By the Numbers: Not every Angel will soar

In the final section of this BABIP Flukes feature, each week I pick out a couple of players who have settled into their sustainable statistical levels. For pitchers, this usually means identifying players whose batting average against on balls in play is in the .280 to .300 range, but for hitters, that natural resting place can approach .400.

We know of batters like B.J. Upton, Matt Kemp and Joe Mauer who consistently produce BABIPs that are well above average, but are there any teams who have built a lineup stocked with high-BABIP threats? There is one in particular, and they call Anaheim home. (Oh, that's right; actually they call Los Angeles "home," despite their Orange County address.) The Angels have a major league-leading .287 team batting average, which is built on both an 18 percent whiff rate (seventh-lowest in the majors) and a .326 BABIP (highest in the majors).

It may be no accident that the Halos have been so good at getting hits on contact. Almost every player in their current everyday lineup has a strong tendency to hit line drives and ground balls. Only two of their regulars have line drive rates that are well below average and flyball rates that are well above-average. Still, even good hitting teams can have lucky hitters. Kendry Morales, one of the Angels' flyball hitters, hasn't been lucky, but has compiled a .289 average based on a decent whiff rate and the 18 balls that have gone far, far out of play. Their other flyball hitter has managed a .282 average, but this stat has its basis in a .326 BABIP that has earned him a place on this week's "Lucky Players" list.

Lucky Players

Mike Napoli, C, L.A. Angels: Readers familiar with Napoli's flyball-hitting ways may have quickly recognized him as the Angels' mystery fluky hitter. Though he is striking out less often this year, he still whiffs too much to be a .280ish hitter. Napoli has built his abnormally high batting average through a BABIP that is 23 points above his career average. He is clearly the real deal when it comes to home run, RBI and run scoring production, but the Angels' backstop will see his Fantasy value drop in the coming weeks, as base hits should start to become more scarce.

Randy Wolf, SP, L.A. Dodgers: Wolf's owners could be lulled into thinking that this season has just been a continuation of the resurgence he embarked upon two seasons ago, when he resumed striking out batters like he did in his mid-20s. The lefty isn't fooling batters as often this year, and now his K/9 rate is a pedestrian 6.7, yet his ERA and WHIP have plunged to near-career bests. Some of the improvement can be traced to a 2.5 BB/9 rate, but it can also be chalked up to a fishy-smelling .257 BABIP. Even if Wolf can maintain his diminished line drive and ground ball rates, which would help to keep his BABIP close to .300, it is highly unlikely that he will continue to prevent base hits and runs at his present rates.

Unlucky Players

Adrian Gonzalez, 1B, San Diego: Anytime a hitter has a BABIP as low as Gonzalez', I am prone to think it must be fluky. Then again, given the depleted state of the Padres' lineup, I thought maybe there was another source behind his .245 rate. I assumed that Gonzalez was not getting many good pitches to hit, a theory that his 19 percent walk rate supports. Better yet, according to the Fangraphs website, Gonzalez is among the bottom 20 batters in terms of the percentage of pitches seen in the strike zone. As it turns out, seven of these 20 hitters, including Gonzo, have BABIP rates of .280 or lower.

It looks like Gonzalez' owners should just start resigning themselves to a second half replete with homers, walks and easy outs, but repeat after me: correlation is not causation. Just because Gonzalez and his compatriots aren't getting many pitches in the zone doesn't mean that they are doomed to low batting averages. Five of these seven low-BABIP batters possess flyball trends that would likely lead to subpar BABIP rates in any event, pitch-arounds notwithstanding. Only Gonzalez and Aubrey Huff have profiles that suggest they are due to produce higher batting averages going forward. Even without protection, Gonzalez should revert back to being a .280 hitter as soon as better luck starts to kick in.

Brad Penny, SP, Boston: A pitcher with Penny's skill ratios should be faring better than a 4.71 ERA and 1.46 WHIP, so it would seem that something is afoot with his BABIP rate. Penny's ground ball tendencies have usually translated into slightly elevated BABIPs, but his current .325 mark is especially dubious, since he's been inducing many more flyballs this year. He has posted rates this high before, so Penny is not an absolute lock to improve over the next two months. However, his current strikeout, walk and home run rates mirror those of his 2003 season, when he went 14-10 with a 4.13 ERA and 1.28 WHIP. Those look like reasonable stats to expect from Penny over the next couple of months.

Players Who Could Be For Real

Jair Jurrjens, SP, Atlanta: Hitters may raise their .230 batting average against Jurrjens a tad, but he is doing a good enough job at preventing base hits via the line drive and the long ball to keep his stats in their current vicinity. Not everyone is buying into the legitimacy of Jurrjens' sub-3.00 ERA and 1.20 WHIP, not even his owners, more than one of six of whom have tucked him away on reserves. There are only twenty or so starting pitchers in baseball right now who can provide this much help to a Fantasy staff, so Jurrjens should be active in a higher proportion of his leagues.

Andy LaRoche, 3B, Pittsburgh: Only the most jaded fans and owners would have thought that LaRoche wouldn't rebound from a dismal 2008 season that saw him bat .166. While there is no denying that his power output -- five homers and five doubles in 223 at-bats -- was a major letdown, a surface scan of his numbers from last year would overlook a stout 10 percent walk rate and encouraging 17 percent whiff rate. With his minor league contact skills still intact, clearly a very low BABIP was killing LaRoche's batting average. Now that last year's .177 rate is behind him, we can get a truer sense of how LaRoche stacks up as a Fantasy third baseman.

Sometimes, though, having our eyes opened to a player's "real" level of production can be a jarring experience. LaRoche's power is still absent, but with steady walk and whiff rates and a more normal BABIP, he is revealed to be a .264 hitter with a .338 on-base percentage. Were the 18 dingers he hit two years ago in half a season at Triple-A Las Vegas a park factor mirage, or a sign of LaRoche's major league power potential? The answer will make all the difference as to whether LaRoche will be worth rostering long-term. We may not know for another year or two, but for now, he is the statistical clone of Geoff Blum. LaRoche is a player with part-timer skills and stats getting a chance to pile up full-time at-bats.

Al Melchior was recently a Fantasy columnist and data analyst for Baseball HQ and will be providing advice columns for CBSSports.com. Click here to send him a question. Please put "Melchior" in the subject field.