A Fan's Guide to Baseball Analytics: Why WAR, WHIP, wOBA, and Other Advanced Sabermetrics Are Essential to Understanding Modern Baseball

Additionally, slugging percentage, as a rate stat, is a better measure of power and production than home runs and RBIs, which are counting stats. It’s a better way to compare two players with a dissimilar number of games played.

SLG = (Singles) + (Doubles x 2) + (Triples x 3) + (Homers x 4) / At Bats, or, put more simply, Total Bases / At Bats

Ted Williams once said, “Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of 10 and be considered a good performer.” And many a hacky motivational speaker has used that concept to remind us not to be discouraged when we fail. But Williams was wrong. If a hitter fails seven out of 10 times in his job of not making outs,

OBP involves all of a batter’s relevant plate appearances and outcomes. It excludes the sacrifice bunt and catcher’s interference;

OBP = Hits + Walks + Hit By Pitch / At Bats1 + Walks + Hit By Pitch + Sac Flies