Baseball is full of acronyms. Everywhere you look, be it a box score, stadium, or Baseball Prospectus, you see acronyms. These acronyms have meaning to us because we know what they stand for. Those three or four or five letters, when strung together, bring to life a particular image in our head.
But what if they didn’t? What if a baseball writer, let’s call him… Thug Doorburn, had an accident and got amnesia? What would these acronyms come to mean to Thug? How would Thug approach this random alphabet soup? I think it would go a little something like this……
Stat: ERA
What We Think: Earned Run Average
What Thug Thinks: Everyone’s Real Age
Thought Process: “Well, these players have ages” Thug will ponder to himself at night alone on his floral pattern couch. “But are they the real ages….?” Good point, Thug. Good point.
Calculations: Player 1’s Age + Player 2’s age + Player 3’s age…….
League Leader: N/A. This is more of a league wide stat.
Stat: BABIP
What We Think: Batting Average on Balls In Play
What Thug Thinks: Balls that Are Bunted plus Infield Popups
Thought Process: Thug will watch maddeningly as players waste outs with useless bunts. He will realize that the only way to fix this dilemma is to add those bunts to popups to show everyone all the useless outs.
Calculations: It’s pretty self explanatory.
League Leader: Probably either Elvis Andrus or Pete Kozma
