May 21, 2021 Not everyone is interested in projecting the future, but one common thread in much of modern analytics in this regard is the attempt to describe a volatile thing, such as a play in baseball, using something less volatile, such as an underlying ability. This era arguably began with Voros McCracken’s DIPS research that he released 20 years ago to a wider audience than just us usenet dorks. Voros’ thesis has been modified with new information, and people tend to say (mistakenly) that he was arguing that pitchers had no control over balls in play, but DIPS and BABIP changed how we looked at pitcher/defense interaction more than any peripheral-type of number preceding it.