Defensive Indifference: Is Cliff Lee for Real?

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly…falling off the Lee Van Cliff?

To me, there are two obvious things that stand out. Most obviously, Lee’s BABIP is absurdly low so far this year, at .153. What this means is that Lee has been getting pretty damn lucky on balls in play, and that a regression to the mean is imminent. The other obvious thing is that Lee’s control has improved dramatically from last season. Lee walked 8.1% of hitters last season, and has walked only 1.9% of hitters so far this year. His strikeout rate is much better too, at 27.9% compared to 14.9%. His HR rate this season (zero) is obviously way too low, and will undoubtedly rise; especially considering that his FB rate is not much different from last season (46.6% as opposed to 49.7%). What has changed is that many balls that were line drives last year are now GB, and those rates will probably regress toward the mean as well.

What all this implies is that yes, Cliff Lee has certainly been the beneficiary of good luck (and honestly, who hasn’t that has a 0.28 ERA?). At the same time though, he has made some significant improvements in his game that bode well for his performance the rest of the way. His FIP ERA, which normalizes BABIP, still gives him an absurd 1.36 for this season due to his ridiculous K:BB and low HR rate. Assuming that he starts to allow HR at a somewhat normal rate, his ERA would still likely be around 3.