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Rick Lucks breaks down how to use batted ball distribution to project a hitter's fantasy baseball performance as his 2024 series to make advanced stats more accessible to fantasy managers continues.
Fly balls can turn into home runs. Ground balls never do. It would seem as though fantasy baseball managers want their batters to hit nothing but flies, yet this is not always the case.
Why would this be? The answer, of course, comes down to batted ball distribution. The league average batted ball distribution in 2023 was 20% line drives, 42.5% ground balls, and 37.5% fly balls. Most individual players vary from this standard breakdown, providing insight into their fantasy viability.
The best place to find a hitter's batted ball distribution is by searching them on FanGraphs and scrolling to the fifth chart, "Batted Ball." It's the same chart we used to look at HR/FB in our previous article. Now that you know where to find this information, let's look at how to interpret it.
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The Value of Line Drives
Let's first look at how all major leaguers fared on each of the major types of batted ball in 2023. Grounders generated a BABIP of .243. Flies were not as productive, posting a .117 figure. This makes sense, as pop-ups seldom fall in, cans of corn to the outfield are only slightly better, and homers are considered out of play and do not count toward BABIP. Line drives turned into base hits far more frequently, posting a .702 BABIP. The difference between liners and anything else is startling. Batters want line drives.
Jarred Kelenic's 2023 campaign provides a good illustration of what a few extra liners can do. His triple-slash line of .253/.327/.419 was easily a career best, and the biggest reason why was a BABIP that jumped to .359 from a .268 career mark. Kelenic's BABIP jumped because of a LD% surge to 28.9 from a career mark of 20.3. The lifetime .204 hitter became fantasy viable as a result.
LD% generally isn't a predictive stat, meaning that it can fluctuate widely without indicating that a player has found a new level. Therefore, we shouldn't expect Kelenic to repeat his LD% and corresponding production in 2024. Don't want to believe it? Last year's example was Tim Anderson, one of the biggest fantasy busts of the entire 2023 season.
This is not to suggest that no one consistently posts above-average LD% rates. For example, liners were a big reason why Luis Arraez hit .354/.393/.469 and captured the NL batting title last season. His 28.5 LD% in 2023 was nearly as high as Kelenic's, but Arraez has five straight MLB seasons of above-average LD% rates on his resume. Arraez has a career .343 BABIP driven largely by a career LD% of 27.5.
It would be foolish to suggest that Arraez is just lucky considering his consistency. Therefore, we give credit to Arraez for being a plus-BABIP guy due to a LD% skill, just like we give Julio Rodriguez BABIP credit for his blinding speed. This distinction has to be earned over numerous full seasons, however. Most LD% surges are more fluky Jarred Kelenic than sustainable Luis Arraez.
Which Is Better: Ground Balls or Fly Balls?
Unlike LD%, both GB% and FB% are stickier -- a player's rates are likely to remain similar moving forward. By BABIP alone, grounders are better. However, this changes significantly if the slugging percentage is considered. In 2023, grounders offered a slugging percentage of .267, slightly higher than the .243 BABIP they posted. Flies had a .694 slugging percentage, easily offsetting the lower BABIP for most fantasy players.
The ideal batted ball mix therefore varies with the player. Elite speedsters want more grounders than flies as they don't have the oomph to hit many homers regardless. One-dimensional sluggers want fly balls, especially since shifts and a lack of speed often prevent them from realizing the larger BABIPs associated with grounders anyway. Fantasy managers usually prefer players with power and speed potential to have a higher FB%, as the extra power is more beneficial than a few extra times on base.
Incidentally, line drives averaged a ridiculous .919 slugging percentage to go with their .702 BABIP in 2023, so they are still the batted ball of choice.
Conclusion
To conclude, line drives are by far the most productive result for hitters. BABIP's luck-driven fluctuations are frequently driven by LD%, a largely random stat. GB% and FB% are more predictive, and which one is favored depends on the hitter in question. Grounders offer a higher BABIP, but almost zero power. Flies result in base hits less often, but generate much more power when they do.
The intricacies of BABIP could be a never-ending topic, but the information provided so far is generally enough for fantasy purposes. Stay tuned to learn about more metrics that can help you predict a player's future performance.
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