Total average is a baseball statistic devised by sportswriter Thomas Boswell in the 1970s. The statistic is designed to measure a hitter's overall offensive contributions.
The definition of the statistic is simple. A player gets a credit for every base he accumulates and a penalty for every out he makes. So a player gets one credit for a single, walk, stolen base or being hit by a pitch; two for a double; three for a triple; and four for a home run. A player's Total Average is calculated by adding all the bases together and dividing them by the number of outs the player makes.
The formula is:
where
- TA = Total average
- TB = Total bases
- HBP = Hit by pitch
- BB = Walks
- SB = Stolen base
- CS = Caught stealing
- AB = At bats
- H = Hits
- GIDP = grounded into double play
Because Total average emphasizes walks and extra base hits - and de-emphasizes singles - it has much in common with statistics developed by Bill James and other sabermetricians. Like OPS, total average gives credit to players who draw a lot of walks and hit with a lot of power: Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Ted Williams and Frank Thomas for instance. James himself was critical of total average.
Famous quotes containing the words total and/or average:
“Computers are good at swift, accurate computation and at storing great masses of information. The brain, on the other hand, is not as efficient a number cruncher and its memory is often highly fallible; a basic inexactness is built into its design. The brain’s strong point is its flexibility. It is unsurpassed at making shrewd guesses and at grasping the total meaning of information presented to it.”
—Jeremy Campbell (b. 1931)
“It’s not that we want the political jobs themselves ... but they seem to be the only language the men understand. We don’t really want these $200 a year jobs. But the average man doesn’t understand working for a cause.”
—Jennie Carolyn Van Ness (b. c. 1890–?)