Feeky Magee

Jesus, I almost want the Tigers to go yard here just to shut up that heckler

Joba Chamberlain's face annoys me. It's goddamn concave.

Dat sound off the bat

Yeesh, Eaton's arm

Adam's starting to add some extra bases, about the only thing he wasn't doing

QUOTE (Big Hurtin @ Apr 29, 2014 -> 06:59 PM) What happened? I got the Detroit station. I do too, I'm just laughing at Cashman for letting Quintana go

Dayan Viciedo does nothing but walk

Brian Cashman lolz

I think Q might have used up every single non-out in that spring training game against the A's.

"Abreu in scoring position right now in the batter's box" - Tigers announcers

Josh Feldman ‏@BigTexJosh 21m Cleuluis Rondon just bare-handed a ball from behind the third baseman & flung it over to first for an out… because he’s friggen amazing.

1.04 ERA on the year for Danish. Is that good

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 29, 2014 -> 02:26 PM) I don't buy that. These are major league hitters. If I tell a major league hitter, than I am going to throw you a thigh-high slider moving from the outside corner to just off of the plate, you can probably hit that pitch if you have the right approach. You aren't going to do anything with it if you are trying to pull it, which Flowers spent all of last year trying to do. But if you are willing to sacrifice the power, and hit it into RCF, your odds go WAY up. Again, this is if you know this is coming, meaning you aren't guessing up there. The odds of anyone hitting a ball hard go WAY up when you know what is coming. Seeing as this is how pitchers have gotten Flowers out for a long time, someone FINALLY got through to the kid that this is exactly what is coming. That isn't luck. That is a good game plan. Again, the problem will come when pitchers start doing something different, and I think that different will be the letter high fastball. He still strikes out on that pitch an awful lot. The stats can tell you some things, but so can watching the games. So you're saying that major leaguers can greatly affect their BABIP through positive adjustments?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 29, 2014 -> 03:14 PM) I think a large part of his "luck" has been a better approach combined with knowing what the pitchers are getting him out with. It's actually a small part, from what I can make out. .357 over whatever his career BABIP was before the start of the year (currently .310 lifetime) is the result of the things you could put down to Flowers's improvement, .600 over .357 down to luck. So probably about .060 down to Flowers and about .240 down to luck.

QUOTE (Jake @ Apr 29, 2014 -> 01:08 PM) Beware of equating BABIP with luck. The better you hit, the higher your BABIP will be. The batted ball statistics are helpful in this regard, but variables still exist. It's clear Flowers has made changes to his swing and approach that would increase his BABIP. Of course, he has also been rather lucky. It's no coincidence that those other "lucky" player were really good baseball players, though - you make your own luck, as they say. As someone said above though, his BABIP *should* be .357, accounting for his better hitting. Not .600. .600 is historic.

QUOTE (Big Hurtin @ Apr 29, 2014 -> 12:29 PM) It's about as interesting as whether a home run went 420 feet of 427 feet. I don't really care. I know Flowers isn't a .400 hitter. I'll just enjoy it while it lasts, while you're waiting to go A-HA! I'm enjoying it too. At the same time I can analyse why it's happening. And it just so happens to be historical. Which, if anything, increases my enjoyment of it.

QUOTE (Big Hurtin @ Apr 29, 2014 -> 11:21 AM) How's he doing in ZzzZz? You don't find it interesting that a White Sox is having one of, if not the, luckiest months in the history of baseball? You're missin' out, man.

I wonder if it is the highest ever BABIP in a month. I only looked at 40 months (counting March/April as one) of the (I think) 852 months of regular season MLB so far, so less than 5%, but .600 to .531 is such a big lead that I think there's a chance.

QUOTE (daggins @ Apr 28, 2014 -> 09:53 PM) Its a little more than just Flowers being lucky. He has been supremely, extraordinarily lucky. His K% is right around 35% like it was last year. At some point this year he is going to be unusable as a major league catcher - i'm just glad he delayed the need for action by a couple months. Well, he does seem to have genuinely improved defensively, which could allow him to put up positive value (narrowly) even with last year's offence. But yeah, obviously shouldn't be the long-term option.

Also - plural for BABIP. BABIPs? BABIP? BAsBIP?

QUOTE (Jose Paniagua @ Apr 28, 2014 -> 09:44 PM) Sure luck has been on Flowers' side, but lets not forget that bloops coming from very strong hitters.......those often are not necessarily all 'luck.' If you're really strong, you have the ability to fight off pitches into the shallow OF that weaker hitters cannot. So if you're doing that it's not entirely 'luck' as it is happening because of an ability you bring to the table. Otherwise, we're then saying the only 'earned' hits are the beautiful looking ones, and that is not true. How come then that his BABIPs for 2011, 2012 and 2013 were .261, .301 and .261?

2014 BABIP, 80+ PAs: 1. Tyler Flowers - .600 2. Jason Kubel - .440 3. Justin Upton - .440

I know a couple of folks in the gamethreads are a little weary of my fascination with Tyler Flowers and his BABIP, so I said I'd make a separate thread for it. BABIP, in case some don't know, measures how many of a batter’s balls in play go for hits. Typically it will be between .290 and .310 - some players have certain skill-sets or deficiencies that can make this a bit higher or lower - but any strong deviation should be expected to regress to career average. Therefore a high/low BABIP is often seen as a good measurement of good/bad luck for a hitter. Tyler Flowers's BABIP for the year currently sits at a cool .600. 6 out of every 10 balls he has put in play have landed for hits. Even with this start, his career average is .310, so he's shown no particular tendency to have a much higher BABIP than average. Because I'm currently single, I had a look at BABIP history for March/April. Amongst qualified hitters (Flowers will fall barely short of being qualified by April 30th, but I plugged in similar plate appearance records to Flowers for a few of the years and it made no difference) since 1974 (Fangraphs doesn't appear to track BABIP any further back), the 3 highest BABIPs for March/April are as follows: Pete Rose 1976 - .531 Bo Jackson 1990 - .531 Austin Jackson 2010 - .530 Apart from that cluster of 3, there were perhaps 5 or 6 even over .500. Flowers is at .600. Given the chasm between himself and second place since 1974, I would guess that nobody has ever gone higher. We are experiencing a hitter have perhaps the luckiest ever opening month in major league baseball.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Apr 28, 2014 -> 08:34 PM) I swear you are related to him. I'm possibly the whitest man alive so if I am, it's distant

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Apr 28, 2014 -> 08:31 PM) Thing is that things like getting picked off at first tend to stick in the mind whereas things like going from first to third on routine singles etc. don't, but the latter happens much more often and has a greater effect.