Pittsburgh Pirates: 10 Single Season Stats Worth a Deeper Dive
By Noah Wright
.104
We’re not done talking about Mitch Keller just yet. Keller went from one end of the luck spectrum to the complete opposite end in just the next year, culminating in what’s been an extremely weird roller coaster career so far for the young right hander.
Keller somehow posted a .104 batting average on balls in play across 21.2 innings. This helped him put up a 2.91 ERA, despite having a 1.66 HR/9, surrendering more walks than batters struck out. Keller can thank his low BAbip ironically because of the amount of homeruns runs given up, as home runs don’t help or hurt the stat.
This is by far the lowest BAbip by any pitcher with at least 20 innings pitched in a single season. The next closest is George Spencer of the 1950 San Francisco Giants at .114.
All of this weirdness has been previsosuly looked into deeper by Marty Leap.
Now granted, you need more than just 21.2 innings, or 48 innings to get an accurate BAbip reading. Small sample sizes can cause massive outliers. However, that shouldn’t take away from the fact of how Keller went from such an unlucky state to such a lucky state in consecutive seasons.