Extremes in 2011 BAbip vs. Established Norms

I compared batters' 2011 BAbip (batting average on balls in play) to their established norms, which I defined as their combined BAbip for 2008-10. I set the minimums at 200 PAs for 2011 and 1,100 PAs* for 2008-10. There were 176 players in the study. I've included regular BA data as a frame of reference.

Make of it what you will! (And see Andy's related post.)



Biggest BAbip Increase -- 2011 vs. 2008-10:

Player	BAbip % Change	BAbip 2011	BAbip 2008-10	BA 2011	BA 2008-10	BA % Change
Casey Kotchman	27.9%	0.335	0.262	0.306	0.254	20.5%
Adrian Gonzalez	25.0%	0.380	0.304	0.338	0.285	18.6%
Jose Bautista	20.7%	0.309	0.256	0.302	0.247	22.3%
Hunter Pence	18.8%	0.361	0.304	0.314	0.278	12.9%
Melky Cabrera	17.3%	0.332	0.283	0.305	0.260	17.3%
Edwin Encarnacion	16.3%	0.292	0.251	0.272	0.242	12.4%
Mike Napoli	15.4%	0.344	0.298	0.320	0.258	24.0%
Pat Burrell	14.8%	0.318	0.277	0.230	0.241	-4.6%
Jose Reyes	14.2%	0.353	0.309	0.337	0.289	16.6%
David Ortiz	14.2%	0.321	0.281	0.309	0.257	20.2%
Matt Kemp	13.8%	0.380	0.334	0.324	0.279	16.1%
Jeff Francoeur	13.7%	0.323	0.284	0.285	0.256	11.3%
Brandon Phillips	13.0%	0.322	0.285	0.300	0.271	10.7%
Michael Young	12.2%	0.367	0.327	0.338	0.295	14.6%
Jim Thome	12.0%	0.327	0.292	0.256	0.255	0.4%
Victor Martinez	11.7%	0.343	0.307	0.330	0.298	10.7%
Michael Bourn	11.5%	0.369	0.331	0.294	0.262	12.2%
Andre Ethier	11.2%	0.348	0.313	0.292	0.289	1.0%
Chase Headley	10.8%	0.368	0.332	0.289	0.264	9.5%
Miguel Cabrera	10.3%	0.365	0.331	0.344	0.314	9.6%

Biggest BAbip Decrease -- 2011 vs. 2008-10:

Player	BAbip % Change	BAbip 2011	BAbip 2008-10	BA 2011	BA 2008-10	BA % Change
Chone Figgins	-35.8%	0.215	0.335	0.188	0.278	-32.4%
Rafael Furcal	-25.9%	0.240	0.324	0.231	0.291	-20.6%
Evan Longoria	-25.5%	0.239	0.321	0.244	0.283	-13.8%
Mike Cameron	-25.2%	0.228	0.305	0.203	0.249	-18.5%
Vernon Wells	-23.6%	0.214	0.280	0.218	0.275	-20.7%
Jose Lopez	-22.7%	0.214	0.277	0.216	0.270	-20.0%
Alexis Rios	-22.0%	0.237	0.304	0.227	0.275	-17.5%
Martin Prado	-21.3%	0.266	0.338	0.260	0.309	-15.9%
Fred Lewis	-21.1%	0.273	0.346	0.230	0.269	-14.5%
Adam Dunn	-21.1%	0.240	0.304	0.159	0.255	-37.6%
Hanley Ramirez	-20.5%	0.275	0.346	0.243	0.314	-22.6%
Mark Teixeira	-19.3%	0.239	0.296	0.248	0.285	-13.0%
Justin Morneau	-17.9%	0.257	0.313	0.227	0.300	-24.3%
Dan Uggla	-17.9%	0.253	0.308	0.233	0.264	-11.7%
Ian Kinsler	-17.3%	0.243	0.294	0.255	0.285	-10.5%
David DeJesus	-17.2%	0.274	0.331	0.240	0.300	-20.0%
Magglio Ordonez	-17.2%	0.275	0.332	0.255	0.311	-18.0%
Ichiro Suzuki	-17.1%	0.295	0.356	0.272	0.325	-16.3%
Miguel Olivo	-16.1%	0.270	0.322	0.224	0.258	-13.2%
Angel Pagan	-15.4%	0.285	0.337	0.262	0.294	-10.9%

In case you're wondering why the negatives are larger than the positives, remember that overall BA in 2011 (.255) was about 2.3% lower than the composite 2008-10 BA (.261).
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* I used a 1,100 PA cutoff for the simple reason that I only wanted to deal with 1 screen's worth of results from the Play Index.