Is Carlos Quentin the unluckiest player in baseball?

by bhoov on Sep 26, 2009 3:17 PM CDT

Well probably not "the" unluckiest, but he does have the 3rd lowest BABIP in baseball (for players with >350 PA, data from fangraphs). His BABIP is .226, just ahead of General Soreness and Jay Bruce.

While Quentin does seem to have a predilection for low BABIP (his career BABIP is .259 and last year it was .280) .226 is unsustainably bad. Well what should his BABIP be? Fortunately THT has a xBABIP calculator:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/simple-xbabip-calculator/

Plugging Carlos '09 into the formula we get an xBABIP of .286 as opposed to the .226 he has. That would have given Carlos 16 extra hits, raising his BA from .232 to .268. Depending on how many of those were doubles we're talking about a 70-80 point increase in OPS. So .820 or so instead of his .747 OPS.

The caveat here is that Carlos seems to have consistently low BABIP that are sig. lower than what xBABIP would predict. As an example '08 Carlos had an xBABIP of .300 but a real BABIP of .280. So maybe Carlos has a "talent" for low BABIP that the model is unable to pick up or maybe next year Carlos will fall right into his xBABIP. Or maybe the next iteration of the xBABIP calculator that Carty and Dutton are working on will model Carlos better.

Obviously the difference between .286 and .226 is much greater than the difference between .300 and .280 and so I think the evidence points to Carlos being quite unlucky this year. Even if you regress his BABIP to his career .259 BABIP you get significant improvement ( 30-40 points of OPS).

So Carlos probably should have had an OPS somewhere between 30-80 points higher than he did.

I think we can conclude that while Carlos probably wasn't "the" unluckiest player he was quite unlucky and that indicates a better year is in store for next year. However, in order to return to Q! status he will need to bring his walk rate and HR/FB back up to '08 rates.

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Comments

I was kinda curious about what his deal was.

Bad luck and injury seem more likely than being the best hitter in the world in 2008 before suffering apparent brain damage and forgetting what the wood-stick does.

by Pander on Sep 26, 2009 3:31 PM CDT reply actions

kdub must trade Q for a bag of balls

i'm alex rios' last fan

by onlysoxfaninboston on Sep 26, 2009 3:31 PM CDT reply actions

oh, and also like the nice concise summary, thanks!

i'm alex rios' last fan

by onlysoxfaninboston on Sep 26, 2009 3:33 PM CDT reply actions

When are you actually going to do some research?

I enjoyed reading this. ;)

...take your hobbit circle jerk to another thread
by larry on May 18, 2009 8:58 PM PDT

by rhythm on Sep 26, 2009 4:41 PM CDT reply actions

I don't know if he's been one of the unluckiest players in 2009.

I do know he’s been one of the ungoodest. Jay Bruce has been dealing with a wrist injury most of the year also. Griffey is old and has had general soreness most of the year. I think the injuries have more to do with his decline this year than bad luck. Most players who’ve had a wrist injury say it takes a full year to regain full strength and power. Add the right knee and left foot problems and we’ve seen the results.

If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be -- Yogi Berra

by mick10 on Sep 26, 2009 4:55 PM CDT reply actions

i'll go with

nick adenhart.

by Hatchetm on Sep 26, 2009 5:15 PM CDT reply actions 4 recs

Too soon.

We’re a pack of a-holes. And my tradition of contributing absolutely nothing to this site... continues.

by winningugly on Sep 26, 2009 9:29 PM CDT up reply actions

too soon

but very true. very very unlucky. if he would have tied his shoe before entering his car he would still be pitching because they would have arrived 5 seconds later.

Kenwo4life=ratings

by KenWo4LiFe on Sep 27, 2009 1:12 AM CDT up reply actions