Emilio Bonifacio now has a fan club

…the MLB average is to swing at 44% of pitches.
…Luis has swung at 38% over his career (and, coincidentally, also swung at 38% while with Florida)
…Bonifacio has swung at 51% of pitches this year (51 of 100, actually).

Of course, for as long as he can keep a .542 BABIP, we want him making contact as much as possible (82% thus far, vs. 79% average and 91% Luis)… and all that would mean is having a better season than anyone ever, so I think it’s doable.

Batting Average on Balls In Play.

82% of the time he has swung, he has made contact. Of the times that contact has put the ball into play (ie. excluding foul balls), 54% have resulted in hits.

BABIP came out of a hugely important study by Voros McCracken that, in the most basic sense, pitchers have no control over what happens after a ball gets put in play. As it gets expanded, it looks more like: flyballs become homeruns X% of the time no matter who is pitching, line drives become hits X% of the time no matter who is pitching, groundballs become hits X% of the time no matter who is pitching, etc. etc. Of course, there is a park effect on those percentages, which is most important for HRs-per-flyball but does exist for the others as well. There are nuances and additions that have been discovered and now DIPS (defense-independent pitching stats) are in their fourth or fifth versions as the concept has been better studied and we have figured out which types of pitchers (and pitches) lead to higher or lower BABIP.

Anyway, this is all from the pitcher’s perspective, and the generalization is that if a pitcher has a year where his BABIP is much higher or lower than we’d expect from his percentages, it’s basically bad luck or bad fielding or both, and will even out over the course of a season or a career. From the hitter’s perspective, BABIP is much more stable, because certain guys hit flyballs way more than average and certain guys hit groundballs way more than average and blah blah blah. Whereas the pitcher faces all of these guys and it kind of comes out in the wash, the hitter has much more “control” over his BABIP in the long-term. That being said, there is still that factor of luck and/or fielding, and so especially high or low BABIPs also regress towards a hitter’s mean over the long-term.

The point, however sarcastically I made it, is that the “best” seasons you’re going to see with significant at-bats will push a .400 BABIP. Bonifacio, as I said, got through the first week with a .542 BABIP. I think we all know just as a matter of course that his production thus far is unsustainable (or else he’d hit .500 on the year), but this is just another way of making that point. In the short term, it’s not uncommon for a disproportionate number of his hits to fall in (or to be fielded by Lastings Milledge); but even if he did everything the same from here out, even if he somehow only strikes out 10% of the time, even if we don’t care about extra bases but rather just hitting safely, it’s impossible that he’ll find this much success over a significant number of at-bats. And that’s not in any way a comment on his talent or any judgment about him at all; it’s just the game of baseball.