Is Cliff Lee For Real?

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Defensive Indifference: Is Cliff Lee for Real?
Published 5/1/2008 at BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog
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, ...

THT Live:Is Cliff Lee for real?
Published 5/2/2008 by Dave Studeman at The Hardball Times
Is Cliff Lee for real? by Dave Studeman May 02, 2008 Defensive Indifference takes a close look at Cliff Lee's surprising start (hat tip: Mr. Pinto). Dave is the manager of the ...

28 Scoreless: Breaking Down Cliff Lee’s Streak
Published 5/2/2008 by Eric Seidman at FanGraphs Baseball
... The blog Defensive-Indifference does not think Lee will be able to sustain his current pace and I happen to agree. One of the reasons he is unlikely to continue dominating is that his current BABIP of .195 exceeds expectations based on a line drive frequency of 13.7%; with that frequency it should be closer to .257. Additionally, his 0.96 ERA also translates to a 2.01 FIP. Regardless of what happens from May until September, though, Lee had an absolutely phenomenal opening month. ...