The popularity of the BABIP (batting average on balls in play) statistic in the last year has been pretty substantial, evidenced by a simple google search. Consider me one of the folks who recently discovered its value.

Today, I have edited the PLAYERtrack ranking system to allow you to search BABIP+ (highest BABIP to lowest) and the reverse (BABIP-).

In doing some test searches, I discovered that my fantasy philosophy has evolved quite a bit in the positive direction because of basic sabermetrics. In particular, I'm going to focus on Melvin Mora to provide an example.

In 2005, when I first made PLAYERtrack public, I touted Melvin as the next big thing in fantasy. I didn't understand why I seemed to be one of the few talking about him. After his 2004 season, PLAYERtrack ranked him as the 2nd best 3B in all of baseball and the 5th best player, overall.

People looked at me like I was crazy when I suggested that he was one of the best options in the game, yet he was getting little attention.

So, I drafted Melvin on my 2005 money league team... and I won the league. Although Melvin had a major regression of his statistics (.340 AVG to .283 AVG, .419 OBP to .348 OBP, 104 RBI to 88 RBI), I still felt justified with the opinion (he did match his 27 HRs in 2005).

But, as you can see by looking at Mora's player profile, he had a .374 BABIP in 2004. In 2005, he fell to .311. And, since, he has hovered at the .300 range and stuck there.

Clearly, 2004 was an aberration, proving that Mora's .340 AVG in 2004 was a fluke.

So, who could potentially have an AVG/BABIP drop of "2004-Melvinian" proportions in 2009?

A BABIP+ (highest to lowest) and AVG search, in the rankings here, helped me find these guys (minimum 10 games played at a position and 250 ABs):

Milton Bradley - .321 AVG, .396 BABIP
Manny Ramirez - .332 AVG, .373 BABIP
Shin Soo-Choo - .309 AVG, .373 BABIP
Howie Kendrick - .306 AVG, .362 BABIP
Fred Lewis - .282 AVG, .367 BABIP
Chase Headley - .269 AVG, .367 BABIP
Ian Stewart - .259 AVG, .364 BABIP