Five Things I'd like to See in My Boxscores

[Guest Edgy DC]

Baserunner extra bases and baserunner outs.

Paid attendance and gate attendance.

Exact start time.

National Anthem singer(s).

Ceremonial first pitch thrower.

[Guest cooby]

GWRBI

I liked that stat, though they didn't do it right

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

I have a question. In the box scores you get on mets.com, there's a batting stat called TB. What does that mean? It's not total bases.

[Guest SI Metman]

I just looked at it. Looks like total bases take on hits.

homer + double = 6

2 doubles = 4

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm looking at the box for last night's game. The only place I'm seeing TB is below HR, and that seems to clearly be Total Bases.

Cairo had three (double and single), Floyd and Piazza each had one, etc. The confusing part is the perpetuation of the tradition, from when space was smaller, of just listing a guy's name when he has one of anything, rather than showing that he had "1."

For Total Bases, a person is looking for a total.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Total bases on hits rather than total bases in total?

Why is that worth tracking?

[Frayed Knot]

Yes, TB is based on hits. The player doesn't get "credit" for bases he moved on someone else's hits.

TB is tracked because it's the basis for Slugging Average. Essentially the batter gets 'double' credit for a double, a triple is counted like 3 hits, a homer gets him 4.

[Guest Edgy DC]

When they speak of total bases, that's what they've traditionally been referring to.

It's worth measuring because it's a component of slugging percentage, and it has historically distinguished the guys hitting extra-base hits from the guys merely hitting singles.

Now, we've long known who the low-average power hitters are from their homerun totals. But this stat dates back to the dead ball era when you needed to look at doubles, triples, and homers together to measure a guy's power. Total bases was a good way to do this, and it showed that a guy hitting .320 may actually be doing better than a guy hitting .350 with fewer total bases.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Ok. Thanks for the explanation.

[Guest old original jb]

There should be a total bases statistic that takes into account bases gained by stealing, advancing on sacrifices, hits, fielder's choices and wild pitches. The running component should be normalized somehow to account for the fact that some lineups move runners better than others.

This kind of statistic would account for why a player like Jose Reyes is probably much better than his OPS would suggest.

[Guest martin]

baseball prospectus has a stat like that called baserunning efficiency or something. it takes into account steal %, and taking the extra base and some other stuff. i think carlos beltran is around the top as one of the best baserunners ever according to this stat.

[Vic Sage]

FIVE THINGS I'D LIKE TO SEE IN MY BOXSCORE:

1) a Kandinsky;
2) Tomorrow's winning LOTTO number;
3) a joke by Lewis Black;
4) lyrics to John Lennon's next song; and
5) Naked pictures of Ann Coulter getting corn-holed by Alec Baldwin.

[soupcan]

Vic Sage wrote: 5) Naked pictures of Ann Coulter getting corn-holed by Alec Baldwin.

Gee Vic don't be shy tell us what you really want....

[Vic Sage]

oh, sure Soupy... like you wouldn't like to see that too.

[Guest Edgy DC]

When there's an ejection, they should list which umpire did the tossing.

[Guest cooby]

And why