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Anyone who calls themselves a baseball fan needs to know some basic baseball stats. No self-respecting baseball fan should go to a game without knowing these basic baseball stats. Also, learning these stats isn’t that complicated because they are so basic.

The stats have been split between the pitchers and hitters for your benefit. Additionally, you will find some extra baseball stats that are less basic but should be learned nevertheless.

As you might know, baseball has so many stats that there is a separate division of math called sabermetrics. These are the most basic of baseball stats out of all of them.

Additionally, many of these stats are included in the calculations of the Factor12 rating. You can read about it in our introduction to Factor12 article.

Basic Baseball Stat For Pitchers

Firstly we will be going through the basic baseball stats for baseball pitchers. Most of the stats related to pitchers have to do with how often they out the batters. More specifically, they often prevent batters or runners from reaching a base and scoring.

ERA

The first basic baseball stat for pitchers is the ERA. ERA stands for Earned Run Average. In short, it shows how many earned runs pitchers’ have allowed in a game or nine innings on average.
To calculate ERA in baseball, all you need to do is divide the total earned runs by the number of innings pitched and then multiply by nine.

WHIP

WHIP or Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched is a basic baseball stat that shows a pitchers’ stats. Basically, it shows how effective a pitcher is. The lower the stat, the better the pitcher is for his team.
Like ERA, there is a formula that you can follow to calculate your pitchers’ WHIP.

Strikeout Minus Walks

As you can simply see, this is one of the most basic stats you can get your hands on for obvious reasons. First, the strikeout minus walks stats are the easiest to measure simply because the numbers involved in the calculation are the most common for pitchers.

Using this stat, it is easy to gauge the performance of your pitchers. Because let’s be honest, in baseball, the pitcher’s main duty is to stop hitters and runners from advancing. Therefore walks, intentional or unintentional, are counterproductive.

Walks per 9 Innings

Basically, put this stat shows how many walks a pitcher allows for in a 9 innings game. As you might have read above, a walk isn’t the indicator of their performance for a pitcher.

In summary, the higher the number of walks in 9 innings, the worse the pitcher will be for your team. While sometimes a player allows a walk for the team’s good, having too many just shows that he can’t control the field too well.

Basic Baseball Stat For Hitters

Batting Average

This baseball stat is both basic and simple to understand. Basically, this stat shows the probability of a batter hitting the baseball. For a better batting average, young hitters will need precise form and wear the best youth batting gloves and reliable wood bats.

RBI’s

Runs Batted In or RBI is a stat that shows how often a batter scores a run without taking into account errors and double plays.

Due to how you can get RBI credit, some rules are listed in the MLB Official Rulebook.

Home Runs

Like batting average, this is another basic baseball stat. In fact, when you think of baseball, home runs are what comes to mind most often. A home run is recorded when a batter hits the ball out of the field.
This stat shows how many home runs a baseball batter has hit in his entire career.

Opponents Slugging Average

Simply put, the opponent slugging average shows you how many bases on average your opponent can get per at-bat. Also, you should remember that this is an average and not a percentage.

Unlike the batting average you read about above, the slugging average for your opponent will take into account multiple different extra-base hits. For example, the OSLG considers such hits as doubles, triples, and home runs.

Like batting average, OSLG ignores such hits as bunts and walks.

Basic Baseball Stat Extras

DFA

Designated For Assignment or DFA in baseball doesn’t show anything offensive or defensive. This stat is mainly to show which player is getting traded or shifted.

Hold

A hold is an unofficial baseball stat that shows the performance of the middle relief pitcher.
There are other stats related to fielding where wearing the best outfield baseball gloves does play a role by enhancing players’ performance.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you now know about these basic baseball stats, which every baseball fan should learn about. While these are basic, they will be beneficial to you in determining which player is good or not.