Calculating Baseball Statistics Using Algebraic Formulas By E. W. Click the Baseball Bat to Begin

What you will be learning! You will be learning how to: Calculate averages given two variables to the nearest thousandths Calculate weighted averages given multiple variables to the nearest thousandths place You will also learn how to find and solve for missing variables when given the averages or weighted averages.

Before hitting the field to play ball you need to make sure you know how to get around The baseball will be used to take you to the previous screen Home plate will take you to the home menu The baseball bat will go to the next page

Definitions of Baseball Statistics Baseball is full of stats and all of them have a special abbreviation that you will need to get use to The Lesson Includes the following Hit (H) – Times a player gets on baseball At Bats (AB) – Number of times a player tries to get a hit Single (1B) – A Hit where the batter reaches 1 st base Double (2B) – A Hit where the batter reaches 2 nd base Triple (3B) – A Hit where the batter reaches 3 rd base Home Run (HR) – Hit where the batter touches all three bases and home plate Batting Average (BA) – percentage of hits per At Bats Slugging Percentage (SLG) – Weighted average that takes total bases per At Bats

Example of a Baseball Card Front of the baseball card just has the player’s picture, name, and team The back of the card has the players basic information like height and weight along with season and career statistics.

Solving for SLG % QUIZ Finding missing variables Solving for Batting average Click the base you want to try first Bases get more difficult as they go Only take the quiz when finished with all 3 bases

What is Batting Average Batting average is one of the most basic, but main stats used in baseball when it comes to evaluating a player. Batting average tells you the percentage of how many hits a player has divided by the number of At Bats he has.

How to Solve for Batting Average

Solve for Batting Average If a player has 32 hit and 100 at bats, what is the correct way to display his batting average

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Correct!!

Next we will solve batting average using baseball cards For batting average you are only interested in two categories. Hits (H) & At Bats (AB).

Examine this baseball card Find the players batting average for

Incorrect Remember When you are using a baseball card to find batting average you only use the hits and the at bats. Also make sure you use the right year total row. Go back and try It again

Correct!!

What is Slugging Percentage SLG % is a weighted average that takes into account how many total bases you reach and compares it to At Bats. SLG% differs from batting average because batting average only takes hits into account and not the value of each hit.

SLG % Equation

Total Bases? Total bases is something we haven’t discusses, but that’s ok. It is pretty easy to find. Each hit has a value – single, double, triple, and Home Run The value for each is: Single = 1 Double = 2 Triple = 3 Home Run = 4

Total Bases?

Solve for Total Bases If a player has 84 singles, 23 doubles, 3 triples, and 19 HRs in a season, how many total bases does he have?

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Correct!

Solve for Slugging Percentage If a player has 119 singles, 48 doubles, 9 triples, and 5 Home Runs in 578 at bats, what is his SLG%

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Correct! That is right! Total bases is equal to 262 and that divided by 578 is.453

Getting information for SLG from baseball cards

Find this players Slugging % in

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Correct!

Solving for a missing variable For this section we are going to take what we have already been taught, and expand on it a little. You will be given batting average or SLG%, but one part of the equation will be missing and you will learn how to find what the missing part is equal to

Solving for the missing variable in Batting Average Finding the missing variable for batting average is simpler of the two because there are only 2 variables The two variables are Hits and At bats

Tips! Remember that when solving for the missing variable you need the missing variable on one side of the equals sign and everything else on the other Also it is important to realize that for these problems you are finding an approximate answer since BA and SLG% are both rounded

Solving for hits If the player has an average of.286 and he has 123 AB, how many hits does he have?

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Solving for missing variables in SLG% -This is a little more difficult because SLG% has 5 different variables to choose from -It is simple to solve for AB so we will move on to a harder example

Solving for singles

Hint -Since singles are multiplied by 1, you don’t have to go any further -If you solved for any of the other 3 then you would have to divide by the respective numbers like divide by 2 for doubles

Solving for the missing variable How many Home Runs did the player hit if he had a slugging percentage of.682, and he had 110 singles, 32 doubles, 1 triple, and had 632 AB 45 HR 64 HR 53 HR 72 HR

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Correct! If you were able to solve for the missing variable (HR) and got 64 Home Runs, then you are ready to take the final quiz. Go home and click on the quiz. Good Luck!

Quiz #1 Player A has a total of 2297 hits and 8185 AB, and Player B has 5795 AB and 1645 Hits. Who has the higher average Player A Player B

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Correct! Player B has an average of.284 over his career, but Player A has an average of.281. It is close, but Player B has a higher average

#2 Player A has 1267 singles, 386 doubles, 8 triples, 422 Home runs, and 8185 AB. Player B has 1136 singles, 332 doubles, 21 triples, 156 Home runs, and 5795 AB. Who has the higher SLG% Player A Player B

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Correct! Player A’s SLG% =.499, while Player B only has a SLG% of.429 You should notice that Player A has hit a significant amount more Home Runs and how that affects it.

#3 Find the missing stat for batting average for

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Correct!

#4 Solve for the missing variable in SLG% in

Incorrect -It may not be obvious what the missing variable is at first but you are solving for singles (1B) You can do this two ways, and the first would be to solve the equation for 1B or simply just taking Hits-2B-3B-HR Maybe you should try both to see if you get the same answer

Correct!

#5 Critical thinking Find the Players Batting Average Given AB = 533Triples = 0 Singles = 111SLG% =.489 Doubles = 22

Incorrect Don’t feel bad, this problem take some thinking -To Find BA you need Hits and AB -Since you don’t have Hits you need to use H=1B+2B+3B+HR to find how many -Finally you don’t have HRs so you have to calculate it by changing the SLG% equation

Correct!

Congratulations!!! You have finished this lesson of finding averages, weighted averages, and solving for missing variables. You have passed the quiz by taking what you were taught and thinking critically. You may go home and review or exit the lesson using the ESC key.