BAbip?! Isn't that a Korean rice bowl?

As I start to post more frequently, I want to make sure that I don't alienate any of my potential readers with terms and abbreviations that aren't obvious.  For instance, BAbip (not the Korean rice bowl - that's bibimbap) is Batting Average on Balls In Play.  The formula for BAbip is a player's hits minus his home runs divided by his at bats minus his strikeouts and home runs and finally adding on his sacrifice flys (H - HR/AB - K - HR + SF).  This stat effectively measures a player's batting average removing any at bat that is not affected by the opponent's defense.  An average BAbip tends to be around .300 and anything significantly higher than that indicates that the batter has been pretty lucky lately and one can assume a regression.  The opposite is true if someone's BAbip has been trending well below .300.  I'm always fascinated when a ball is hit directly at someone and, conversely, it seems so cheap when a player barely nicks the ball off the top of the bat and barely beats the throw to first base.

Anyway, there are a great deal of advanced metrics that are being used now in baseball and they are not always easy to understand.  I will be using a lot of these metrics over the course of my blog to help offer insights and trajectories for players and teams, and I want to make sure that everyone, even the casual fan, is able to follow along.  I have added an easy link in the right side panel of the blog that will take you directly to the Glossary page at MLB.com (also posted below).

MLB Glossary of Terms

Here you will be able to quickly search terms and gain a basic understanding of the metrics I use here in the blog (or a deep understanding into some of baseball’s most advanced metrics).  Any other suggestions to make this blog more accessible are always welcome, as I would love to bridge the gap between avid fans and casual observers.