Baseball Statistics 101

Baseball Statistics 101: The Basics

A large part of baseball that is often overlooked by most fans that aren't super fans, but is extremely important to the sport. 

Baseball is more than just the game, batting practice, infield drills, outfield drills, bullpen sessions, spring training, trades, food, and free agent signings. Baseball, like all sports, includes something important about the players that can help determine how good of a player they will be each year and it is: stats. 

Baseball Pitching Stats example (Clayton Kershaw through 2013 season)

First of all, this is what the back of a baseball card looks like. It usually has some basic information about the player such as height, weight, if they throw and bat left or right (or switch for hitting meaning they can bat left or right) date of birth, where they are from and when they were drafted.

Then there's the actual baseball stats based on the year, what team the player was on that year and then the stats themselves and how they performed in each category that year. For pitchers, there are 12 main stats as shown in the example above. They are as follows:

IP: Innings Pitched
OS%: Strike percentage
RS/GS: Runs per game started
HR/9: Home runs given up per nine innings of pitching
SO/BB: Strike out to walk ratio
LOB%: Runners left on base percentage
GB%: Ground ball out percentage
WHIP: Walks and Hits per inning
ERA: Earned run average
FIP: Fielding Independent Pitching
WPA: Win Probability Added
WAR: Wins Above replacement

NOTE: We will cover these in more detail in a later blog post probably.

Baseball Batting Stats example

Batting statistics on the other hand, which there are 15 main ones, are more simple to understand and explain so they will be explain in full below:

G- Games, the number of games the player has participated in a season (both batters and pitchers have this stat)
AB- At bats, the number of times a player has batted in a season ((does not include, walks (intentional and not intentional) sacrifice flies, bunts, and ground outs, and hit by pitches))
R- Runs, number of runs scored by a batter in a season
2B- Doubles, number of doubles a batter hit in a season
3B- Triples, number of triples a batter hit in a season
HR- Home runs, number of home runs a batter hit in a season
RBI- Number of runs batted in by a batter in a season
SB- Stolen bases, number of stolen bases by a batter in a season
BB- Walks, number of walks by a batter in season
SO- Strikeouts ,Number of strikeouts by a batter in a season
SLG- Slugging percentage, percentage of hits that are not singles in a season by a batter in a season
OBS- On base percentage, percentage of times a batter gets on base out of their total at bats in a season.
OPS- On base plus slugging percentage, the slugging percentage plus the on base percentage of a batter in a season.
AVG- Batting average, percentage of at bats that are hits by a batter in a season.


Hopefully this will help you out with learning more about the awesome game of baseball as you watch this season!