Batting average rarely stands alone in current news reports. Instead of seeing, ‘‘Jose Abreu is hitting .255,’’ you’re likely to see his listing as .255/.346/.482.
The numbers after his batting average are on-base percentage and slugging percentage. Add OBP and SLG, and you get OPS — which, by the way, is what Marquee lists when displaying opening lineups on Cubs telecasts.
It’s all in the name of bringing fans statistics that tell much more about a player than batting average while sticking to numbers that easily can be calculated by those who remember their grade-school arithmetic.
OBP, SLG and OPS correlate to team runs better than batting average does.