Tyler Flowers's lucky, lucky month

[Big Hurtin]

How's he doing in ZzzZz?

 

[Princess Dye]

Probably a good time to note also that various projections for Flowers on opening day were pretty rosy considering what happened last year.

 

I think the absence of his long ball indicates a really concerted effort to have a new focus, to change who he is.

Edited April 29, 2014 by Jose Paniagua

[southsider2k5]

Even Maddon talks about the changes in Flowers.

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,3548284.story

 

(Tyler) Flowers, to me looks like a different player. Looks like he lost some weight, is in better shape, he's got a better approach at the plate.

[Feeky Magee]

How's he doing in ZzzZz?

You don't find it interesting that a White Sox is having one of, if not the, luckiest months in the history of baseball? You're missin' out, man.

[bmags]

Is there any other signs this isn't just luck? Like, yes obviously this is an incredibly lucky month, but is it possible he can hit .240-.250 because he's has a higher line drive rate than last year? Just hoping his regression is to bad catcher not worst catcher in history of league.

[witesoxfan]

Is there any other signs this isn't just luck? Like, yes obviously this is an incredibly lucky month, but is it possible he can hit .240-.250 because he's has a higher line drive rate than last year? Just hoping his regression is to bad catcher not worst catcher in history of league.

 

Absolutely 100% yes. He could hit .270 with the way he's hitting line drives.

[Jerksticks]

Absolutely 100% yes. He could hit .270 with the way he's hitting line drives.

 

His new OPPO approach clearly lends to more 2 strike hits, or just more hits in general. I don't think we're looking at Chris Shelton here, but his K and BB rates look like puke fungus may be around the corner.

 

Like others are saying, he looks in charge back there. Comfortably in charge.

[NorthSideSox72]

At the very least, with the improved defense and pitcher handling (which was already decent on the latter), and improved hitting approach... even if he regresses significantly, he's proven he's probably a solid backup C. Just a question of his future salaries in arbitration for the vale equation.

 

[southsider2k5]

At the very least, with the improved defense and pitcher handling (which was already decent on the latter), and improved hitting approach... even if he regresses significantly, he's proven he's probably a solid backup C. Just a question of his future salaries in arbitration for the vale equation.

 

His throwing technique and his blocking pitches in the dirt technique are WAY better this year. I don't know how much the shoulder had to do with either of those, but he looks like a different guy behind the plate.

[Big Hurtin]

You don't find it interesting that a White Sox is having one of, if not the, luckiest months in the history of baseball? You're missin' out, man.

It's about as interesting as whether a home run went 420 feet of 427 feet. I don't really care. I know Flowers isn't a .400 hitter. I'll just enjoy it while it lasts, while you're waiting to go A-HA!

[ScottyDo]

I like this article on the topic of BABIP and its components.

 

Line drives fall for hits ~70% of the time while fly balls fall roughly 15% of the time. Given that Flowers is #4 in LD% among players with ≥ 80 PAs and 14th lowest in FB%, I'd say his BABIP makes a fair amount of sense. Now, you could consider those batted ball numbers luck, but wouldn't you expect that a player playing well would hit a high proportion of line drives? Isn't it also true that a player hitting well must inherently have a high BABIP? After all, unless you have monster HR numbers and never strike out, your high average will be accompanied by an even higher BABIP.

 

All that said, Flowers will come down to earth, because he's probably not all of the sudden a prolific line drive hitter. If he somehow is, his BABIP will stay somewhat high and it won't just be luck.

[Feeky Magee]

It's about as interesting as whether a home run went 420 feet of 427 feet. I don't really care. I know Flowers isn't a .400 hitter. I'll just enjoy it while it lasts, while you're waiting to go A-HA!

I'm enjoying it too. At the same time I can analyse why it's happening. And it just so happens to be historical. Which, if anything, increases my enjoyment of it.

Edited April 29, 2014 by Feeky Magee

[Hawkfan]

I like this article on the topic of BABIP and its components.

 

Line drives fall for hits ~70% of the time while fly balls fall roughly 15% of the time. Given that Flowers is #4 in LD% among players with ≥ 80 PAs and 14th lowest in FB%, I'd say his BABIP makes a fair amount of sense. Now, you could consider those batted ball numbers luck, but wouldn't you expect that a player playing well would hit a high proportion of line drives? Isn't it also true that a player hitting well must inherently have a high BABIP? After all, unless you have monster HR numbers and never strike out, your high average will be accompanied by an even higher BABIP.

 

All that said, Flowers will come down to earth, because he's probably not all of the sudden a prolific line drive hitter. If he somehow is, his BABIP will stay somewhat high and it won't just be luck.

 

Good post Scottydo

[ScottyDo]

Another way to look at the luck component:

 

Given his batted ball stats, is he getting lucky on top of that? He's got 75 ABs, of which 32.6% are LD, 47.8% are GB and 19.6% are FB. Given the avg associated with each of those numbers, how many hits would we expect T-Flow to have?

 

(.714*.326*75)+(.238*.478*75)+(.139*.196*75) = 28.033 hits

 

How many hits does Tyler Flowers have? 28.

 

EDIT: Statement retracted. I didn't subtract his K's. He should have 17 hits. He's super lucky

Edited April 29, 2014 by ScottyDo

[Eminor3rd]

Is there any other signs this isn't just luck? Like, yes obviously this is an incredibly lucky month, but is it possible he can hit .240-.250 because he's has a higher line drive rate than last year? Just hoping his regression is to bad catcher not worst catcher in history of league.

 

 

His new OPPO approach clearly lends to more 2 strike hits, or just more hits in general. I don't think we're looking at Chris Shelton here, but his K and BB rates look like puke fungus may be around the corner.

 

Like others are saying, he looks in charge back there. Comfortably in charge.

 

Jerksticks' observation is indeed reflected in his plate discipline numbers. Two things stick out: (1) reduced swing rate at pitches out of the zone (O-Swing drop from ~37% to ~31%), and (2) drastically higher contact rate on the pitches he DOES swing at out of the zone (O-Contact increased from ~43% to ~56%). He does appear to be both choosing his swings more care fully AND prioritizing contact over power.

 

The interesting thing about his line drive rate (up from 17% all the way to 32%) is that is has come entirely at the expense of his fly ball rate (down from 41% all the way to 19%). I'd be shocked, to be honest, if he can keep that line drive rate north of 25% all year, but if he does, we'll see a ton of singles/doubles and very few homers. Which is fine with me.

 

Still, .600 BABIP would be historic. It's high both because of his LD rate and a TON of seeing-eye bloopers. The bloopers would almost certainly stop falling every time like they have been. If he keeps the liners, he could still end up with a .350-ish BABIP, realistically, and put together a very good season.

 

EDIT: Lol @ ScottyDo saying essentially the same thing at the same time. His is much more concise though.

Edited April 29, 2014 by Eminor3rd

[bmags]

Thank you, that is exactly what I was wondering. Safe to assume his LD% will come down, but if he had improved his LD stroke that means his production will be much better.

[Eminor3rd]

Another way to look at the luck component:

 

Given his batted ball stats, is he getting lucky on top of that? He's got 75 ABs, of which 32.6% are LD, 47.8% are GB and 19.6% are FB. Given the avg associated with each of those numbers, how many hits would we expect T-Flow to have?

 

(.714*.326*75)+(.238*.478*75)+(.139*.196*75) = 28.033 hits

 

How many hits does Tyler Flowers have? 28.

 

Super interesting. So his bloopies are not the culprit, or we'd expect him to have more hits than projected.

[ScottyDo]

Post edited for stupid math error. I am wrong, he is lucky.

[Eminor3rd]

Post edited for stupid math error. I am wrong, he is lucky.

 

Ahh that makes more sense

[chitownsportsfan]

Another way to look at the luck component:

 

Given his batted ball stats, is he getting lucky on top of that? He's got 75 ABs, of which 32.6% are LD, 47.8% are GB and 19.6% are FB. Given the avg associated with each of those numbers, how many hits would we expect T-Flow to have?

 

(.714*.326*75)+(.238*.478*75)+(.139*.196*75) = 28.033 hits

 

How many hits does Tyler Flowers have? 28.

 

EDIT: Statement retracted. I didn't subtract his K's. He should have 17 hits. He's super lucky

 

We have a better tool called xBABIP that the HBTs introduced a few years ago. It's a regression of the major components of BABIP and includes speed, line drives, infield popups, strikeouts, etc. Plugging in Tyler's stats, available at Fangraphs, his xBABIP is .357

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key...NkS1ZDWUE#gid=0

 

Still pretty damn good, but not anywhere near .600

 

He's going to come down to reality, but if he keeps up his current hitting reality is going to be 270/310/400, and that's a 2-3 WAR catcher, not a replacement level catcher like he's been.

[Jake]

Beware of equating BABIP with luck. The better you hit, the higher your BABIP will be. The batted ball statistics are helpful in this regard, but variables still exist. It's clear Flowers has made changes to his swing and approach that would increase his BABIP. Of course, he has also been rather lucky. It's no coincidence that those other "lucky" player were really good baseball players, though - you make your own luck, as they say.

[Eminor3rd]

Beware of equating BABIP with luck. The better you hit, the higher your BABIP will be. The batted ball statistics are helpful in this regard, but variables still exist. It's clear Flowers has made changes to his swing and approach that would increase his BABIP. Of course, he has also been rather lucky. It's no coincidence that those other "lucky" player were really good baseball players, though - you make your own luck, as they say.

 

Right, that's what we've been exploring with the last few posts. We've concluded that a substantial portion of his high BABIP is due to increased line drive rates (not luck) and that a substantial portion of it is due to a much higher than normal rate of hits compared to his batted ball profile -- which should be considered luck.

[Feeky Magee]

Beware of equating BABIP with luck. The better you hit, the higher your BABIP will be. The batted ball statistics are helpful in this regard, but variables still exist. It's clear Flowers has made changes to his swing and approach that would increase his BABIP. Of course, he has also been rather lucky. It's no coincidence that those other "lucky" player were really good baseball players, though - you make your own luck, as they say.

As someone said above though, his BABIP *should* be .357, accounting for his better hitting. Not .600. .600 is historic.

[greg775]

I enjoyed his interview after the last game on mlb.com. Seems like a confident guy who has a clue what he is doing. I don't know if he calls the pitches, but seemed to understand why the starter had a good outing, etc.

Him not being an automatic out has helped the offense greatly or so it appears anyway. Somebody might do a numbers study and say he hasn't been valuable at all.

[witesoxfan]

This thread rocks