Jay Bruce's BABIP

[AstrosFan]

http://www.fangraphs.com/minorleader...=1&season=2008

Jay Bruce posted a .442 BABIP in his 2008 season in the minors before being called up, in 184 AB. How unusual is this? His BABIP in his minor league career is .382. I know, he's regarded as the top prospect in baseball, so seeing big numbers shouldn't be too much of a surprise. But is his BABIP really high for a minor leaguer, and if so, does it mean anything with regards to his future?

[mikefast]

He had a 34% line drive rate at Louisville this year, which is really high. I'm sure that contributed strongly to his good BABIP. Ryan Ludwick leads the majors with 31% line drive rate. You can take that either as a sign that Bruce is quite exceptional or as a sign that line drive rate in that small a sample size doesn't mean a whole lot.
http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/cgi....cgi?pl=457803
http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstat...&Submit=Submit

[digglahhh]

Are BABIPs for top prospects often unpredictably high?

I say this because my experience in MILB is that there are plenty of questionably scoring decisions, and there's politicking involved too. The extent to which this will affect BABIP is probably relatively small, but it's probably worth mentioning that Bruce was likely given the benefit of the doubt on many questionable hit/error decisions.

[skyking162]

Bruce probably overperformed by a bit in the minors, but I wouldn't worry about it. What do you think ARod's BABIP would be if he spent 2008 in AAA?

[SABR Matt]

It is extremely common for prospects to have really really big BABIP numbers over a month of playing time...had he stayed in AAA...it would have corrected down to the .350s at least. you can bet that Bruce won't be doing that kind of hitting in Cincy.

[StillFlash]

Checking my MLEsfor Bruce


Year BA OB SA BIP BB SO
2006 255/309/469 289 071 240 A
2007 282/329/533 330 064 282 A+ AA AAA
2008 334/367/579 368 056 245 AAA MLB

3y 281/328/517 321 065 260
2y 297/340/546 341 062 271

I could see him maintain a ML BABIP in the 320-340 range. Despite his 6 bb 1 k in 6 games, he has walked a little below avg with a fairly high k rate