1. What is Batting Average?

Batting average (BA) is a statistic in baseball that measures a batter's success rate in achieving a hit during an at bat. It's one of the oldest and most traditional metrics for evaluating a hitter's performance.

2. How Does the Calculator Work?

The calculator uses the batting average formula:

Where:

• \( BA \) — Batting average (dimensionless)
• \( H \) — Hits (count)
• \( AB \) — At bats (count)

Explanation: The formula simply divides the number of hits by the number of official at bats. The result is typically rounded to three decimal places (e.g., .300).

3. Importance of Batting Average

Details: While modern baseball analytics have introduced more sophisticated metrics, batting average remains a fundamental statistic for evaluating a player's hitting ability. It's particularly useful for comparing players across different eras of baseball.

4. Using the Calculator

Tips: Enter the number of hits and at bats as whole numbers. At bats must be greater than zero. The calculator will automatically round the result to three decimal places.

5. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1: What is considered a good batting average?
A: In Major League Baseball, .300 is considered excellent, .250 is average, and below .200 is poor. The all-time record is .366 by Ty Cobb.

Q2: What doesn't count as an at bat?
A: Walks, hit-by-pitches, sacrifices, and catcher's interference don't count as at bats but do count as plate appearances.

Q3: What are the limitations of batting average?
A: It doesn't account for walks or power hitting (home runs, extra-base hits). Modern metrics like OPS (On-base Plus Slugging) provide more complete evaluations.

Q4: What's the highest possible batting average?
A: The theoretical maximum is 1.000 (a hit every at bat), though this is impossible to maintain over a full season.

Q5: How is batting average displayed?
A: It's traditionally shown without the leading zero (e.g., .300 instead of 0.300) and pronounced "three hundred."