Pujols' AVG (.299) Was Higher than His BABIP (.277)?

[sigriffey]

Pujols' batting average in 2011 was .299 but his BABIP was .277 ... is that a bit bizarre?

I guess this just means he strikes out seldom and was really unlucky when he hit it in play? There are only a handful of other upper-tier guys who exhibited this this season: Kinsler and Beltre.

Any Sabermetrics geniuses out there?

[bayside]

im not sure if strikeout rate has any bearing on BABIP. intuitively it shouldnt since K's are not "balls in play", although im not sure thats true and have to think about it some more.
either way Pujols has had a higher BA than BABIP almost every single season of his career.

sac flies could account for some of it. they dont hurt your BA but would negatively affect your BAIP (because they are still balls in play).





edit - i think its mostly due to the differential in HR and K's.

neither of those are counted as a "ball in play" (Ball In Play = every non-HR, non-K, non-BB), but homeruns will still improve ones batting average and K's will hurt it. BB have no affect on Avg nor BABIP.

Just to quickly check this i looked up Barry Bonds (because hes the most similar hitter to Albert i could think of) and not surprisingly his BABIP was also lower than his BA nearly every year. I would expect Bautista 2010 and maybe even 2011 to be the same.
So its not really bad luck, but more the sign of a high contact, disciplined, powerful hitter

[MadDog36]

Unusual, but not uncommon for a player of his caliber.