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The Rise of David Hamilton
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Post by rickasadoorian on Jun 17, 2024 9:21:08 GMT -5
Hamilton is now projected by ZiPS to finish the year with 2.2 fWAR, which matches Trevor Story's pre-season projection. He's at 1.2 now. 1.6 oWAR, -0.2 dWAR. His 162 game pace is 4.1. So 2.2 seems very doable, assuming playing time.
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Post by cmax on Jun 17, 2024 9:28:07 GMT -5
Since rejoining the starting lineup in mid May, Hamilton is the most valuable base-runner in all of baseball (BsR of 2.8, Fangraphs). Duran is 3rd over that time period. They are #1 and #2 in the American League.
Hamilton has 14 steals in the past month; Duran 8. Fun to watch.
Especially loved - on top of his four steals last night - Hamilton's steal of third in the last game against the White Sox to help salvage the split (and the team's sense of self worth), as well as the slide home last night for his 3rd run of the game to beat the strong throw from Soto. Very few other people in the league score on that play. The slide was electric. Game changing base-running. Onwards!
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Post by okin15 on Jun 17, 2024 9:50:56 GMT -5
Are we at the point where not only Romy G, but also Grissom should get significant rehab assignments to ensure they are upgrades on the current call-ups?
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Post by puzzler on Jun 17, 2024 10:23:52 GMT -5
Are we at the point where not only Romy G, but also Grissom should get significant rehab assignments to ensure they are upgrades on the current call-ups? Romy is ready right now and is a better option than Westbrook. Grissom shouldn't play again in the majors this year unless there are more injuries and he should be given clear instruction that he needs to put on some good weight. He's going to get the flu again - he can't be losing 15 pounds the next time he gets it.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Jun 17, 2024 10:39:41 GMT -5
Interesting point. Wait til Grissom is truly ready. He is 23, plenty of time to get back to his fighting weight and level of play. Meanwhile Hamilton, Romy, Valdez, Westbrook can shine. Lots of talent here now. Lots more to come. So glad Hamilton got a chance to show he belongs. IMO he is just getting started.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 21, 2024 3:51:19 GMT -5
Hamilton is now projected by ZiPS to finish the year with 2.2 fWAR, which matches Trevor Story's pre-season projection. He's at 1.2 now. 1.6 oWAR, -0.2 dWAR. His 162 game pace is 4.1. So 2.2 seems very doable, assuming playing time. He's been in 50 games , and if you use that, he ranks 12th among all starting SS in fWAR per 150 games, with 3.3.
However, he's only played 32 full games. Five times he was lifted in the 7th or later for platoon purposes, so it's nor fair to adjust for that. But he also entered the game in the 8th or later 8 times, getting only 4 total PA, so that knocks off 7 games from his true playing time. He entered four games in the 3rd through 6th and had just 8 PA, and when combined with leaving the first Jays game after four, that's another 2 games he didn't really play.
So it's really 41 games, and that puts him at 4.0 per 150 G, which ranks 11th.
Another data point: he made 2 errors in his first 4 games, 2 in next 16, and two in his last 31. He'll be better defensively than you'd project.
Projections assume that no one gets actually better relative to expectations from past performances. If you have good reason to believe that a player has made a tangible improvement (as we have here), you just toss the projection out.
Ending up with 2.2 WAR would mean that he played 70 of 77 remaining games at a 1.9 per 150 pace. That would be somewhat of a catastrophe. I can see 3.0, but anything below that will be a let-down.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Jun 21, 2024 7:37:25 GMT -5
He's at 1.2 now. 1.6 oWAR, -0.2 dWAR. His 162 game pace is 4.1. So 2.2 seems very doable, assuming playing time. He's been in 50 games , and if you use that, he ranks 12th among all starting SS in fWAR per 150 games, with 3.3. However, he's only played 32 full games. Five times he was lifted in the 7th or later for platoon purposes, so it's nor fair to adjust for that. But he also entered the game in the 8th or later 8 times, getting only 4 total PA, so that knocks off 7 games from his true playing time. He entered four games in the 3rd through 6th and had just 8 PA, and when combined with leaving the first Jays game after four, that's another 2 games he didn't really play. So it's really 41 games, and that puts him at 4.0 per 150 G, which ranks 11th.
Another data point: he made 2 errors in his first 4 games, 2 in next 16, and two in his last 31. He'll be better defensively than you'd project.
Projections assume that no one gets actually better relative to expectations from past performances. If you have good reason to believe that a player has made a tangible improvement (as we have here), you just toss the projection out.
Ending up with 2.2 WAR would mean that he played 70 of 77 remaining games at a 1.9 per 150 pace. That would be somewhat of a catastrophe. I can see 3.0, but anything below that will be a let-down.
I want to see a larger sample. He’s definitely hitting well lately, but his xwOBA is still .301 so he could regress significantly offensively. We should be ecstatic if he can keep up his current pace IMO
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tedf
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Post by tedf on Jun 21, 2024 7:41:26 GMT -5
Anybody have thoughts on what Hamilton has improved over the last month (May 17 on?) to get here? His exit velocities and batted ball profiles don't seem to have changed. His contact rate in the zone is up a little. He clearly has elite speed, but he had that before as well? So what is he doing differentlyat the plate that will sustain this kind of improvement?
Good to see that his defense has settled down, from interviews it sounds like that was largely rookie jitters.
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Post by rickasadoorian on Jun 21, 2024 8:09:13 GMT -5
Anybody have thoughts on what Hamilton has improved over the last month (May 17 on?) to get here? His exit velocities and batted ball profiles don't seem to have changed. His contact rate in the zone is up a little. He clearly has elite speed, but he had that before as well? So what is he doing differentlyat the plate that will sustain this kind of improvement? Good to see that his defense has settled down, from interviews it sounds like that was largely rookie jitters. His luck? .273 BAbip prior to May 17, .420 since. .373 for the year. He's 38/102 in balls in play this year.
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tedf
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Post by tedf on Jun 21, 2024 8:14:53 GMT -5
His luck? .273 BAbip prior to May 17, .420 since. .373 for the year.
Well, yeah! I mean besides that.
Should note that ZiPS had him projected for a .298 wOBA even before this season, which isn't half bad for a solid defensive shortstop. A good bench player at the very least. Just wondering if anybody is seeing anything in his game that merits a dramatic revision to that? ZiPS(ROS) is now crediting him with a higher BABIP for a .307 wOBA but is otherwise holding its ground.
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Post by scottysmalls on Jun 21, 2024 8:18:00 GMT -5
Anybody have thoughts on what Hamilton has improved over the last month (May 17 on?) to get here? His exit velocities and batted ball profiles don't seem to have changed. His contact rate in the zone is up a little. He clearly has elite speed, but he had that before as well? So what is he doing differentlyat the plate that will sustain this kind of improvement? Good to see that his defense has settled down, from interviews it sounds like that was largely rookie jitters. Since 5/17 he’s run a close to elite percent of batted balls in the ideal launch angle range. And he has a near elite chase rate. For the season among players with 100 batted ball events in MLB Hamilton is 8th in LA sweet spot %. His best xwOBA stretch was actually from 4/17 to 5/25 though, then he slumped and now he’s been hot since 6/11. Not sure if it’s all about the launch angle but that’s at least something he does very well on offense.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 21, 2024 14:08:02 GMT -5
I'm working on the xwOBA vs. wOBA thing.
Here's the first step: frequency of batted ball types. "150" is 50% more frequent than MLB average. P, C, O is pulled, centered, oppo.
FB P 95
FB C 97 FB O 118 LD P 175 LD C 119 LD O 161 GB P 81 GB C 91 GB O 70 PU 13
And here's the quality of contact -- xwOBA relative to league.
FB P 101 FB C 53 FB O 57 LD P 90 LD C 63 LD O 112 GB P 119 GB C 95 GB O 85
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Jun 21, 2024 14:43:16 GMT -5
Just using the Wall he looks like a doubles machine. But also his speed makes him a doubles machine just beating out singles and getting on base. Wow!
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Post by rickasadoorian on Jun 28, 2024 14:54:42 GMT -5
If the season were to end today, David Hamilton would have the best stolen base % in a single season of all time for the Red Sox with at least 20 sb. Xander was 8/8 in 2020 and Lee Tinsley was 13/13 in 1994. Hamilton is currently at 21/22, good for a 95.46% SB%. Pedroia was 20/21 in 2008. It will be hard for Hamilton to break the record if he gets caught one more time.
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Post by jodyreidnichols on Jun 29, 2024 8:18:33 GMT -5
Anybody have thoughts on what Hamilton has improved over the last month (May 17 on?) to get here? His exit velocities and batted ball profiles don't seem to have changed. His contact rate in the zone is up a little. He clearly has elite speed, but he had that before as well? So what is he doing differentlyat the plate that will sustain this kind of improvement? Good to see that his defense has settled down, from interviews it sounds like that was largely rookie jitters. His luck? .273 BAbip prior to May 17, .420 since. .373 for the year. He's 38/102 in balls in play this year. I would appear that expecting regression to typical BABIP for those with exceptional speed is likely wrong.
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Post by jodyreidnichols on Jun 29, 2024 8:24:14 GMT -5
His luck? .273 BAbip prior to May 17, .420 since. .373 for the year.
Well, yeah! I mean besides that.
Should note that ZiPS had him projected for a .298 wOBA even before this season, which isn't half bad for a solid defensive shortstop. A good bench player at the very least. Just wondering if anybody is seeing anything in his game that merits a dramatic revision to that? ZiPS(ROS) is now crediting him with a higher BABIP for a .307 wOBA but is otherwise holding its ground.
So projection systems on whole typically are very good for a reason they are good at forecasting typical progressions and that is all. They will get the majority of pieces in a group right. In other words they are not designed to predict the exceptions or those that break through. I get the feeling that even most baseball fans don't grasp that. It's not what they do, period.
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Post by incandenza on Jun 29, 2024 8:48:51 GMT -5
His luck? .273 BAbip prior to May 17, .420 since. .373 for the year. He's 38/102 in balls in play this year. I would appear that expecting regression to typical BABIP for those with exceptional speed is likely wrong. That BABIP is not sustainable. The very highest career BABIP for any hitter with 4000 PAs since 1980, out of 640 batters, is Austin Jackson's .355.
As a side note, I suspect that we tend to overrate the significance of speed when it comes to BABIP. There just aren't that many infield singles that a guy can leg out in a season.
Looking at that same BABIP leader list and sorting by SBs (as a proxy for speed): The BABIPs of the top 10 were:
.305 .312 .314 .326 .308 .312 .319 .328 .305 .285
Definitely above average, but by like 15 points, not 75 points.
I think the more important component of BABIP is where the ball tends to be hit.
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Post by scottysmalls on Jun 29, 2024 9:08:10 GMT -5
I would appear that expecting regression to typical BABIP for those with exceptional speed is likely wrong. That BABIP is not sustainable. The very highest career BABIP for any hitter with 4000 PAs since 1980, out of 640 batters, is Austin Jackson's .355.
As a side note, I suspect that we tend to overrate the significance of speed when it comes to BABIP. There just aren't that many infield singles that a guy can leg out in a season.
Looking at that same BABIP leader list and sorting by SBs (as a proxy for speed): The BABIPs of the top 10 were:
.305 .312 .314 .326 .308 .312 .319 .328 .305 .285
Definitely above average, but by like 15 points, not 75 points.
I think the more important component of BABIP is where the ball tends to be hit.
Hamilton’s most elite offensive trait outside of speed is hitting the ball on the sweet spot. Here are the BABIPs of the top 10 in sweet spot % with 100 batted ball events (Hamilton is #7): .374 .326 .369 .325 .322 .279 .342* .379 .297 .325 Hamilton’s current batted ball profile is well set up to land balls between the infield and the outfield. That plus his speed makes him feel like a guy who can run a high BABIP and have a wOBA that exceeds his xwOBA consistently. Fenway generally helps lefties a lot with that too.
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Post by e on Jun 29, 2024 9:33:28 GMT -5
That BABIP is not sustainable. The very highest career BABIP for any hitter with 4000 PAs since 1980, out of 640 batters, is Austin Jackson's .355.
As a side note, I suspect that we tend to overrate the significance of speed when it comes to BABIP. There just aren't that many infield singles that a guy can leg out in a season.
Looking at that same BABIP leader list and sorting by SBs (as a proxy for speed): The BABIPs of the top 10 were:
.305 .312 .314 .326 .308 .312 .319 .328 .305 .285
Definitely above average, but by like 15 points, not 75 points.
I think the more important component of BABIP is where the ball tends to be hit.
Hamilton’s most elite offensive trait outside of speed is hitting the ball on the sweet spot. Here are the BABIPs of the top 10 in sweet spot % with 100 batted ball events (Hamilton is #7): .374 .326 .369 .325 .322 .279 .342* .379 .297 .325 Hamilton’s current batted ball profile is well set up to land balls between the infield and the outfield. That plus his speed makes him feel like a guy who can run a high BABIP and have a wOBA that exceeds his xwOBA consistently. Fenway generally helps lefties a lot with that too. Completely agree with this. His batted ball profile has changed pretty significantly this year, and that comes with a 33.9% line drive rate(league average is 24.8%). I do think we should expect regression, but the way he is currently hitting the ball does tend to lead to higher BABIPs. Main takeaway for me is to not expect Hamilton to regress down to the BABIP he ran in the minors, maybe look .010 to .020 points higher. If he starts trading line drives for more fly balls, then I'd expect a steeper decline. Edit: fixed BABIP typos
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Post by incandenza on Jun 29, 2024 9:40:50 GMT -5
That BABIP is not sustainable. The very highest career BABIP for any hitter with 4000 PAs since 1980, out of 640 batters, is Austin Jackson's .355.
As a side note, I suspect that we tend to overrate the significance of speed when it comes to BABIP. There just aren't that many infield singles that a guy can leg out in a season.
Looking at that same BABIP leader list and sorting by SBs (as a proxy for speed): The BABIPs of the top 10 were:
.305 .312 .314 .326 .308 .312 .319 .328 .305 .285
Definitely above average, but by like 15 points, not 75 points.
I think the more important component of BABIP is where the ball tends to be hit.
Hamilton’s most elite offensive trait outside of speed is hitting the ball on the sweet spot. Here are the BABIPs of the top 10 in sweet spot % with 100 batted ball events (Hamilton is #7): .374 .326 .369 .325 .322 .279 .342* .379 .297 .325 Hamilton’s current batted ball profile is well set up to land balls between the infield and the outfield. That plus his speed makes him feel like a guy who can run a high BABIP and have a wOBA that exceeds his xwOBA consistently. Fenway generally helps lefties a lot with that too. Well shoot, never mind. I was responding to the commenter who said his BABIP was .373. That was his BABIP when the comment was written but it's down 29 points since then. At .342 it's high but not outside of precedent or anything.
Basically he's already taken care of his BABIP regression in the last week.
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Post by scottysmalls on Jun 29, 2024 9:45:26 GMT -5
That BABIP is not sustainable. The very highest career BABIP for any hitter with 4000 PAs since 1980, out of 640 batters, is Austin Jackson's .355.
As a side note, I suspect that we tend to overrate the significance of speed when it comes to BABIP. There just aren't that many infield singles that a guy can leg out in a season.
Looking at that same BABIP leader list and sorting by SBs (as a proxy for speed): The BABIPs of the top 10 were:
.305 .312 .314 .326 .308 .312 .319 .328 .305 .285
Definitely above average, but by like 15 points, not 75 points.
I think the more important component of BABIP is where the ball tends to be hit.
Fenway generally helps lefties a lot with that too. Just following up here BA on contact for lefties in Fenway is 9% higher than league average
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Post by jodyreidnichols on Jun 30, 2024 11:35:56 GMT -5
Anybody have thoughts on what Hamilton has improved over the last month (May 17 on?) to get here? His exit velocities and batted ball profiles don't seem to have changed. His contact rate in the zone is up a little. He clearly has elite speed, but he had that before as well? So what is he doing differentlyat the plate that will sustain this kind of improvement? Good to see that his defense has settled down, from interviews it sounds like that was largely rookie jitters. His luck? .273 BAbip prior to May 17, .420 since. .373 for the year. He's 38/102 in balls in play this year. When you have elite speed, would it be fair to assess the typical BABIP rates likely don't apply?
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Post by rickasadoorian on Jun 30, 2024 12:26:24 GMT -5
Hamilton’s most elite offensive trait outside of speed is hitting the ball on the sweet spot. Here are the BABIPs of the top 10 in sweet spot % with 100 batted ball events (Hamilton is #7): .374 .326 .369 .325 .322 .279 .342* .379 .297 .325 Hamilton’s current batted ball profile is well set up to land balls between the infield and the outfield. That plus his speed makes him feel like a guy who can run a high BABIP and have a wOBA that exceeds his xwOBA consistently. Fenway generally helps lefties a lot with that too. Completely agree with this. His batted ball profile has changed pretty significantly this year, and that comes with a 33.9% line drive rate(league average is 24.8%). I do think we should expect regression, but the way he is currently hitting the ball does tend to lead to higher BABIPs. Main takeaway for me is to not expect Hamilton to regress down to the BABIP he ran in the minors, maybe look .10 to .20 points higher. If he starts trading line drives for more fly balls, then I'd expect a steeper decline. Fangraphs has the league average LD% at 19.7% and Hamilton at 21.7% for 2024. Hamilton this year in MLB: 21.7% LD%, 36.5% GB%, 41.7% FB% Hamilton last year in MiLB: 23.3% LD%, 33.9% GB%, 42.8% FB% The numbers suggest there isn't much of a change in his batted ball profile, minus the fact he's hitting a lot more balls to center at the expense of going the opposite way. Considering defense is worse at AAA, why would you expect him to be 10 to 20 points higher than his minor league BAbip? Last year he was a bit unlucky at .297. This year he's probably been a bit lucky to be at .343. I'd expect his BAbip to be around .310-.320, which is about the halfway point between the 2 and his BAbip in 21 and 22. In any one given season, he might be able to run with a .343 BAbip. With a .315 BAbip. Hamilton's slash line would be .255/.306/.418. Factoring everything else, and it's a very serviceable player. Although looking at Hamilton's career numbers, the change in batted ball profile came last year. In 21 and 22, his LD% was <18%. I'm not sure how relevant those seasons are in any discussion about Hamilton. He doesn't hit a ton of GBs though. Xander Bogaerts is fast and hits a lot of ground balls. His career BAbip is .331, and was higher in the minors. Mookie Betts is fast and doesn't hit a ton of ground balls. His career BAbip is .306, and was considerably higher in the minors. Austin Jackson also hit a ton of groundballs. He has a high BAbip. Players aren't beating out flyballs and line drives for hits, after all. They are beating out ground balls, and Hamilton is not a GB hitter.
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Post by rickasadoorian on Jun 30, 2024 12:37:07 GMT -5
His luck? .273 BAbip prior to May 17, .420 since. .373 for the year. He's 38/102 in balls in play this year. When you have elite speed, would it be fair to assess the typical BABIP rates likely don't apply? That's only true if you also hit a ton of ground balls. Here's a career list of BAbip. Notice there aren't that many modern players on there. The ones that are hit a ton of ground balls. Yelich has a career GB% of 55.9%. Jeter's is 58.5%. Speed is only part of the equation. If you are hitting line drives and fly balls, you aren't beating out anything for a hit. You are stretching a single into a double. A GB, you are turning an out into an actual hit. So yeah, Hamilton should have a slightly higher than average BAbip because of his speed, but it's going to be closer to Mookie Betts (.306 BAbip, GB% of 35.1%) than Xander Bogaerts (.331 career BAbip, 45.4% GB%). Put 500 balls in play. 250 of them are GBs. Your BAbip % on ground balls is .365 because you are fast. Put 500 balls in play. 150 of them are GBs. Your BAbip % on ground balls is .365 because you are fast. You are still going to have a considerably lower BAbip than the other guy. Opportunity. Hamilton has less. edit: Hamilton has put the ball in play 114 times this season, 42 have been ground balls. Not sure how to see how he fared in those 42. Double Edit: BBref says Hamilton has 40 ground balls. Hamilton .325/.325/.450, .325 BAbip League .242/.242/.267, .242 BAbip
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Post by e on Jun 30, 2024 15:39:22 GMT -5
Completely agree with this. His batted ball profile has changed pretty significantly this year, and that comes with a 33.9% line drive rate(league average is 24.8%). I do think we should expect regression, but the way he is currently hitting the ball does tend to lead to higher BABIPs. Main takeaway for me is to not expect Hamilton to regress down to the BABIP he ran in the minors, maybe look .10 to .20 points higher. If he starts trading line drives for more fly balls, then I'd expect a steeper decline. Fangraphs has the league average LD% at 19.7% and Hamilton at 21.7% for 2024. Hamilton this year in MLB: 21.7% LD%, 36.5% GB%, 41.7% FB% Hamilton last year in MiLB: 23.3% LD%, 33.9% GB%, 42.8% FB% The numbers suggest there isn't much of a change in his batted ball profile, minus the fact he's hitting a lot more balls to center at the expense of going the opposite way. Considering defense is worse at AAA, why would you expect him to be 10 to 20 points higher than his minor league BAbip? Last year he was a bit unlucky at .297. This year he's probably been a bit lucky to be at .343. I'd expect his BAbip to be around .310-.320, which is about the halfway point between the 2 and his BAbip in 21 and 22. In any one given season, he might be able to run with a .343 BAbip. With a .315 BAbip. Hamilton's slash line would be .255/.306/.418. Factoring everything else, and it's a very serviceable player. Although looking at Hamilton's career numbers, the change in batted ball profile came last year. In 21 and 22, his LD% was <18%. I'm not sure how relevant those seasons are in any discussion about Hamilton. He doesn't hit a ton of GBs though. Xander Bogaerts is fast and hits a lot of ground balls. His career BAbip is .331, and was higher in the minors. Mookie Betts is fast and doesn't hit a ton of ground balls. His career BAbip is .306, and was considerably higher in the minors. Austin Jackson also hit a ton of groundballs. He has a high BAbip. Players aren't beating out flyballs and line drives for hits, after all. They are beating out ground balls, and Hamilton is not a GB hitter. I'm using batted ball numbers from Baseball Savant found here: baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/david-hamilton-666152?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlbI prefer to use baseball savant batted profiles over Fangraphs because the Fangraphs IFFB% tends to always be alarmingly high no matter the player, especially with minor leaguer stats. I also will continue to use savant when we're talking about things like sweet spot% and expected stats to keep everything on one site. My overarching point was line drives have the highest BABIP out of the 4 types of batted balls, and if he's running a higher line drive percentage in comparison to the rest of the league, his BABIP will likely also follow. It was more adding onto the previous point regarding him having an elite Sweetspot%, which also yields are higher BABIP. Also if Hamilton fell closer to Betts' BABIP rather than Xander's, it would still be .010 to .020 points higher than his minor league one which hovers right around .305. Considering you also said you would expect his BABIP to lay around .310 to .320, which is right around the range I suggested, I'm confused as to where you may disagree with me. Especially if we ended up coming to the same exact end point. Edit: fixed BABIP typos
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