CS 1101 - Aterm 10
A quick look at some baseball statistics for Homework 3
Position players are those players on a baseball team whose
defensive position is one of catcher (C), first base (1B),
second base (2B), third base (3B), shortstop (SS), left field (LF),
center field (CF), or right field (RF). For position players
an at-bat (loosely speaking) is counted every time a batter
faces a pitcher. During an at-bat a player may either get a hit or be
called out (there are other possibilities, but we don't need to consider them for this assignment). A player's batting average is calculated by
dividing the number of hits the player makes by the
number of at-bats.
Typical batting averages for major-league baseball players fall in the
range of about .230 - .350.
The number of runs is the number of times the player actually scores
by
crossing home plate. An error is counted against a player if
he fails to make a defensive play that the official scorer deems
should have been made.
For pitchers, the statistic of note is the earned run average (ERA).
It is calculated by multiplying 9 (the number of innings in a standard baseball
game) by the number of earned runs given up by the pitcher, and dividing by the number
of innings pitched. A typical ERA for a major league pitcher might
be somewhere in the range 2.0 - 6.0. The lower the ERA, the better.