MLB Stat Measuring Percent a Hitter Puts Ball in Play?

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Ok…….This may be a stat none care about, but in coaching in lower levels (High School, Middle School) it is my most important one.

Is there a stat in MLB available that shows a players hits and put outs divided by at bats, and walks?

I just don’t want to do the math for my fantasy teams. So does anyone know if there is a stat available to use showing the following formula?

Ball in Play % =

hits + put outs

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Total at Bats + walks + Hit by Pitches

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✅ Answers

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  • FanGraphs has a number of stats that are close, but don’t actually match what you want. There is overall Contact% on swings, and O-contact% and Z-contact%, which is contact rate on swings outside and inside the zone, respectively. What these don’t take into account is where the ball goes.

    BABIP is the batting average on balls that are put into play. This is more a measurement if luck, since batters don’t really have control over where the ball goes. That being said, you’re not looking for BABIP, since you’re looking for the percentage of balls put into play, rather than the batting average resulting from those.

    Here’s the link to those stats on FanGraphs.

    http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stat…

    And to compute what you want, you should be using plate appearances rather than at-bats. Let’s see, since the usual stats don’t count outs, let’s see what ways the batter can complete a plate appearance without putting the ball into play – BB, SO, HBP, CI. I don’t see CI in the common stats, but it rarely occurs, so what you want is this:

    In-Play % = (PA – BB – K – HBP) / PA

    Those stats are easy to find

  • There isn’t any stat I know of that will give that to you, but the formula to get a % would be:

    1 – (Strikeout % + Walk% + HBP %) = Ball in Play %

    All those numbers are easily obtainable

  • BABIP, or Batting Avg. on Balls in Play

    (Total Hits – Home Runs)/ (Total At bats- Strikeouts- Home Runs + Sacrifice Flies)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batting_average_on_ba…

  • BABIP (AVG on balls in play)

    All you need to do for your stat is to do (PA-K-BB-HBP)/PA … You are essentially looking for non strikeout results of any Plate appearance.

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