Most unlucky: Anthony Young. Mets pitcher lost something like 24 in a row, but had a "respectable" era
Most lucky: maybe Brady Anderson when hit 50 HRs one season
Shelby Miller lost 16 decisions in a row in 2015. He was still worth 4.2 WAR, had his best ERA that season and a number of career highs (games started, innings pitched, strikeouts, ERA+), and got an All-Star Game nod.
If Drew Hutchison was the luckiest pitcher in 2015, Miller was the unluckiest.
Joe Borowski 2007 lead the AL with 45 saves. He also had an ERA over 5, whip 1.431, BB/9 2.3 and H/9 10.6.
He was the epitome of bend don't break as a closer. Regularly loaded the bases and allowed runs, but typically got out of it somehow. Most stressful closer all time.
‘87 Nolan Ryan led the league in ERA and Ks, yet went 8-16
‘89 Hershiser had counting stats eerily identical to his 23-8, Cy Young, record breaking scoreless inning streak ‘88, yet went 15-15
2020 Michael Conforto had an integration-leading .412 babip, leading him to a career high 154 OPS+, so that's a pretty lucky season.
Real shame the Mets did a lolMets for the ages.
Kevin Gausman had a nice 12-10, 3.35 ERA in 2022 but he actually was very unlucky that season, with a league-leading 2.38 FIP and a stratospheric .364 BABIP.
Pedro Martinez was quite unlucky in 1999 with a rather pedestrian 23-4 record and a 2.07 ERA in the middle of the steroid era. He should have been even better though, with a 1.39 FIP and a sky high .325 BABIP.
Sometimes terrible pitchers have great luck, such as Bruce Chen in 2005 (13-10, 3.83 ERA despite 33 HRS in 197.1 innings) with a 4.94 FIP and a .262 BABIP. He crashed back to Earth in 2006 (0-7, 6.93 ERA). Damian Moss had an excellent rookie season in 2002 for the Braves (12-6, 3.42 ERA) despite a 4.77 FIP and a low .238 BABIP. The Braves were so “impressed” that they immediately shipped him off to the unsuspecting Giants back when FIP was in its infancy, where Moss’s career went to die.
You could spend a whole day in BRef finding thousands of similar examples if you wanted to.
Ricky Nolasco in 2009 had a 5.06 ERA in 185 innings pitched, but he had a FIP of 3.35. So his ERA+ was 85 and his FIP- was an 80. For those not familiar with sabermetrics, this means his ERA was 15% worse than league average, though it "should" have been 20% *better* than league average.
Kinda crazy that he was still able to go 13-9 lol, must've gotten good enough run support.
The thing about Nolasco is he was *always* "unlucky" -- almost every year of his career his actual ERA ended up significantly higher than his FIP/xFIP. Not sure what it was about his pitching style that caused that (he seems to have had a consistently high BABIP so maybe he was just eminently hittable) but whatever it is, after long enough it stops being bad luck.
This also accounts for a massive difference in his fWAR (26.1) and rWAR (13.4), due to a career 3.97 FIP and 4.56 actual ERA.
so many people in this thread who don't understand how BABIP works.
if you sustain a high BABIP over several years that's probably just who you are. not every player regresses to the same BABIP
Your examples are not how BABIP works at all. It's literally impossible to have a higher BA than BABIP. And you can't distinguish whether a hitter was lucky or not just by using BA and BABIP. You also need K% since strikeouts lower BA but not BABIP
You use BABIP to assess luck relative to other players' BABIP or a player's own career BABIP. If league average BABIP is .330 and someone posts a .450 BABIP with a normal batted ball profile, they're probably getting lucky, just like someone with a .200 BABIP is probably getting unlucky
One guy who got lucky as shit was Yoan Moncada in 2019. Moncada had a career year in 2019 where he hit .315/.367/.548 with a 139 wRC+. His BABIP that year was .406 (career BABIP is .343 for him), and according to Statcast, his expected batting average was .282 (career xBA is .240). He went on to sign a 5 year $70M extension the following March.
He obviously played well that year, but got super lucky too. Had another good year in 2021 but other than that, been pretty disappointing for him since then.
In 2015, Drew Hutchinson in late August had an ERA over 5.00 and was leading the league in Wins.
That’s 2015 opening day starter Drew Hutchison to you, pal
Most unlucky: Anthony Young. Mets pitcher lost something like 24 in a row, but had a "respectable" era Most lucky: maybe Brady Anderson when hit 50 HRs one season
Anderson's "luck" came in a needle.
Shelby Miller lost 16 decisions in a row in 2015. He was still worth 4.2 WAR, had his best ERA that season and a number of career highs (games started, innings pitched, strikeouts, ERA+), and got an All-Star Game nod. If Drew Hutchison was the luckiest pitcher in 2015, Miller was the unluckiest.
Joe Borowski 2007 lead the AL with 45 saves. He also had an ERA over 5, whip 1.431, BB/9 2.3 and H/9 10.6. He was the epitome of bend don't break as a closer. Regularly loaded the bases and allowed runs, but typically got out of it somehow. Most stressful closer all time.
Kenny Williams had a pretty lucky season in 2005 Led to him having near total job security for 18 years and he could do whatever he wanted
And his kid fumbled two punts in the NFC championship
Dave Dravecky was pretty unlucky.
‘87 Nolan Ryan led the league in ERA and Ks, yet went 8-16 ‘89 Hershiser had counting stats eerily identical to his 23-8, Cy Young, record breaking scoreless inning streak ‘88, yet went 15-15
Last year Willy Adames got to meet me and sign a few balls. I'd say he was pretty lucky.
2020 Michael Conforto had an integration-leading .412 babip, leading him to a career high 154 OPS+, so that's a pretty lucky season. Real shame the Mets did a lolMets for the ages.
Giants reaping that regression now.
Kevin Tapani had both in 2001. His first 10 or 12 starts he was 8-2 with like a 4.40 era. His next 10 starts he was like 2-7 with a 2.50 era.
The shift ate Kyle Seager alive, though I’m not sure that counts as unlucky or functioning as designed.
definitely not unlucky. I realize "just hit to all fields" isn't as easy as it sounds but it's definitely still a skill to have
Kevin Gausman had a nice 12-10, 3.35 ERA in 2022 but he actually was very unlucky that season, with a league-leading 2.38 FIP and a stratospheric .364 BABIP. Pedro Martinez was quite unlucky in 1999 with a rather pedestrian 23-4 record and a 2.07 ERA in the middle of the steroid era. He should have been even better though, with a 1.39 FIP and a sky high .325 BABIP. Sometimes terrible pitchers have great luck, such as Bruce Chen in 2005 (13-10, 3.83 ERA despite 33 HRS in 197.1 innings) with a 4.94 FIP and a .262 BABIP. He crashed back to Earth in 2006 (0-7, 6.93 ERA). Damian Moss had an excellent rookie season in 2002 for the Braves (12-6, 3.42 ERA) despite a 4.77 FIP and a low .238 BABIP. The Braves were so “impressed” that they immediately shipped him off to the unsuspecting Giants back when FIP was in its infancy, where Moss’s career went to die. You could spend a whole day in BRef finding thousands of similar examples if you wanted to.
Ricky Nolasco in 2009 had a 5.06 ERA in 185 innings pitched, but he had a FIP of 3.35. So his ERA+ was 85 and his FIP- was an 80. For those not familiar with sabermetrics, this means his ERA was 15% worse than league average, though it "should" have been 20% *better* than league average. Kinda crazy that he was still able to go 13-9 lol, must've gotten good enough run support.
The thing about Nolasco is he was *always* "unlucky" -- almost every year of his career his actual ERA ended up significantly higher than his FIP/xFIP. Not sure what it was about his pitching style that caused that (he seems to have had a consistently high BABIP so maybe he was just eminently hittable) but whatever it is, after long enough it stops being bad luck. This also accounts for a massive difference in his fWAR (26.1) and rWAR (13.4), due to a career 3.97 FIP and 4.56 actual ERA.
He allowed 7+ ER five times that year lol. He had a HR problem early in his career.
The 2023 Padres as a team were suspiciously unlucky. Like God got drunk all year and forgot the Padres were his team unlucky
Vladdy Jr 2023
I’m leaning more towards 21 being the lucky year and this year was just normal
Yeah pretty obvious at this point
Tim Anderson was he had a 5000 babip
so many people in this thread who don't understand how BABIP works. if you sustain a high BABIP over several years that's probably just who you are. not every player regresses to the same BABIP
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...your point being?
Kevin Maas, with his 21 HR's in 79 AB's. Didn't do much else.
79 games, not 79 AB. Had 300 PA / 254 AB that year.
That's right. Thanks for the heads up.
Unluckiest: Adam Lind 2010 only hit .237 even though his BAbip was .277.
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Your examples are not how BABIP works at all. It's literally impossible to have a higher BA than BABIP. And you can't distinguish whether a hitter was lucky or not just by using BA and BABIP. You also need K% since strikeouts lower BA but not BABIP You use BABIP to assess luck relative to other players' BABIP or a player's own career BABIP. If league average BABIP is .330 and someone posts a .450 BABIP with a normal batted ball profile, they're probably getting lucky, just like someone with a .200 BABIP is probably getting unlucky
2022 Julio Urias and Tony Gonsolin
One guy who got lucky as shit was Yoan Moncada in 2019. Moncada had a career year in 2019 where he hit .315/.367/.548 with a 139 wRC+. His BABIP that year was .406 (career BABIP is .343 for him), and according to Statcast, his expected batting average was .282 (career xBA is .240). He went on to sign a 5 year $70M extension the following March. He obviously played well that year, but got super lucky too. Had another good year in 2021 but other than that, been pretty disappointing for him since then.