Introduction

Hi! Welcome to the Bases Produced Home Page. This web site is dedicated to the presentation, preservation and propagation of Bases Produced baseball statistics.

The Idea

"Bases Produced" statistics are predicated on the idea that offensive players in baseball are always trying to "produce" bases. Offensive players can produce bases by doing something that enables either themselves or their teammates to advance to the next base. For instance, a batter can produce one base for himself by hitting a single or drawing a walk. Similarly, batters produce two bases for themselves whenever they hit a double, three bases when they hit a triple, etc.. Likewise, a baserunner can produce one base for himself by stealing a base. And a batter who hits a double which advances a teammate from first to third has produced two bases for his teammate.

The process of producing bases is of fundamental importance in baseball because it happens to be the only possible way an offensive player can help his team score runs. When a player succesfully scores a run, after all, he has done nothing more than advance to all four bases in succession. The statistic of "Bases Produced" therefore incorporates every positive contribution an offensive player makes to his team's overall effort to score runs--including the production of many bases which are entirely overlooked by the creaky paradigm of traditional statistics.

The completeness of this system of statistics is made possible because it analyzes events and plays in baseball in terms of their outcomes, rather than in terms of their situations or circumstances. The key to understanding this system--as well as the key to understanding the game of baseball itself--is to recognize that there is something that every offensive player is trying to accomplish in every situation in baseball--and that something is the production of bases.

For the defensive-minded, this system can also account for the fact that defensive players are always trying to produce outs for the opposing team. There is thus a corresponding system of "Outs Produced" statistics which account for all the successes that pitchers and fielders have in putting out batters, baserunners and their teammates.

The Implementation

If you would like to find out more about the theory behind these statistics, please check out the system Overview page by clicking the link to the left.

If you would like to see how these statistics operate in practice, please check out the Season Stats page or the Main Leaders Page for Bases Produced statistics from the current major league season. There are definitions for each statistic in the leaders section of the 2005 stats page. On that page you can also find links to team statistics, individual player stats, and game highs for the current season.

If you want to know what I've been up to lately, check out the Bases Produced Blog.

I have posted all of these major league statistics because I would like people to get to know better how this system of statistics works. It can also be a lot of fun to follow the Bases Produced progress of your favorite major league players throughout the season. However, Bases and Outs Produced statistics are not inherently connected to major league baseball in any way. You may--and are, in fact, encouraged--to use these statistics to score games for your favorite College, High School, Little League, American Legion, Softball, Baseball Stars or whatever team. All you need to do is watch and count what's going on before your eyes and soon you'll be seeing the production of bases and outs everywhere you look! If you take the time to do so, in fact, I would be more than happy to post the numbers you come up with to this website!

The goal of maintaining this website is to get Bases and Outs Produced statistics into more widespread use, after all, so you're all welcome to join in on the fun. I'm happy to accept any assistance, contributions, suggestions, questions, or criticisms you may have for this site. And I'm especially interested in hearing from people who would be interested in crunching some of these numbers for past major league seasons, or from those who have innovative ways of analyzing raw Bases and Outs Produced data. If this sounds like you, please drop me a line at swinters A T basesproduced D O T com.

Enjoy your stay,
Steve Winters, Ph.D.