At Bat

What is an At Bat?

One of the building blocks of baseball stats, At Bats are the number of hits, outs (excluding sacrifices), and times reached on error.

How is At Bat used?

At bats are typically used an input for formulas in stats like Batting Average and Slugging Percentage. For stats like that, it’s important to filter out plate appearances that aren’t relevant, such as walks and sacrifices. As a result, at bats typically have more value in formulas like that than it does as a standalone statistic.

How to calculate At Bats?

To calculate at bats, simply add up the number of hits, outs, and times reached on error. You will not include any sacrifices (such as bunts, hits, or flies) and also exclude walks and times hit by pitch.

At Bat Examples

For example, if Shohei Ohtani has five plate appearances in a game and ends up with two hits, a walk, a strikeout, and a sac fly, then he had three at bats. You would count the two hits and the out and ignore the walk and sacrifice

Interesting At Bat Stats

Pete Rose is the career leader in at bats with 14,053, while Jimmy Rollins holds the single-season record with 716. See the full career and single-season at bat leaderboards on Baseball Reference.

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