RADIO
Rick Lucks breaks down how to use batted ball distribution to project a hitter's fantasy baseball performance as his series to make advanced stats more accessible to fantasy managers continues.
Fly balls can turn into home runs. Ground balls never do. It would seem as though fantasy baseball owners want their batters to hit nothing but flies, yet this is not always the case.
Why would this be? The answer, of course, comes down to batted ball distribution and how batters make contact. The league average batted ball distribution in 2022 was 19.9% line drives, 42.9% ground balls, and 37.2% fly balls. Most individual players vary from this standard breakdown, providing insight into their fantasy viability.
The best place to find a hitter's batted ball distribution is by searching them on FanGraphs and scrolling to the fifth chart, "Batted Ball." It's the same chart we used to look at HR/FB in our previous article. Now that you know where to find this information, let's look at how to interpret it.
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The Value of Line Drives
Let's first look at how all major leaguers fared on each of the major types of batted ball in 2022. Grounders generated a BABIP of .235. Flies were not as productive, posting a .118 figure. This makes sense, as pop-ups seldom fall in, cans of corn to the outfield are only slightly better, and homers are considered out of play and do not count toward BABIP. Line drives turned into base hits far more frequently than either of the others, posting a .690 BABIP. The difference between liners and anything else is startling. Batters want line drives.
Tim Anderson's 2022 campaign provides a good illustration of what a few extra liners can do. His .301/.339/.395 triple-slash line looks like a normal Tim Anderson season, but how he got there was completely different. Anderson's career LD% is 21.5, a smidge above league average. However, last year he posted a 24.2 LD% that crushed the league average. Anderson's overall BABIP fell to .347, his lowest mark since 2018, despite the elevated LD%, though.
LD% generally isn't a predictive stat, meaning that it can fluctuate widely without indicating that a player has found a new level. Anderson has a history of delivering great batting averages but historically hasn't relied on elevated LD% marks to do it. As such, Anderson may not deliver the average fantasy managers expect if his LD% spike proves to be a fluke and he doesn't recover what used to make his BABIP so special.
This is not to suggest that no one consistently posts above-average LD% rates. For example, AL batting champion Luis Arraez has a career of .336 BABIP driven largely by his career LD% of 27. With four seasons of well-above-average LD% rates, it would be foolish to suggest that Arraez is just lucky. Therefore, we give credit to Arraez for being a plus-BABIP guy due to an LD% skill, just like we give Trea Turner BABIP credit for his blinding speed. This distinction has to be earned over numerous full seasons, however. Most LD% surges are more fluky Tim Anderson than sustainable Luis Arraez.
Which Is Better: Ground Balls or Fly Balls?
Unlike LD%, both GB% and FB% are stickier--a player with an elevated rate in one is likely to repeat a similar rate moving forward. By BABIP alone, grounders are better. However, this changes significantly if the slugging percentage is considered. In 2022, grounders offered a slugging percentage of .255, only slightly higher than the .235 BABIP they posted. Flies had a .646 slugging percentage, easily offsetting the lower BABIP for most fantasy players. Sluggers like Aaron Judge who lift the ball at an exceptional rate have a built-in slugging advantage because of their batted ball profiles.
The ideal batted ball mix, therefore, varies with the player. Elite speedsters want more grounders than flies as they don't have the oomph to hit a lot of homers regardless. One-dimensional sluggers want fly balls, especially since shifts and a lack of speed often prevent them from realizing the larger BABIPs associated with grounders anyway. Fantasy managers usually prefer players with power and speed potential to have a higher FB%, as the extra power is more beneficial than a few extra times on base.
Incidentally, line drives averaged a ridiculous .895 slugging percentage to go with their .690 BABIP in 2022, so they are still the batted ball of choice.
Conclusion
To conclude, line drives are by far the most productive result for hitters. BABIP's luck-driven fluctuations are frequently driven by LD%, a largely random stat. GB% and FB% are more predictive, and which one is favored depends on the hitter in question. Grounders offer a higher BABIP, but almost zero power. Flies result in base hits less often, but generate much more power when they do.
The intricacies of BABIP could be a never-ending topic, but the information provided so far is generally enough for fantasy purposes. Stay tuned to learn about some other metrics that can help you predict a player's future performance.
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