Interpreting stats

[skyballer455]

Hello!

I just got into this game a while back. While I enjoy it very much, there is one problem I have.

The problem of which I speak is this: I know that there's more to stats than just numbers, but that's all they are to me, numbers! I cannot make sense of them at all. To me, they say absolutely nothing. Of course I know what their names mean, like Home Runs and the like, but I don't know what they mean. I just can't seem to see the bigger picture.

I hope that makes sense. If anyone has any help to give, then by all means give it! Any help would be tremendously appreciated.

Thanks!

[Bluenoser]

Plenty of excellent reading here to explain stats.

Baseball Statistics and Analysis | FanGraphs Baseball

[skyballer455]

Thanks Bluenoser, I'm can now understand them better.

There was one thing I forgot to mention. I'm also having a tough time of making sense of the ratings in the game. To me, they say nothing either.
Any advice?

[RchW]

Originally Posted by skyballer455

Thanks Bluenoser, I'm can now understand them better.

There was one thing I forgot to mention. I'm also having a tough time of making sense of the ratings in the game. To me, they say nothing either.
Any advice?

Can you elaborate? I don't know what rating scale you use but for argument sake let's say it is 1-10. Look at three hitters contact ratings; hitter 1 has 1 hitter 2 has 5 and hitter 3 has 10. From this one can see that hitter 3 must make contact as well as anyone in the game. Hitter 2 is average and hitter 3 is very poor likely not able to make much if any contact at all. Note that ratings can be relative to player and league level.

That is a very simplistic example but one can interpolate what the meaning of all ratings within the range 1-10 are.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Also look at the color of the rating:

red--bad
orange--below average
yellow--average
green--above average
blue--good