It may come as a surprise that, according to baseball scoring standards, a player's at-bats are not the same as the number of times he's come up to the plate. Certain circumstances--walks, hit batsmen, sacrifice bunts or flies and catcher interference--may award the player first base, or get him out, without counting as an at-bat. Subtract the number of exceptions from a player's number of plate appearances and you'll get the correct statistic for his at-bats.
Step 1
Add up the number of times a batter has come up to the plate over a given timeperiod. This statistic is most commonly figured over the course of a game, a series, a season or a career.
Step 2
Subtract the number of walks the batter received during the same time period from the figure in Step 1.
Step 3
Subtract the numbers of times the batter was hit by a pitch (and thus awarded first base) from the figure in Step 2.
Step 4
Subtract the number of sacrifice bunts or flies the player has made from the figure in Step 3.
Step 5
Subtract the number of instances of catcher interference from the figure in Step 4. Note the result down as the number of at bats for that particular hitter over the particular time period in question. Catcher interference is extremely rare, but does happen on occasion. If there was no catcher interference for the batter in question, note the result from Step 4 as the player's at-bats.
Things You'll Need
- Game records
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