LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: In short, zvon, batting average tells you about what happened. But it tells you a lot less about how the player performed (because of all the statistical noise-- most of it fielding-related-- that Ceetar outlined) As such, it's got less predictive value than other measures (such as line-drive percentage) besides not being predictive, batting average tells you less about "what happened" already than OBP does. Batting Average has zero advantage, whether looking backwards or forwards, over OBP.