Nadel is on GAC right now and he called the "new" numbers fictitious. Ian Kinsler is an example he gave with bbip and said bbip says kinsler is unlucky and that he can see kinsler is struggling because he pops up three balls to the infield three times a game. He also says runs saved stat is off Kinsler as well.
Interesting thoughts.

*Crickets*

Nadel is, of course, 100% correct.

Did Nadel comment on how he arrived at "fictitious" from what can only be described as very subjective personal observations lacking empirical data? Some of the numbers are probably questionable at best but I'd also say questionable at worst... 'fictitious' is a stretch IMO.

Perhaps Nadel believes that the BABIP stat indicates that Kinsler is unlucky in part because it's so low (.241) yet when in reality with a FB% of 46.2 and his IFFB% of 9.2 it’s not low. Compare that to everyone’s favorite whipping boy Michael Young whose FB% is 27.3 and IFFB% is 0.0 and you end up with a difference in BABIP of better than 80 points (Young’s BABIP is .355). Sure Kinsler puts a lot of balls in play but when 46% are fly balls and 9% of those are infield flies of course his BABIP numbers are going to be low. I think what Nadel was trying to say is that Kinsler isn’t unlucky as BABIP would suggest rather he has a problem with driving the ball. The eye test would indicate that Kinsler doesn’t drive many balls and the stats actually back this up.

IMO the problem isn’t that BABIP is a fictitious stat because it is indeed actually very really. The issue is that it can be a false indicator of performance when interpreted by itself. You can’t simply look at Kinsler’s BABIP and say he is unlucky this year because that doesn’t tell the whole story. You have to also take into account the type of out he is hitting into and factor that into the equation. For the top ten in games played by Rangers the bottom four have an LD+GB% no higher than 56.4 which is Adrian Beltre. He also has the highest BA of those four. Kinsler is 9th with a LD+GB% of 53.8 which tells you he only gets on top of the ball a little better than 50% of the times he makes contact and anyone who has ever taken a batting lesson knows that in order to drive the ball you have to stay on top of the pitch.

In Kinsler’s case and probably a majority of other players BA is a perfectly fine indicator of year to year performance. BABIP simply muddies the water when used incorrectly.

It's sad to see Nadel's rejection of advanced statistics. He's a smart guy but doesn't even appear to know what he's rejecting.