If you are new to Diamond Mind Baseball, this page will help you learn about the ratings and statistics used in the game simulation.

Except where differences are noted, all ratings in DMB are displayed using the following abbreviations.

• Year: The season upon which the player's performance was based.
  
  
• Bats: Whether the player bats right-handed (R), left-handed (L), or switch hits (S). A switch hitter always bats left-handed against right-handed pitchers and right-handed against left-handed pitchers.
  
  
• Primary position: The role in which the player was used the most in the season in question. This designation doesn't affect his performace; he can still play other positions or roles for which he is rated.
  
  
• Injury rating: Players who played almost every game have an Iron rating. Those who missed many games (more than 10% of the season) are Prone, and others are Normal.
  
  
• Percent active: The percentage of the season during which this player was on the active roster and available to play. If, for example, the team's season was 154 games long, and a player was on a farm team (or another big-league team) for 60 games, and on the disabled list (with this team) for another 20 games, his percent active would be (154-60-20) / 154 = 48. This number helps the computer manager match real-life playing time in detailed replays using real-life rosters when the automatic transaction processing option is turned on.
  
  
• Percent disabled: The percentage of the team's games that the player missed while on the disabled list.
  
  
• Salary and Contract thru: Some Diamond Mind leagues have a salary cap or financial system as part of their league rules. If your league does this, you can enter player salaries and the year contracts expire in these fields. DMB reports them on the roster repotr and carries them forward from year to year when you use the Migrate feature. DMB does not enforce any economic system. What you do with these fields is entirely up to you.
  
  
• Playing time percentage: This number compares a player's computer league playing time to his real life playing time. For example, if a player has half as many plate appearances (for batters) or batters faced (for pitchers) as he did in real life, this number will be 50%. For most realistic results, you may want to stop using a player once he has reached 100% of his real-life activity.
  
  
• Usage: DMB tracks the number of batters each player is behind the plate, since this is an important indicator of fatigue. Catchers are generally limited to 80-90% of their team's games. On the statistical summary for a player, you will see the number of batters faced as a catcher during each of the last nine games. If you see that your catcher has played nine full games in a row, it's probably time to give him a rest. If you don't, he will be much less effective than normal.
  
  

• Bunting: These ratings indicate the player's bunting ability. The Bunt for Hit rating reflects the ability to bunt for a base hit with the bases empty or with two outs. The Scrifice Bunt rating reflects the ability to successfully advance a runner with a sacrifice or squeeze bunt.
  
  
• Running: This rating measures the player's ability to take extra bases on singles, doubles, and caught fly balls. It measures both running speed and the player's judgement about when to take the extra base. Some slow runners have good ratings because they know when to try for the extra base. Some fast runners have low ratings because they gamble too much and get thrown out often. For modern players, DMB uses detailed information about the number of extra bases a runner takes on singles, doubles, and fly balls to assign running ratings. If you do not have this information, you can assess a player's running ability based on triples, stolen bases, defensive ability batting order position, or other indicators that typically require speed.
  
  
• Jump: This rating measures the player's ability to get a good lead on a steal attempt. One way to determine the jump rating is to divide the number of steal attempts by the number of times the player reached first base (singles + walks + hit by pitch) and using the following table:
  
  

  Ex	at least 25%
  Vg	at least 15%
  Av	at least 9%
  Fr	at least 3.5%
  Pr	less than 3.5%

  
  
• Stealing: This rating measures the player's ability to steal a base with a good lead. Excellent stealing ratings are reserved for players who succeed at least 83% of the time. Average stealers are successful about 67% of the time. Poor stealers are thrown out more than half the time.
  
  
• Hitter type: This rating indicates whether the batter is a pull hitter (p) or spray hitter (sp). A right-handed batter is considered a pull hitter if he hit the ball to the left fielder, third baseman, or shortstop at least 50% of the time in real life. The same rule is applied to left-handed batters, but the right fielder, first baseman, and second baseman are used instead.
  
  
• Power: This rating indicates how well a player hits for power(doubles, triples and homers) against left- and right-handed pitching. When you create a new player, DMB calculates this rating automatically from the statistics you enter. This rating does not determine the outcome of any plays; it is for information purposes only.
  
  
• Clutch hitting: This rating indicates whether the batter is especially tough in late-inning situations where the score is close. A great clutch hitter is rated as a Terror, while other are Normal.
  
  

• Durability as a starting pitcher: This rating is used to determine how quickly the starting pitcher in a game gets tired. A player who was not used as a starter in real life does not have a rating; if he is used as a starter in DMB, he tires more quickly than a player with a Pr rating. In DMB, as in real life, there is no magic indicator to tell you when a pitcher is tired. You must make a judgement call based on his performance in the current game and from his durability rating.
  
  
• Holding runners close: This rating indicates a pitcher's ability to hold runners close on steal attempts. An Excellent rating indicates a pitcher against whom opposing runers attempt to steal with the next base open less than 5% of the time. Poor pitchers allow attempts almost 30% of the time.
  
  
• Balk rating: This number indicates how frequently a pitcher will commit a balk. It is expressed as a percentage, with 100 indicating a pitcher who balks at the average rate for his league. For example, if a pitcher faced 952 batters and balked once in a league where balks occured at a rate of 8 per 10,000 batters faced, his balk rating would be:
       player: 1 / 952 = .0011
       league: 8 / 10000 = .0008
       rating: 100 * .0011 / .0008 = 138
  
  
• Wild pitch rating: This number indicates how often a pitcher throws a wild pitch when there are runners on base. The wild pitch rating tends to range from 0 to 60 with an average of 15. Use the formula:
       rating = [wild pitches * 1000] / [batters faced * .43]
  For example, if a pitcher threw four wild pitches in a season in which he faced 1000 batters, his rating is 9. (Why .43? Because about 43% of batters faced occur with runners on base.)
  
  
• Ground ball percentage: This rating is not used to determine the result of any play, so you do not need to fill it in for new players. For modern pitchers, this number accurately reflects the pitcher's ability to cause ground balls. Together with the number of ground ball double plays made while this pitcher was in teh game, you can use this rating to assess your chances of getting out of a tough situation with a ground ball double play.
  
  
• Getting out of a jam: This rating indicates whether the pitcher is especially tough in late-inning situations with the score very close. Pitchers are rated as Super, Tough, or Normal.
  
  

• Fielding range: This rating indicates a player's ability to reach balls hit in his direction. You should also look at fielding statistics to see how many errors he made when choosing whether to play someone at a position. Fielding data can be hard to get for past seasons. The best source may be the team section of McMillan Baseball Encyclopedia, which shows fielding statistics for everyday players. By comparing putouts (for outfielders) and assists (for infielders), and adjusting for playing time, you can see how a player compares with his peers.
  
  
• Error rating: This rating is a percentage indicating how this player's error rate compares to the average fielder at his position in the era in which he played. A rating of 100 means the player is average -- that is, he makes 100% of the errors expected of someone at that position. A player who makes only 50% as many errors as his peers is rated 50. Someone who makes twice as many errors as his peers is rated 200.
  
  
• Outfielder throwing: The strength and accuracy of an outfielder's throwing arm are indicated in this rating. This rating is used whenever a runner tries to take an extra base on a single, double, or fly ball. If you are assigning throwing ratings for past seasons, we suggest you compare assist totals across the league. Generally speaking, the higher the assist total, the better the throwing arm. This is not always true, of course, because some outfielders have such a great reputation for throwing that nobody tries to run on them (meaning their assist totals are low). So you will need to use some judgement here.
  
  
• Catcher throwing: This rating indicates the strength and accuracy of the catcher's throwing arm. It is used whenever a runner tries to steal second or third. When assigning throwing ratings for past seasons, you can compare assist totals across the league. Unfortunately, the best throwing catchers sometimes don't have high assist totals because opposing runners stay put, so you will need to use some judgement here.
  
  
• Passed ball: This number indicates how many times a catcher will allow a passed ball in 1,000 plate appearances with runners on base. The formula is similar to that for wild pitch ratings for pitchers:
       rating = [passed balls * 1000] / [batters caught * .43]
  But, of course, official statistics don't count batters caught. So you'll need to estimate it by multiplying this catcher's percentage of playing time by the team's total batters faced by pitchers. For example, if a team's pitchers faced 6300 batters and this catcher was behind the plate 72% of the time, he caught about 6300 * .72 = 4536 batters.
  
  

The following table explains the abbreviations used for official batting statistics that DMB tracks. Please refer to Official Baseball Rules, published annually by The Sporting News, for the official scoring rules for each of these statistics.

In addition to official statistics, DMB calculates several modern statistics that have not yet found their way into the rule book. You are encouraged to read The Bill James Baseball Abstract, b Bill James, and The Hidden Game of Baseball, by John Thorn and Pete Palmer, for a full discussion of these new statistics.

• Runs Created measures a player's contribution to the offense by multiplying the ability to get on base (H + BB + HB - CS - DP) by the ability to move runners along (TB + .26 * (BB -IW + HB) + .52 * (SH + SF + SB)) and dividing by the number of plate appearances (AB + BB + HB + SH + SB).
  
  
• Runs Created per 27 Outs takes this result and divides by the number of outs created by the player (AB - H + DP + CS + SH + SF).
  
  
• Isolated Power separates extra base power from singles by subtracting batting average from slugging percentage.
  
  
• Total Average measures offensive contribution by dividing (TB + BB + HB + SB) by (AB - H + CS + DP).
  
  

The following table explains the abbreviations used for official pitching statistics that DMB tracks. Please refer to Official Baseball Rules, published annually by The Sporting News, for the official scoring rules for each of these statistics.

Many of these statistics have been developed in recent years. For some of them, there is no universally accepted definition. For example, three major statistical companies (Total Sports, STATS, and Elias) have three different ways of assigning responsibility for inherited runners when a pithcer leaves the game before the end of the inning. DMB uses the methods defined by Total Sports.

The abbreviations in the following table are used on screen and in some reports. Many of the statistics tracked for pitchers are the same as those tracked for batters. If you don't see a definition in this table, please look at the table for batters.

A quality start is a game in which the starting pitcher pitches at least six complete innings and allows no more than three earned runs.

• Run support is the number of runs scored by the team in games in which this pitcher started. This helps to identify pithcers whose win/loss records are better or worse than their pitching might indicate because their teams either scored a lot of runs for them or failed to do so.
  
  
• Runners left is the number of runners on base when the pitcher left a game before the end of an inning. DMB tracks the number of these runners who later scored when a relief pitcher was on the mound because some pitchers can have their ERAs helped or hurt based on how well or poorly their relievers handle the situations they left behind.
  
  
• Inherited runners are the same as runners left, but from the perspective of the relief pitcher. DMB tracks the number of inherited runners who scored to help you identify good and bad relief pitching performances that might not be reflected in the earned run average of the reliever.
  
  

The following table explains the abbreviations used for official fielding statistics that DMB tracks. Please refer to Official Baseball Rules, published annually by The Sporting News, for the official scoring rules for each of these statistics.