Weird Quirk in Utley's Charts

[JTWood]

For no particular reason, I decided to look at Utley's charts tonight. I came across an interesting deviation.

Utley's seasonal line drive rate is as high as it's ever been, yet...
His BABIP as low as it has ever been. Dramatically low, in fact, by his standards.

Check it out:





For those that don't already know, BABIP and LD% are generally well-correlated. Specifically:

...the more line drives a batter hits, the more hits he'll rack up.
...
...you can use a general formula to estimate a batter's BABIP: .120 plus LD%.

An example I like to cite is Ryan Braun's BABIP & LD% in 2007. They virtually paralleled each other, and that's generally expected.

I don't have any great revelation about Utley here except to note that with his LD rate so high and his BABIP historically low, there's every reason to think his BA should be much higher than it actually is.

Oh, and his FB rate is really low. Look for the power to return soon, since those correlate, too.

[Snakes Gould]

the only thing i can guess is the fact that hes pulled more balls than he ever has before. that probably has something to do with it.

[thedude]

Random variation perhaps.