Breaking Down the Stats #1 - Batting

OBP. SLG. OPS. WOBA? ISO?? wRC+???

As once said by the great Cal Ripken, Jr.: “Baseball is a game of frustration and failure in so many ways.” And man, did I fail at understanding all the acronyms and statistics the first time I went through them.

Some suggest that baseball is a statistician’s dream; that much is evident in the sheer quantity of metrics current analysts use to dissect fielding, batting, and pitching. But I don’t want to wax too poetic with this introduction – there are plenty of statistics to go through with each of the three aforementioned categories, so let’s get to it, starting with batting!

G – Games played
AB – At-bats. This is the number of times your player steps up to the plate (plate appearances, see Line 2) minus their walks, sacrifice flies/bunts, and times they’re subbed out (a pinch hitter).
H – Hits (# of times a player has made contact with the ball without fouling/getting out?)
2B – doubles (# of hits resulting in the hitter getting two bases)
3B – triples (as above, but with three bases)
HR – home runs (hit out of the field of play OR in in-field hit that allows the runner to tag all four bases)
RBI – runs batted in; when this player hits, how many runners (including the batter) make it home?
R – runs; how many times has this player made it home himself to score a run?
BB – base on balls; if a batter receives four pitches that the umpire calls as a ‘ball’ (not a strike), they get to walk to first base.
K – strikeouts; if a batter swings and misses, fouls the ball, or allows a pitch in the strike zone to go by, they get a strike. If they get three strikes, they’re out. A batter can’t (for our purposes) strikeout on a foul.

GS – Games Started. How many times are you in the starting lineup for your team?
PA – Plate Appearances. How many times has your player had a turn against the pitcher with any result (strikeout, walk, caught out, subbed out for a pinch hitter, sacrifice fly, etc.)?
HP – Hit by Pitch. This is kind of self-explanatory: how many times have you just been rudely slugged by a 90 MPH baseball?
IW – Intentional Walk (sometimes also called an Intentional Base on Balls). Depending on era, this might mean the number of times a pitcher has intentionally thrown 4 balls very wide of the strike zone (thus a base on balls); as of 2017, MLB pitchers can just ask the ump to let the batter go to first base. This is a sign of respect for high-impact batters.
CI – Catcher’s Interference, a count of the number of times the catcher makes contact with a bat (usually because they squat too close to the plate). This results in an automatic walk, counts as a plate appearance rather than an at-bat, and allows anyone trying to steal a base to do so.
GDP – Ground into Double Play; counts the number of times a batter hits a ground ball that results in a double play (two outs by fielders)
SH – Sacrifice Hit/Bunt; this kind of ‘sacrifice’ is a bunt that allows other runners to advance on the base-path at the expense of the hitter (who uh… gets out).
SF – Sacrifice Fly; this kind of ‘sacrifice’ is a ball in flight intended to let a runner advance while getting the batter out. However, unlike a Sacrifice Hit, it requires a runner to score in the process (thanks Goliathus for correcting this entry!)
TB – Total Bases (on hit), where a single is worth one base, a double is worth two, and so on.
EBH – Extra-Base Hits; a count of the number of times a batter hits a double, triple, or home run. This does not count extra bases from a fielding error.
SB – Stolen Bases! How many times has your player sneakily taken an extra base from a pitcher?
CS – Caught Stealing. This counts the number of times your player wasn’t sneaky enough and got an out while trying to steal a base.
SB% - Stolen Base %. What percentage of the time is your player successful when trying to steal bases?

AVG – Bating average, calculated as the # of hits/total at-bats. The Major League Baseball (MLB) batting average in 2018 was .248, meaning batters made a hit in roughly ¼ of their at-bats.
OBP – On Base Percentage, a measure of the player’s ability to, well, get on base. More specifically, it’s a ratio of your hits + walks divided by your at-bats, walks, and sacrifice flies.
SLG – Slugging percentage. Basically, how many bases does your player get per at-bat? A single is worth one base, a double is worth two bases, an triple is worth three bases, and a home run is worth four.
OPS – OBP plus SLG. OPS is sometimes used as an aggregate measure of a batter’s worth by combining their ability to get on base with that ability to get extra bases.
wOBA – weighted On-Base Average. This is kind of like OBP but takes into account how a batter gets on base. A single, for example, is a more useful way of getting on-base than getting hit by a pitch (because a single is more in the batter’s control than counting on getting hit by a pitch!).
ISO – Isolated Power. This is equal to your player’s slugging percentage (SLG) minus their average (AVG). In short, it says, “let’s take away all of those pesky little hits, how far do you hit the ball and how many EXTRA bases can you get me?”
wRC+ - weighted Runs Created plus. This is an adjusted average of scores your player creates relative to the league average. A 100 means that, when corrected for all of the different factors in the parks you’ve batted in (how high are the walls? How big is center field?), you are perfectly average. A 150 means you make 50% more runs than your average SBL/M Joe Schmoe.

RC – Runs Created. A formula is used to estimate the number of runs a batter creates for their team; to put it simply, it’s calculated as your OBP x SLG x AB. In short, the more times you’re on-base, the more bases you create, and the more times you’re at-bat, the more runs you’re likely to give your team! This is a season-long volume stat.
RC/27 – Runs Created per 27 Outs. Basically, over the course of a game, how many runs do you create for your team?
WAR – Wins Above Replacement. This one’s a bit difficult to explain – but basically, it’s a measure of your player’s batting contributions to your team’s offense, and how many more wins your team likely gets because of those contributions as compared to your average SBL/M Joe Schmoe (0 is the average). Everyone has a slightly different way to calculate WAR, so it’s more important to look at their values within the same system (like OOTP!) rather than get down in the weeds about it.


That’s a lot of information. I don’t blame you if you’re confused right now. There are some stats that are wonderful for all batters, like on-base plus slugging percentage (OBP), runs created (RC), and wins above replacement (WAR). But since we have archetypes like Speed Demon, Power Hitter, and Contact Hitter, let’s take a look at which of these stats would be most useful in each setting.


Contact Hitter
For a contact hitter, I’m looking for a guy that can hit the ball consistently and get on base so the more powerful batters can do their work. They also tend to create some runs! I want a batter with:

• A good batting average (AVG); the best batters are .300 or higher,
  
• Few strikeouts (K), and a
  
• High on-base percentage (OBP)
  

One of our best examples is Chicago’s Tracy Prezzy Jr. @prezzys :

Prezzy Jr. is the current league leader in batting average and is fourth overall in on-base percentage (OBP). He’s also second overall in hits and singles in spite of not even being top five in total at-bats, which means he’s making contact at a much better clip than other batters. However, in spite of his hits, he doesn’t have a large number of extra-base hits like doubles, triples, or home runs. He’d technically fit the mold of a classic lead-off batter that can easily get on base – but he also fits well in his current position in the middle of the line-up as a ‘jolt’ for the offense in the second inning.


Speed Demon
In some ways, a speed demon is kind of like a contact hitter with… different goals, shall we say? We want a speed demon to get on base in any way they can. Once they’re on base, they’re the absolute best at finagling extra bases away from pitchers that are none-the-wiser. So we still want a lot of the stats a contact hitter wants, but on top of those we’re paying more attention to:

• Stolen Bases (SB)
  
• Stolen Base % (SB%) – after all, why try to steal a bunch of bases if you’re never successful?
  

One good example of a base-stealing purist is Pittsburgh’s Flynn Fungo @UphillMoss :

An example of an excellent combined hitter/stealer is another Pioneer who’s #3 by batting average, Gustav IsRealDaddy @Daddy :


Power Hitter
Man, does baseball have a lot of stats for power hitters or what? These absolute units don’t worry about stealing bases or simply hitting the ball – they’re okay taking some strikeouts if it means they can knock it out of the park! To differentiate them from contact hitters, we want to scout the following numbers:

• Doubles (2B), Triples (3B), and Home Runs (HR),
  
• Base on Balls (BB) and Intentional Walks (IW), which tell us how scared pitchers are,
  
• Slugging Percentage (SLG), the ‘rate’ component to extra base hits like 2B, 3B, and HR
  

Two fantastic examples of power hitters are Sherbrooke’s second baseman Bobby Boucher and outfielder Kurtis McKenzie @Psanchez55 . But since we covered Boucher a couple of weeks ago, why don’t we share the spotlight a little?


It’s true that McKenzie also has a pretty great batting average (.302), but his slugging % of .537 is top-three. He’s also got a top-four isolated power (ISO) of .235 thanks to his 5 doubles, 2 triples, and 17 home runs, good for third in the league.

Last, let’s see a batter that has put it all together (so far): the Vegas Centurions’ Rocky Mitchell @Lefty .


In addition to the top OBP and SLG, Mitchell has the top isolated power rating, total bases, home runs, and total runs. He’s also top five for Bases on Balls (BB), meaning pitchers shudder when they hear his name called.

7thInningStretch wrote:HR – home runs (knocked it out of the field of play without fouling)

Not always, inside-the-park homerun exists. As long as you can run back to home base with just a single hit without big fielder's error, it's a HR.

7thInningStretch wrote:SH – Sacrifice Hit/Bunt; this kind of ‘sacrifice’ is a bunt that allows other runners to advance on the base-path at the expense of the hitter (who uh… gets out).
SF – Sacrifice Fly; this kind of ‘sacrifice’ is a fly ball hit to the outfield. The end-result is the same as a sacrifice hit/bunt, but the method (bunt vs. fly ball) is different.

This part might confuse people in how you lay it out. SH is recorded on any advancement on the base path whereas SF is recorded only if someone scores. Someone tagging from 2nd to 3rd base off a flyball out is not a SF.

Also I disagree with your speed demon example, cuz 72.1 SB% is bad. In MLB, anyone below 75% in SB% is hurting the team due to the outs they produced from their attempts. Gustav IsRealDaddy is the best example, highest SB so far with 35 and 81.4% success rate which is net positive in terms of SB productivity.

Goliathus wrote:

7thInningStretch wrote:HR – home runs (knocked it out of the field of play without fouling)

Not always, inside-the-park homerun exists. As long as you can run back to home base with just a single hit without big fielder's error, it's a HR.

7thInningStretch wrote:SH – Sacrifice Hit/Bunt; this kind of ‘sacrifice’ is a bunt that allows other runners to advance on the base-path at the expense of the hitter (who uh… gets out).
SF – Sacrifice Fly; this kind of ‘sacrifice’ is a fly ball hit to the outfield. The end-result is the same as a sacrifice hit/bunt, but the method (bunt vs. fly ball) is different.

This part might confuse people in how you lay it out. SH is recorded on any advancement on the base path whereas SF is recorded only if someone scores. Someone tagging from 2nd to 3rd base off a flyball out is not a SF.

Also I disagree with your speed demon example, cuz 72.1 SB% is bad. In MLB, anyone below 75% in SB% is hurting the team due to the outs they produced from their attempts. Gustav IsRealDaddy is the best example, highest SB so far with 35 and 81.4% success rate which is net positive in terms of SB productivity.

Thanks for the constructive criticism Goli! I'll amend the article in a the next couple of days to reflect the inaccuracies.

With regards to the Speed Demon Archetype, I definitely agree. It actually may be even better for me to use Sherbrooke's Wade Landry in place of Fungo since he has an even higher SB% (84.6%) to supplement IsRealDaddy's entry, though in general I did find it difficult to find many players >75 SB%!