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

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

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

B. J. Ryan (in 2003, with the Baltimore Orioles) and Alan Embree (in 2009, with the Colorado Rockies) were each credited with a victory in a game in which they threw zero pitches. Both relievers picked a runner off a base to end an inning before their offense plated the winning run.

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.