Tuesday’s Brewer Stat Of The Day: BABIP

Welcome to Tuesday’s Brewer Stat of the Day. You can check out Monday’s SOTD here.

Today’s statistic: .313 batting average on balls in play (BABIP)

, along with the rest of the Brewers pitching staff, will try to limit opponent’s BABIP in 2013. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

BABIP measures how many of a batter’s balls in play go for hits. In 2012, the Milwaukee Brewers pitching staff allowed oppenents a .313 batting average against them on balls in play. That’s bad. That’s really bad. In fact, the Brewers were second-to-last in BABIP. The only team ahead of them were the Colorado Rockies who gave up a ghastly .325 average.

Miller Park and Coors Field are notorious hitter-friendly parks but their pitching staffs didn’t do much to help. Contributing to Milwaukee’s atmospheric BABIP, Brewers pitchers gave up the highest line drive percentage (22.7%) in all of baseball while their groundball and fly ball percentage fell in the middle of the pack.

Defense plays a big role in BABIP and Milwaukee doesn’t exactly have a star studded infield. Yes, Aramis Ramirez was a Gold Glove finalist but his range is limited. Rickie Weeks is an average infielder at best and the shortstop position was filled with fill-ins like Jeff Bianchi and Cody Ransom until Jean Segura rolled into town at the end of the season.

With the bullpen improvements they have made this offseason and with Segura set to show off his sensational skills at shortstop for a full season, the Brewers should see their opponent’s BABIP drop significantly. If not, it will be another long and frustrating season.

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