Sabermetrics, the statistical analysis of baseball, has rapidly increased in popularity over the past several decades. While quantitative measurement has been intertwined with baseball for nearly the entire history of the sport, statistics were traditionally limited to what one might see on the back of a baseball card: hits, runs, home runs, runs batted in (RBI), batting average, etc. Sabermetricians have sought to improve upon these basic measurements with more accurate methods of player assessment, such as on- base percentage (OBP), slugging percentage (SLG), and a whole assortment of acronyms describing more advanced metrics (e.g., BABIP, DIPS, FIP, VORP, WHIP). While there have been many important contributions to the field, arguably the most prominent success story in recent years has been wins above replacement (WAR).
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