Baseball Stat Terms

Some of the most basic stats you will see when playing fantasy baseball for offense is average, runs, RBI, HR, OPS, steals, and strikeouts. Average is the amount of hits divided by the amount of at bats. Average is one of the most basic stats that people use to base a hitter off of. Just because it is one of the most popular doesn’t mean its the best though. Personally I think On Base Percentage is more important then batting average because it also takes in account for walks so its the amount of time a person gets on base, not just how often he gets a hit. The old cliche in baseball is that a walk is as good as a hit, so naturally when judging a player you should also take into consideration if he gets on base with walks also. Runs is the amount of times a player scores. Normally players with a lot of runs get on base a lot or hit a lot of home runs. To put it in comparison the top 35 players in MLB had between 115 and 90 runs. Its no coincidence that many of those players are also the top offensive fantasy scorers. Runs can be a good thing to on your team because you cant score a run without getting on base so your fulfilling three statistical categories in one.The main judgment of power is generally home runs. Home runs is simply the amount of times you put the ball over the fence. When a player hits a home run they get a boost in there batting average, obs, slugging, ops, a run and a rbi. Power has come down in the past few years as the game has come clean from steroids. Last year league leader Jose Bautista had 54 to lead the league by over 10 home runs. Today a premier power hitter will have around 38 home runs. Many people get in the mid 20′s. The top 50 numbers in the league in 2011 had between 54 and 23 home runs. When a run is driven in he gets a RBI. Over 100 RBI’s means a great year from a player. Over 75 normally means good production, especially with home run numbers being down. A player who gets on base a lot and hits a lot of home runs will have a high OPS. OPS is on base plus slugging percentage. In my opinion it is one of the better stats to rate a player overall. Calculated by adding on-base percentage and a batters slugging percentage. To compare league average was about.720 in 2010. Anything in the.800′s is good and.900′s and over is exceptional. Last year seventeen players had a OPS above.900 and five had one above 1.000. 1.000 normally means that the player is in the MVP race and has had a great year.For players who aren’t big hitters or dont get on base as much as the top tier of players there are still fantasy stats for them that help out. One stat is steals. Steals is the amount of stolen bases a players get. Its a category in most fantasy leagues. The bulk of the good base stealers get between 30 and 20 steals in a year. Stolen bases also translate to runs because it gets players in scoring position so if the batter gets a hit it is easier for them to score. The main negative batting stat used in fantasy baseball is strikeouts. A lot of players who are good home run hitters also get strikeouts. Strikeouts can be the difference between winning and losing a fantasy league. For fantasy owners you want less strikeouts since less is better.Here are some stats that aren’t normally used in fantasy leagues to rate players, but are important to know as they are mentioned a fair amount when talking about players.ISO/Isolated Power- Measures how good a batter is hitting for power. Computed by subtracting batting average from slugging percentage. Around.140-.150 is average.wOBA- Batting average that takes into consideration that getting a double is better then getting a single. Last year the league average was.321 and the best was Josh Hamilton at.447. The worst was Cezar Izturis who had a.248. That means that he mainly only hit singles when he got a base hit.BABIP- The percentage of balls hit into fair play that go for base hits. The league average is typically at 30%. Sometimes a player can have a bad BABIP but because he hit into really bad luck because the defense he was up against was really good.The other statistics that fantasy leagues are based on is pitching stats. The main stats used to score pitching in fantasy leagues is IP, Wins, Strikeouts, WHIP, Saves, ERA and holds. IP is simply the amount of innings a pitcher pitched. Starters try to get at least six innings every time they head to the mound. When they pitch more innings chances are they also will get more strikeouts since strikeouts are accumulated over time. Because of that guys who last longer in games tend to do better because if they were doing bad they wouldn’t have pitched that long. That being said, normally pitchers who have more innings also have lower ERA’s and strikeouts.Two ratios that pitchers are judged on is ERA and WHIP. ERA is earned runs average allowed over 9 innings. For instance a pitcher who gives up 2 runs in 4 innings will have a 4.50 ERA. WHIP is walks and hits per inning pitched. Like ERA, the lower the WHIP the better. It is a good ratio to see how many base runners a pitcher allows a inning. For relievers they get some love with the saves and holds category. A save is typically accumulated by closers who pitch the last inning in a win. To get a save a pitcher must close out the game from a starter with a lead that is three runs or less. The good closers can also help pitch in on ERA and strikeouts as strikeouts are a key stat for closers since they dont want batters to make any contact. Holds are accumulated by set up men who hold on to a lead when they come into the game to relieve a starter.