Baseball Hacks

Appendix B. Abbreviations

The essence of baseball statistics is that they are countable: they’re just counts of things that happen in games. Here are the common abbreviations for baseball statistics. These abbreviations are flashed on scoreboards, printed in newspapers, and used to name fields in databases. Even if you’re familiar with baseball, it’s worth taking a minute to refresh your memory about the common abbreviations used in this sport.

Table B-1 shows batting statistics.

Table B-1. Batting statistics

Abbreviation	Statistic
AB	Official at bat; ends in a hit, out, or error
H	Hit
BB	Base on balls, or walk
D, 2B, X2B	Double (two-base hit)
T, 3B, X3B	Triple (three-base hit)
HR	Home run
1B, X1B	Single (one-base hit)
IBB	Intentional base on balls (intentional walk)
PA	Plate appearance
SF	Sacrifice flies
SH	Sacrifice hits
SAC	Sacrifice bunts
HP, HBP	Hit by pitch
TB	Total bases
AVG	Batting average: H/AB
OBP	On-base percentage: (H + BB + HBP) / (AB + SF + BB + HBP)

Next, let’s look at pitching statistics in Table B-2.

Table B-2. Pitching statistics

Abbreviation	Statistic
BFP	Batters faced by pitcher
R	Runs allowed
H	Hits allowed
HR	Home runs allowed
ER	Earned runs allowed
BB	Base on balls allowed
IBB	Intentional base on balls allowed
OBA	Opponent batting average
W	Wins
L	Losses
G	Games played
GS	Games started
CG	Complete games
SHO	Shutouts
S, SV	Saves
IP	Innings pitched
WP	Wild pitches
BK	Balks
GF	Games finished ...