Where did the San Francisco Giants rank in BABIP against for 2012 and does BABIP against typically correlate in a predictive way to winning?
I did a little research on the topic this morning after seeing your post and frankly there seems to be little and certainly no statistically significant relationship between BABIP against and the playoffs or winning over the last 5 years.
BTW, used Fangraphs when I was looking at this.
Yeah... just like there is no statistical relationship between WHIP and winning over the last 5 years, or AVG or HRs or any other number of stats. It is one piece of the puzzle. The ONLY team stat that you can genuinely find to predict wins on a regular basis is run differential (and even then not as much as you'd think). I really, truly, have no idea what you were trying to prove with your effort.
A more genuine analysis would have been comparing the effect of BABIP on team pitching metrics. Here is the trend from last season:
Rockies: .325 BABIP, 5.22 ERA, 4.28 xFIP
Brewers: .313 BABIP, 4.22 ERA, 3.73 xFIP
Royals: .311 BABIP, 4.3 ERA, 4.18 xFIP
Tigers: .307 BABIP, 3.77 ERA, 3.63 xFIP
Astros: .306, 4.57 ERA, 4.15 xFIP
Those were the worst 5 teams in BABIP last season. They had an average of 12.4 points over .300 and average delta of .378 runs between ERA and xFIP (and, for those whom are unaware, xFIP is a defense-independent correlative stat with ERA - aka. what a pitcher's talent SHOULD have netted them in ERA without either the positive or negative effects of their team behind them).
So, that comes out to .3 delta runs per 10 points of BABIP. If the 2013 Phillies (which make the '12 Rockies look like a team of GG'ers) truly meet my expectations of ineptitude in the field (a .35 BABIP) then it could potentially cost them 1.5 runs PER GAME based on this analysis (with an admittedly sparse sample size - which is why I rounded down considerably to get my estimate of losing a mere 1 run per game due to defense).
So, the question then becomes... do you think the Phillies offense is good enough to overcome
1-1.5 runs per game that their defense is going to cost them? I, personally, do not see them as being much better than average in run production. (A healthy) Utley is the only player capable of getting on base at a respectable clip and HRs mean considerably less when they are 50/50 to be of the solo variety.
So, let's bring this into a full hypothetical now. Let's say the Phillies pitching staff is going to be absolutely lights out and put up a 3.5 xFIP next season (.09 points better than last year's best team - the Rays [PS. the Phillies were, a bit surprisingly, the #2 team with a 3.61 xFIP last season]). Their team ERA would then be between 4.5-5 after defensive ineptitude is accounted for. Last season, for comparison, the Phillies put up 4.2 runs per game. To break even in run differential, they would need to score between 729 and 810 runs (4.5 and 5 runs per game average respectively) - an increase of 45-126 runs over last season... just to be able to expect to be .500 (with a neutral run differential)!
And ****, I'm not really very confident that the offense can even improve that much - Ruiz is suspended 50 games and unlikely to repeat a career year (BIG downgrade at C offensively), we have big downgrades offensively at CF/RF from Vic and Pence to Revere and Young, the other Young is, at best, a lateral move from what we had last season at 3B - the only spots that are going to be upgrades are 1B and 2B... and even then just HOW much are they going to be (especially considering the downgrades in other areas)? Howard was an average MLB 1B offensively before he got injured, are we going to be 'saved' by him miraculously returning to 'form'? Utley will be a big upgrade even if he isn't the Chase of old (despite being it, haha), but not nearly enough for what this broken down team 'needs'.
Honestly, this team is, at best, going to fight to be .500 all year. The most frustrating part, though, is that everyone is going to wonder why all year because the aces are all going to have great stats and the "Big Piece" will have 30-40 HRs... and, if given the chance, Amaro will keep this 'core' in tact and try to 'tweak the formula' once more... slamming that square peg into a round hole until his knuckles (which presumably drag upon the ground) bleed.