… Turning to the data, let’s first look at the “unluckiest” batters of 2011—those who are most likely to see the sharpest batting average improvements in 2012 (dBABIP greater than .050):
Last Name First Name Team BABIP xBABIP dBABIP Chone Figgins Mariners 0.215 0.314 0.100 Vernon Wells Angels 0.214 0.298 0.084 Rafael Furcal MULTIPLE 0.240 0.320 0.080 … Alex Rios White Sox 0.237 0.299 0.062 … Adam Dunn White Sox 0.240 0.299 0.059 As you might expect, a lot of the guys with some of the lowest batting averages in baseball populate this list. Those players, though mostly terrible, were not nearly as terrible as their batting lines from last year indicate. For example, Alex Rios was likely more a .260-.270 than a .227 hitter, and Adam Dunn should have hit closer to .200 than .159. …
Here are the xBABIP data for the White Sox players from the accompanying spreadsheet (batters with positive dBABIPs are “unlucky” while batters with negative dBABIPs are “lucky”):
| First Name | Last Name | Team | PA | AB | H | 1B | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | SF | SB | IFH% | LD% | GB% | FB% | IFFB% | BIP | HBP | P/PA | BABIP | xBABIP | dBABIP |
| Rios | Alex | White Sox | 570 | 537 | 122 | 85 | 22 | 2 | 13 | 27 | 68 | 4 | 11 | 5.0% | 18.4% | 42.3% | 39.3% | 12.9% | 473 | 2 | 3.5 | 0.237 | 0.299 | 0.062 |
| Dunn | Adam | White Sox | 496 | 415 | 66 | 39 | 16 | 0 | 11 | 75 | 177 | 2 | 0 | 0.0% | 20.0% | 32.5% | 47.5% | 13.2% | 240 | 4 | 4.4 | 0.240 | 0.299 | 0.059 |
| Morel | Brent | White Sox | 444 | 413 | 101 | 72 | 18 | 1 | 10 | 22 | 57 | 1 | 5 | 8.7% | 19.2% | 49.3% | 31.5% | 9.1% | 349 | 3 | 3.6 | 0.262 | 0.311 | 0.049 |
| Pierre | Juan | White Sox | 711 | 639 | 178 | 155 | 17 | 4 | 2 | 43 | 41 | 3 | 27 | 7.4% | 21.1% | 53.0% | 25.8% | 7.6% | 558 | 7 | 3.4 | 0.294 | 0.325 | 0.031 |
| Beckham | Gordon | White Sox | 557 | 499 | 115 | 82 | 23 | 0 | 10 | 35 | 111 | 3 | 5 | 7.1% | 20.3% | 39.5% | 40.3% | 21.0% | 390 | 13 | 3.8 | 0.276 | 0.293 | 0.017 |
| Pierzynski | A.J. | White Sox | 500 | 464 | 133 | 95 | 29 | 1 | 8 | 23 | 33 | 6 | 0 | 1.4% | 20.9% | 50.6% | 28.5% | 7.3% | 435 | 5 | 3.4 | 0.291 | 0.308 | 0.017 |
| Ramirez | Alexei | White Sox | 684 | 614 | 165 | 117 | 31 | 2 | 15 | 51 | 84 | 5 | 7 | 7.9% | 19.3% | 45.5% | 35.2% | 15.6% | 528 | 6 | 3.6 | 0.288 | 0.301 | 0.012 |
| Quentin | Carlos | White Sox | 483 | 421 | 107 | 52 | 31 | 0 | 24 | 34 | 84 | 5 | 1 | 6.4% | 14.3% | 32.2% | 53.5% | 16.9% | 342 | 23 | 3.7 | 0.261 | 0.269 | 0.008 |
| Konerko | Paul | White Sox | 639 | 543 | 163 | 107 | 25 | 0 | 31 | 77 | 89 | 11 | 1 | 0.6% | 22.4% | 37.0% | 40.6% | 7.9% | 465 | 8 | 3.9 | 0.304 | 0.301 | -0.003 |
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