Out of all the sabermetric stats that exist out there, BABIP is one of the most useful. Standing for ‘batting average on balls in play,’ it’s used to determine how often non-home run batted balls drop in for hits.
Over at Fangraphs, they’ve deduced that BABIP is influenced by three factors: defense, luck and talent level. For example, a hard hit line drive may be caught by an elite second baseman, but go for a double when hit to a platoon player.
BABIP is not only useful for evaluating hitters but pitchers as well. Once the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand he no longer has control of what happens, therefore pitcher’s BABIP is more influenced by luck and defense than talent level.