Hit 'em Where They Aint

I was running a few numbers for a colleague and so I thought I'd post them. Below is a table going back to 2003 that shows the number of balls put into play by vector and the numbers and percentages that went for hits and non-homerun hits. Finally we have the slugging percentage earned on those batted balls.

Year    Type         BIP       H  Non-HR      TB      %H %Non-HR    SLUG
2003    Fly        36870    9898    5390   27314   26.8%   14.6%   0.741
2004    Fly        37168   10494    5786   28619   28.2%   15.6%   0.770
2005    Fly        37268   10442    5913   28207   28.0%   15.9%   0.757
2006    Fly        37856   10863    6034   29557   28.7%   15.9%   0.781
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003    Ground     62253   14979   14977   16312   24.1%   24.1%   0.262
2004    Ground     61577   14841   14841   16198   24.1%   24.1%   0.263
2005    Ground     61809   14669   14669   15965   23.7%   23.7%   0.258
2006    Ground     61131   14910   14910   16233   24.4%   24.4%   0.266
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003    Line       25852   18986   18290   26506   73.4%   70.7%   1.025
2004    Line       25666   18951   18208   26495   73.8%   70.9%   1.032
2005    Line       25425   18649   18162   25240   73.3%   71.4%   0.993
2006    Line       25909   19013   18457   26073   73.4%   71.2%   1.006
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003    Pop        11124     173     173     212    1.6%    1.6%   0.019
2004    Pop        11285     236     236     278    2.1%    2.1%   0.025
2005    Pop        11370     230     230     265    2.0%    2.0%   0.023
2006    Pop        10886     239     239     310    2.2%    2.2%   0.028
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003               30639      15      14      18    0.0%    0.0%   0.001
2004               31657       0       0       0    0.0%    0.0%   0.000
2005               30463       1       0       4    0.0%    0.0%   0.000
2006               31558      47      47      93    0.1%    0.1%   0.003

So from this you can see that just under 30% of fly balls go for hits although only 16% of non-homerun flyballs. About a quarter of ground balls and three quarters of fly balls fall in and 1 in 50 popups are hits. The remainder are not actually balls in place but rather strikeouts and unclassified plays in the data.