Luck in baseball

[NCtwinsfan]

Giminez made a comment today that got me thinking.

There are a lot of baseball clichés thrown around, and one that had bothered me is the old “hitting is contagious.” Giminez repeated the adage in today’s post-game interview. That’s just some old-school non-sense. Right? “Hitting is contagious” sounds like it is repeatable, and good “sequencing” is often a measure of how “lucky” a team is – so, not repeatable. I realize these are not exactly the same thing, but still, both refer to hits being bunched together.
This study suggests there might actually be something to the “hitting is contagious” statement:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1073145-brain-researchers-agree-that-baseball-hitting-is-contagious

In recent years, more and more it seems to me that luck is attributed to certain aspects of teams/players performance. BABIP for example. A higher BABIP suggest a player has been “lucky.” An expectation of regression might be justified. But is luck really the right word?

While I like the idea of using data to project sustainability and expected outcomes, I feel much less comfortable attributing luck to players/teams performance. I don’t like viewing a .400 BABIP as lucky, or .200 BABIP as unlucky. Or that a team has won based on lucky/unlucky sequencing and other factors. Instead, I prefer thinking of it as a player is over/under performing their expected outcome based on historical data. And at best, as the study above suggested, some of it might actually be repeatable.
For me, luck seems more like rolling dice or spinning a wheel - you get a random outcome. I am sure there are some elements of luck in baseball, but how much is not so clear to me. Has it been a little over stated in recent years?
Perhaps some others could help me out, but which elements of the game can we truly attribute to luck, or true randomness? And do sequencing, BABIP, etc, have a measure of luck and/or skill, and if so how much? Perhaps some of the experts can help me out. Thanks

[Shaitan]

Replace "luck" with "confidence."

 

Confidence is contagious, and confidence generally increases production and improves concentration in any part of life, baseball or otherwise.