OK, Gautam, I'm missing something. Lets look at the denominator of the first term of that equation. It is:
(at bats + sac. flies + sac. bunts + hit by pitch) Why should the on base percentage go down as the percentage of at bats that are sac. flies, sac. bunts and hit by pitch go up. For example, using your formula, if a person is hit by a pitch on every at bat, then his on base percentage is 50%, not 100%. Further, lets say that two players gets either a walk or a hit 40% of the time. Neither has been hit by a pitch. The first player sac bunts or sac flies 20% of the time, the second player never. By your formula, the first player has an OBP of 33% (40%/120%), while the second and has OBP of 40%. That seems to indicate that its better to strike out than to hit a sac. fly. Did you have a sign error someplace? Dan M. I don't think so. My denominator should have been: (at bats + walks + sac. flies + sac. bunts + hit by pitch) I missed the walks part. At bats are (I think) plate appearances that result in a hit or an out, but don't include sac. flies or sacrifice bunts. That's why sac. flies and sac. bunts aren't included in calculating a batting average. They are included in OBP, however. So it is possible to have an OBP _lower than_ your batting average. Does that make sense? Gautam
