A couple of years ago, Chris Dutton and Peter Bendix did some research on batted-ball data and created a metric called xBABIP (“expected BABIP”). xBABIP dispelled the myth that BABIP was primarily a function of “LD%+ .120.” Rather, as Dutton and Bendix found, BABIP was better explained as a function all batted-ball types and ratios with speed/power/strikeout considerations.
Last year, Derek Carty and Chris Dutton debuted the simple xBABIP calculator on THT. This tool has empowered users to determine a player’s xBABIP and compare it to their actual BABIP. Therefrom, one could forecast a hitter’s expected batting line, assuming all the input ratios were to remain constant. Over the course of 500+ PA, these ratios tend to be significant, though conclusions can still be drawn at the 300 PA threshold (we’d really only be waiting on IFFB% stabilization).
For all 270 hitters who accrued 300 or more plate appearances this season, I applied the xBABIP formula (by park) to determine each hitter’s expected batting lines. In short, what I have created is a spreadsheet of “what you can expect as a baseline for production in 2011, assuming all else remains constant.” In other words, this is how these hitters should have hit in 2010. …
Numbers for the White Sox players from the full spreadsheet:
| Player | PA | xBABIP | BABIP | Difference |
| Andruw Jones | 328 | .310 | .239 | .071 |
| Juan Pierre | 734 | .351 | .294 | .057 |
| Mark Kotsay | 359 | .298 | .247 | .051 |
| Carlos Quentin | 527 | .282 | .241 | .041 |
| A.J. Pierzynski | 503 | .299 | .278 | .021 |
| Alex Rios | 617 | .322 | .306 | .016 |
| Alexei Ramirez | 626 | .311 | .300 | .011 |
| Gordon Beckham | 498 | .304 | .297 | .007 |
| Omar Vizquel | 391 | .309 | .309 | 0 |
| Paul Konerko | 631 | .297 | .326 | -.029 |
For players that played part of the year with the White Sox I got their BABIP numbers from statcorner. All the numbers are for the time they played for the White Sox:
| Player | PA | xBABIP | BABIP | Difference |
| Jayson Nix | 57 | .262 | .189 | .073 |
| Manny Ramirez | 88 | .313 | .388 | -.075 |
Mark Teahen had only 262 PAs.
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