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As with many sports, and perhaps even more so, statistics are very important to baseball. A seemingly intrinsic part of the game is the keeping of statistics on the achievements of the players. The practice was started by Henry Chadwick in the 19th century who devised the concepts of batting average and earned run average based on his experience of cricket. Statistics have been kept for the Major Leagues since their creation.
General managers and baseball scouts study player statistics to decide what players to try to get for their team. Managers, catchers and pitchers study statistics of batters on opposing teams to figure out how best to pitch to them and position the players. Managers and batters study opposing pitchers to figure out how best to hit them. Managers often base their personnel decisions during the game on statistics, such as choosing who to put in the lineup, or which relief pitcher to bring in.
Traditionally, statistics like batting average for batters—the number of hits divided by the number of at bats—and earned run average—approximately the number of runs given up by a pitcher per nine innings—have governed the statistical world of baseball. However, the advent of sabermetrics brought an onslaught of new statistics that better gauge a player's performance and contributions to his team from year to year.
Some sabermetrics have entered the mainstream baseball statistic world. On-base plus slugging is a somewhat complicated formula that gauges a hitter's performance better than batting average. It combines the hitter's on base percentage—hits plus walks plus times hit by pitches divided by plate appearances—with their slugging percentage— total basesBaseball statistics In baseball statistics, total bases is the number of bases a player has gained with hits, i. the sum of his/her hits weighted by 1 for a single, 2 for a double, 3 for a triple and 4 for a home run. Only bases from safe hits count towar divided by at bats. Walks plus hits per inning pitchedBaseball statistics In baseball, walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP is a sabermetric measurement of how many baserunners a pitcher is responsible for allowing per inning pitched. It gives a general measure of a pitcher's ability to keep batters off (or WHIP) gives a good representation of a pitcher's abilities; it is calculated exactly as its name suggests.
Also important are all of those statistics in certain in-game situations. For example, a certain hitter's ability to hit left-handed pitchers might cause his manager to give him more chances to face lefties. Other hitters may have a history of success against a given pitcher (or vice versa), and the manager may use this information to engineer a favourable matchup.
1 Commonly used statistics
Most of these terms also apply to softballSoftball is a team sport for two teams in which the object is to score runs by advancing around a circuit of four bases, known as a "diamond". It is a direct descendant of baseball, (sometimes referred to as "hardball" to differentiate the two) but differ. Commonly used statistics with their abbreviationAbbreviation (from Latin brevis "short") is strictly a shortening, but more particularly, an abbreviation is a letter or group of letters, taken from a word or words, and employed to represent them for the sake of brevity. Usage Abbreviations have been uss are explained here. The explanations below are for quick reference and do not fully or completely define the statistic; for the strict definition, see the corresponding article for each statistic.
1.1 General statistics
- G - Games playedIn baseball statistics, games played (denoted by G indicates the total number of games in which a player has participated (in any capacity). It does not matter in how much of the game the player was active. If player A plays the whole game until there are - number of games where the player played, in whole or in part
