Baseball America - Mike Koblish - BABIP (August 28, 2003)
Thanks to Sylvain for the link. If Mike Koblish is around somewhere, feel free to post a link to your article, or post it in this thread as well.
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I would ignore the "progression" talk since each league does not have the same players in each sample. What that does show you is any/all combinations of the following, among others:
1 - parks are HR-friendlier in the higher levels
2 - hitters develop power faster than pitchers can control it
3 - pitchers can't control it much, and the lower leagues have an abundance of players with no power
Jim Callis is (I think) trying to say #2, when the data can easily be explained by #3. Like I said, I think it's a combination of any/all these things.
The more interesting one was the BABIP/DIPS numbers. Again, alot of things can influence these numbers, especially when you don't have the same data samples in each group, or the same parks, etc. But, the incredibly small range is very interesting. Remember, BABIP is a function of pitchers, hitters, fielders, and park, so don't go off making any conclusions.
--posted by TangoTiger at 01:04 PM EDT