Sabermetrics In Baseball

Whether it be riding to Citi Field to watch my Mets play on a warm May night, or sitting on the couch at home, watching baseball has always been my favorite pastime. And a few years ago, I was introduced to an element of baseball that involves another passion of mine, mathematics. The study of the utterly distinct, yet blissful marriage of baseball and mathematics is known as sabermetrics, and it has brought my love of baseball to a new level. “Sabermetricians,” attempt to analyze baseball from a mathematical perspective in order to obtain a statistical edge over the competition, and many baseball teams today even employ groups of math whizzes to analyze the sport.
The premise of sabermetrics is that the conventional wisdom, which uses well-known statistics such as Batting Average and Runs Batted In (RBI) as indicators of value in a player, is wrong. In fact, esoteric stats such as On-Base Percentage (OBP) are better measures of skill. I was first introduced to the concept when my brother, Josh, suggested I check out a …show more content…
It has taught me to think outside the box, and I’ve found that this sort of strategic thinking is applicable to other areas. When I started playing chess, I would always make what seemed to be good moves, but just like sabermetrics, in chess the conventional wisdom is often wrong. Once I was able to view chess through the same lens that I now viewed baseball, I felt I had an edge, and slowly went from a sub-par player to the captain of my school’s chess team. By thinking ahead of the game, much like a sabermetrician, I was now able to make strategic moves that might sacrifice my queen, yet place my opponent in checkmate. I would not have thought this way, if sabermetrics hadn't taught me to challenge seemingly axiomatic principles. Sabermetrics has become my greatest fascination, and it has helped me view the world from a novel and distinct