Sabermetrics (Society for American Baseball Research Metrics) drew attention last year after the release of American movie “Moneyball” starring Brad Pitt. Derived from the acronym SABR (the Society for American Baseball Research), it is the specialized analysis of baseball through objective evidence.

 

 For a long time, traditional baseball statistics have been used to evaluate the performance and contribution of individual players. Those include batting average, home runs and runs batted in (RBI) for fielders, and earned run average (ERA), wins and saves for pitchers. However, one basic question has been posed. Can those numbers precisely and fairly measure the players’ capability and contribution to their team? Here is an example, the batting average. It is obtained by dividing the number of hits by the number of at bats. But the number of hits covers both singles and home runs. While both are hits, they are clearly different in terms of contribution to a team.

 

 Thinking this way, one may wonder if a batter is really excellent just because his batting average is high. Furthermore, is there any difference between a single hit and a walk in terms of value? You may take this as nitpicking, but the more you think, the more you will find the conventional statistics inconsistent and open to question.

 

 A new index based on sabermetrics has come to be widely used in recent years to improve the situation. It numerically measures a player’s overall contribution to his team in terms of not only batting and pitching abilities but also running and defense abilities. This index is called WAR (wins above replacement), which is an attempt to summarize players’ total contributions to their team in one statistic.

 

 Today, WAR is more popular in the United States than in Japan. But the country is still divided between pros and cons -- the “sabermetricians”and the “old guards” who stick to the conventional stats.