The adjusted batting average is a baseball statistic that compensates for factors inherently unique to each individual hitter such as era, home ballpark, pitching trends, rule changes, and handedness; it also counts only the first 8,000 at-bats to account for late career decline. It was first formulated in 1999 by

statistician A statistician is a person who works with Theory, theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private sector, private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, a ...

Michael J. Schell in the book ''Baseball's All-time Best Hitters: How Statistics Can Level the Playing Field'' published by

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...

. Using his calculations from said formula, Schell posited that

Tony Gwynn Anthony Keith Gwynn Sr. (May 9, 1960 – June 16, 2014), nicknamed "Mr. Padre", was an American professional baseball right fielder, who played 20 seasons (1982–2001) in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the San Diego Padres. The left-handed hi ...

is the greatest

MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

hitter of all-time with the highest adjusted batting average of .342.

Joseph Gallian Joseph A. Gallian (born January 5, 1942) is an American mathematician, the Morse Alumni Distinguished University Professor of Teaching in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Professional career Gall ...

, a

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

who independently analyzed Schell's formula in a book published by the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

wrote, "Of course, Schell's adjusted batting average is far superior to the traditional batting average." Tony Gwynn 83

References

General

Citations