We recently took a glance at some batters who benefited from a bit of good luck last season to boost their batting average. In that post, we looked at the players with the highest BABIP and how that compared to their recent history of past seasons to see whether it was sustainable or not. On the flip side of the coin today, we’ll see the lovable losers who had the lowest BABIP in the league and may have suffered from poor luck in 2010. These are some players that may be due for a bounceback depending on their past history with this statistic. Let’s take a look:
Within the graph, we want to pinpoint names who had a significantly lower 2010 BABIP than the other two seasons. Some names that stand out as having odd BABIP numbers are Aaron Hill, Carlos Lee, Aramis Ramirez and Mark Reynolds (and, to a lesser extent since his BABIP is generally low anyway, Jose Bautista).
A rebound is certainly in order for Aaron Hill and we can safely expect a more respectable (though not great) batting average from him 2011. While age is catching up to Carlos Lee and Aramis Ramirez, they are not yet relics of the past and should both be able to return to hitting a lot closer to .300 in 2011. Mark Reynolds is still a .240 hitter on his usual day but he’ll at least rebound from his horrible .198 average next year.
For 2011 drafts, these are certainly some names that have dipped a bit on draft charts but might be nice surprise comeback candidates to keep in mind, especially Aramis Ramirez and Aaron Hill as they arguably suffered the worst from bad luck in 2010. Aramis is going in about the 10th round in 12-team leagues but may be worth grabbing in the 8th or 9th round.
