Talk:Batting average (baseball)

Best ever table

I'm definitely open to discussing this here rather than in edit summaries! My initial view is that if we are going to rank players as tied based on their 4 d.p. average then we should show that, or rank them on an unrounded figure. If we have well-sourced statistics for hits and at bats, then I don't think it is WP:OR / WP:SYNTH to do the basic divisions ourselves. Spike 'em (talk) 09:11, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

My main concern is consistent and traceable sourcing, as something as "simple" as career batting average has non-trivial differences in rankings depending on what source is used (see below). In general, that should be acknowledged in the article with a sentence or two to highlight the variance in records.

Baseball-Reference.com – Williams & Hamilton tied for 7th.

ESPN – Hamilton & Williams tied for 6th. Lefty O'Doul not on the list.

Baseball Almanac – Williams 6th, Hamilton 7th (computed to 5 decimal places). Lefty O'Doul not on the list.

MLB – Williams 5th, Hamilton 6th. Lefty O'Doul & Shoeless Joe Jackson not on the list.

Lefty O'Doul played 970 career games, and it looks like the sources that don't list him have a 1000 game minimum. And MLB doesn't list Shoeless Joe Jackson, I'll assume it's a 1919 thing....

Given that there are variances between sources, Baseball-Reference.com has always been my go-to source, although the format that Baseball Almanac uses might help here. Looking at Hits and At Bats per Baseball-Reference.com; Williams was 2654-for-7706 which is .344 (.34441) and Hamilton was 2164-for-6283 which is .344 (.34442) (feel free to check my math). That would place Hamilton 7th and Williams 8th. I want to think a bit more about potentially listing them as such, since none of the above sources ranks Hamilton ahead of Williams. If we did list them as such, I'd want to be extremely transparent about it, which could be done via revising what is shown in the table, to something like below, with clear explanation that there is variance in Hits and ABs (and thus BA) between sources.

Rank	Player	Years	Pos.	ABs	Hits	Avg.	Extended avg.
7	Billy Hamilton	1888–1901	OF	6283	2164	.344	.34442
8	Ted Williams	1939–42, 1946–60	OF	7706	2654	.344	.34441

Further comment & discussion welcome. Thanks. Dmoore5556 (talk) 16:19, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I didn't realise there was that much dispute / difference in the lists, so maybe using less precise figures is best to avoid trying to decide which is best! I only came across this page as part of the separation from cricket so I have a bit to look into. Spike 'em (talk) 16:48, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Article Should Mention Rounding e.g. BA of .2855 truncates to .285 or rounds to .286?

Howdy from a Community College python programming course! QUESTION mostly to sports fans cum MLB fans cum MLB fans who LOVE math: Should this article mention Rounding?? e.g. a Batting Avg of .2855, does that truncate to .285 or round to .286 on TV? Peeace. PS. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks. From Peter aka Vid2vid (talk) 03:25, 13 September 2019 (UTC).

Hi, batting averages in baseball are rounded; .2855 would round to .286. For a real life example; as I write this reply, MLB.com has Rafael Devers listed at .314 for this season, as he is 183-for-583 (which is actually .31389). I'll add clarification in the article, along with a source/citation. Dmoore5556 (talk) 03:39, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks @Dmoore5556:! .. "things that make you go, Hmmmm." From Peter aka Vid2vid (talk) 14:33, 13 September 2019 (UTC).

Batting average

How to calculate a batters batting average 69.247.23.191 (talk) 03:28, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Number of hits, divided by number of at bats. H / AB Dmoore5556 (talk) 03:33, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Batting average MLB in the rain?

see above PatrickKenpo (talk) 00:49, 13 August 2023 (UTC)