I'm looking for a stat for how often a hitter gets on base via walk, hit, hit by ball. Anything excluding homeruns. As in the percentage of time people actually stand on a base.
2 Answers
On base percentage (OBP) includes all methods of getting on base, but does not exclude home runs. All methods of reaching base safely are included except for errors, reached on a fielder's choice, or dropped third strike.
The only major hitting stat that excludes home runs is Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP), which also would not include walks or HBPs.
The only area I would imagine a statistician might be interested in times on base (but not home runs) would be in evaluating baserunning, perhaps to use as a denominator; I do not believe there is a named statistic for that, though, they would simply use the OBP numerator and subtract home runs directly.
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Even then, simply being on base doesn't mean you have the opportunity to steal, if the base ahead of you is occupied.– chepnerCommented Jan 11, 2021 at 18:03
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@chepner Note I said "baserunning" not "stealing" - baserunning in general is possible to evaluate even without stealing. But of course there are always complexities with any of these.– JoeCommented Jan 11, 2021 at 21:45
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Is there a homerun percentage? Maybe I could just subtract the two.– GC_Commented Mar 31, 2021 at 3:41
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I would guess you're referring to On Base Percentage (https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/On_base_percentage).
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