Chelsea Janes wonders if Daniel Murphy can hit .400 after another good game Monday night. He picked up three more hits and drove in three runs, including the game winners. That put his season batting average at .395:
Now, apply the more nuanced filter to this remarkable offensive showing: Murphy entered Monday hitting .409 on balls put in play, which was third highest in the majors at the time. Hitters general hover a few points below .300. BABIP averages as high as Murphy’s are generally considered outliers due for regression to the mean — artificially elevated by luck as much as by particularly solid contact.
Then again, Murphy is making a great deal of solid contact. Fangraphs estimates he is hitting 26 percent of the balls he hits for line drives, which is in the top 25 in baseball. Nearly 39 percent of his contact qualifies as hard contact, also according to Fangraphs. That also ranks him in the top 25, but does not separate him the way his average does.
Last season, Murphy greatly lowered his K rate, which helped his batting average. It’s up again this season, which is why his .409 BABIP doesn’t have him over .400 in BA. But he’s hitting more home runs, too, and that will counter the bad effect of the strikeouts.
You can follow my calculation of the probability of Murphy hitting .400 in this spreadsheet and chart. Unlike others who flirted with .400, Murphy hasn’t spent that much time actually over .400. He has stayed steady around .390, however. He’ll need another hot streak to get over that hump. The two measures of his probability keep rising however, with the dynamic adjustment of his intrinsic BA now putting the probability better than .00001. If he can keep the .400 BABIP up, he has a shot.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/25y723o
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