Luckiest & Unluckiest Hitters This Year ...

[markj11]

Seems like C. Floyd would be on the unlucky list batting .185.

Floyd hasn't been getting many hits to fall but has still been putting the bat on the ball, as he had been to bat 49 straight times without striking out.

Wilkerson cant even go 4 at bats without a k.

[beezer]

My vote is for Floyd. I watch the Mets quite a bit and he has been hitting line drives right to people and hitting his flyouts to the warning track. This is why I have held steady with Cliff and will be rewarded handsomely when those flyouts start carrying a little more and turn into HR's.

[Ender]

My vote is for Floyd. I watch the Mets quite a bit and he has been hitting line drives right to people and hitting his flyouts to the warning track. This is why I have held steady with Cliff and will be rewarded handsomely when those flyouts start carrying a little more and turn into HR's.

Hopefully it happens soon so you can sell high before he gets hurt agian~.

[liv4socr20]

Just from common sense Manny should not be one of the 10 luckiest players regardless of what the stats say. I'm sorry but just from him I can't say this is credible at all. Manny has been to good of a hitter for him to all of a sudden be lucky this year, it makes no sense

[Amazinz]

I don't care for the article because they just give you conclusions without going into any detail of the data or process. Anyway some of their conclusions match up with what you could figure based on BABIP. Here's the 10 luckiest and unluckiest (>49 AB) so far (obviously small sample):

Luckiest
---------
1 B. Broussard
2 B. Hawpe
3 W. Pena
4 C. Blake
5 A. Rios
6 P. Fielder
7 R. Weeks
8 D. Jeter
9 V. Martinez
10 C. Sullivan

Unluckiest
------------
1 J. Uribe
2 F. Thomas
3 C. Kotchman
4 Y. Molina
5 B. Anderson
6 R. White
7 D. Johnson
8 A. Ramirez
9 C. Floyd
10 A. Pujols

[EnFuego]

As a Pujols owner, I'm excited.

[j24jags]

id also have to say floyd has been unlucky

[Trot Nixon]

Ortiz would I guess fall under lucky because there is no such thing as the word "clutch"

[beezer]

Floyd came through with a blast vs. Reitsma to tie the game!! Even though he batted twice with the bases loaded and came up empty, this is a good sign.

[The Loveable Losers]

The only problem with using a baseline BABIP is that each offensive player has their own baseline for BABIP. Some guys at the extreme end of things like Ichiro can hover consistantly in the .350 range due to a skill set of being a ground ball hitter with great speed. Other guys that hit a lot of fly balls and are slower can be in the .280-.285 range and have it not be bad luck. That's why I don't like to project players in bulk like that unless I've taken the time to at least look at their 3 year average in BABIP and used that as the baseline on each player.

However if you're looking for something quick and dirty I guess it could be useful...at the very least it would raise some flags on guys that would allow you to delve a bit deeper in those cases and find out if the guy really was unlucky or if his expected BABIP is higher or lower than the norm (.300). Also I could see anything less than .275 as being a cause to assume luck is playing a role since a major league player would be hard pressed to hit the ball so badly that he has that few balls fall for hits...you'd have to have a skill set that had you hitting almost all fly balls but have so little power that you can't get the ball out of the infield to sustain a BABIP that low (which is part of the reason I see Joe Crede as having breakout potential this year given his lifetime .266 BABIP - that can't have all been infield pop ups that he was hitting given 20+ home run power).