I really think BABIP has a lot of luck involved. Certainly, if you are hitting the ball hard it will increase but Reynolds has seemed to get a high number of flare hits. I do really like Reynolds and love the way he plays. I think his power will pick up. He is one of the few things that has been fun this year.
There's no doubt luck plays a part in BABIP. Former Pirate catcher Chris Stewart was a terrible hitter. Career .230 BA. In his last 2 seasons as a Buc he hit .214 and .183. In the season before joining the Bucs he hit .211. But incredibly in his first 2 Pirate seasons (2014, 2015) he batted .294 and .289. It was amazing to watch because I never saw such consistent, prolific weak hits. He had 86 hits in those 2 seasons and 73 were singles. Seemed like every AB was a seeing eye ground ball between 3B or SS or a soft blooper just over the SS. But his BABIP in 2014 was .364. It was .348 in 2015. Clemente's career BABIP was .343. Willie Mays' BABIP was .299. For those 2 seasons, Stewart, a notoriously bad hitter, just got lucky and stayed lucky.

Another example is Bill Virdon. A career .267 hitter but he finished 2nd in the NL batting race in 1956 with a .319 BA. But from 1957 on, he compiled a cumulative .259 BA with a high of .279, generally hitting between .243 and .269. But in that one outlier season of 1956 he had a BABIP of .349 compared to his career BABIP of .285. His hits were just falling in that year.

OTOH, Reynolds has never hit below .300 in his pro career (aside from a few games in the Az Fall league). He's a legit hitter. So even when he's not getting as lucky with balls in play, he's still going to be a good hitter. But as the examples of Stewart and Virdon show, BABIP can really aid a batting average based on luck. Reynolds will likely be a .300 hitter or close throughout his career if his minor league stats are an indication. But we shouldn't get used to .330.