Come to Think of It: Cubs Slow to Adopt Metrics as an Evaluation Tool

If you are familiar with the excellent work done by The Hardball Times’ Chris Dutton and Peter Bendix,  you are likely familiar with their creation of an expected Batting Average on Balls in Play metric (xBABIP).   BABIP—Batting average on balls in play: the rate at which batted balls other than home runs become hits has been mainly used to judge pitchers. That is, until the metric was improved by the creation of xBABIP, which has turned out to be a very strong predictor of future performance.   The idea is to separate skill from variance. They’ve isolated a batter’s skill at getting hits on balls in play; therefore, they can uncover players’ performances which are unlikely to be repeated.   Imagine how the Cubs GM, Jim Hendry, could use this information.   Consider a fine recent article by my B/R colleague, Tab Bamford. He rightly points out that signing Aaron Miles was a mistake.   Hendry was apparently blinded by Mi...