I know it's a comparison stat. I guess I'll try and explain my issue one last time. Say a pitcher doesn't strike many guys out but gives up more than his fair share of HRs... then you factor in sacrifices as a positive result for the pitcher... It's entirely possible that a pitcher's BABIP would actually be lower than his BA against. His BA against could be .300, but his BABIP could be .280... both are really poor, but the batting average of balls in play should be always be higher regardless because even the worst pitcher is going to strike out at least one batter. If you're trying to measure if someone is "unlucky" (which I think is bunk anyway, the pitcher has control over the velocity, location, and pitch he throws), how can the result of all balls in play not be considered? Again, I understand that you're theoretically trying to measure the defense, but usually a league average is used, so you compare a pitcher against the league average. For example, statements suchs as "His ERA will regress to the mean because his BABIP is too high" and so on are very common. The problem is that BABIP is not a true representation of all balls in play and it stands to reason that the harder a ball is hit, the less likely it is to be caught, which is why I personally like an LD% calculation better. It doesn't matter what metric you use, good players will do well, bad players will do poorly (traditional stats such as BA, OBP, ERA all will tell you pretty much the same thing as OPS, OPS+, FIP. ERA+ for the playes on either extreme). Doesn't it stand to reason that we're really trying to determine the relative value of players around the mythical average skill level? It seems to me that whomever came up with BABIP is cherry picking stats that favor the HR pitcher. Assuming that all things are equal, the pitcher that gives up more HRs (likely more runs) would do better BABIP wise, and that's the concept I take issue with. To me, all balls in play regardless of the outcome should be considered, from a pitching standpoint, the HR is worst possible outcome of a single AB.