Baseball by the Numbers: How Statistics Are Collected, What They Mean, and How They Reveal the Game

Perhaps no other sport in the world relies as heavily on the use of statistics as does baseball. From the boardroom to the playing field, statistics play an extremely important role in deciding everything from players’ salaries and chances at future employment to whom to put up to bat in the top of the fifth inning with one out and a man on first base.

Provided in this volume are critical analyses of both the traditional (batting average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, fielding, earned run average) and many of the newer nontraditional (linear weights, runs created, production index, isolated power, park factors) statistics used to measure players’ production. Particular attention is given to the reliability and validity of individual measurements and an evaluation of situational statistics.

The author also provides detailed examples of how statisticians compute many of the averages.