Baseball Stat Acronyms Pronunciation Guide
by Justin Bopp on Mar 2, 2011 6:01 PM EST
in Sabermetric Primers
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As the title describes, we'll get right to it. There's some discussion regarding what's the right and wrong way to pronounce particular baseball acronyms, so let's put it to rest.
First, there are three different types of pronunciation styles.
1. Worders. These are typically abbreviations instead of acronyms. For this, you are required to say the entire word for which it stands. AVG and SLG fall into this category.
2. Sounders. These are acronyms which spell an easy-to-pronounce word. For this, best practice is to sound it out and hope you got it right. WAR and FIP are perfect examples. wOBA is up for debate, since its non-weighted little brother belongs to the next category.
3. Spellers. These are acronyms for which one would sound stupid sounding it out but take too long to word it out. Just say the letters you see and you'll get along just fine. ERA, OBP, OBA and other similar ones belong here.
After the jump, find a list of common baseball and saber stats and exactly how you should pronounce them.
AVG - Worder. "Average." If using BA, that's a speller.
OBP - Speller. "oh-bee-pee." Sometimes a worder when shortened conversationally to "on base."
SLG - Worder. "Slugging." Don't try anything else with this one.
OPS - Speller. "oh-pee-ess." Don't be the goofball talking about "psy-OPS" or "black-OPS."
ISO - Sounder. "eye-soh," as it's short for "Isolated Slugging." If you're spelling it out (eye-ess-oh), what do those letters stand for? (nothing!)
wOBA - Sounder. "whoa-bah." It's simply too long to spell out. Or if you insist, wake me up when you're done wording it out.
BABIP - Speller. You gotta spell this one out, fellas. Sorry. "Bee-ay-bee-eye-pee." Sound it out at your own risk.
*% - This is a trick one, where * = anything like "BB," "K" or "SB." You typically will be required to say the entire word of the *, while saying "rate" intead of "percent," while the latter is still socially acceptable.
wRC and variants - Worder. If you're using this you're probably doing a little heavy lifting anyway, so just word this one out. "Runs Created based wOBA."
FIP - Sounder. "fip." Rhymes with "rip."
ERA - Speller. "eee-arrr-aay." If you see a +, just say "plus."
WAR - Sounder. "war." Rhymes with "bore" or "core," not "car" or "bar."
UZR - Speller. Nobody wants to hear you say "uhhh-zerr" so just spell it out. "You-Zee-Arr."
RAR - Sounder. Probably as goofy as "whoa-bah," "raaawr" is still better than stumbling through "R-A-R."
Btw (that's a worder, btw), I'm from Kansas City where we have little other claim to fame than being the general guide for national broadcaster's dialectical and inflection style. This is my only qualification for putting this together. Feel free to debate what should and should not be sounded out, but be prepared to be wrong. Enjoy!
H/t to @splashinpumpkin, @toirtap, @harrypav, and @capitalavenue for their opinions.
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It's good and good for you
and funny. I think I always treat RAR as a worder, though.
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It's not like it gets a lot of use, you know.
It’s actually pretty rare.
What Patrick said
or wait, was he making a pun?
Winner, Beyond the Box Score 32 Predictions Contest, 2009
I literally say wOBA or isn't it basically weighted on base average?
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"Feet on the ground eyes to the sky" - Landry Fields said this to me
As long as you're not saying "wah-bah" like our friend Harry,
you’re fine. But yeah, the long form is weighted on base average.
w-O-B-A is my way to say. :P
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"Feet on the ground eyes to the sky" - Landry Fields said this to me
Our buddy Mike Rogers treated it as a sounder in his recent article.
Like “werk.”
In general, I avoid spelling out multi-syllabic letters like “double-u.” “Weighted” is a touch easier. Just a touch, but still.
Joke:
there’s only one multi-syllabically pronounced letter!
(unless you’re Hispanic, then you deserve props for the coolest letter on the planet, “equis.”)
Every time
you pronounce an acronym as a word, a baby rabbit gets hepatitis D.
"The WAR folks like yunel apparently. i know this, bobby cox hated going to war with this guy." - Jon Heyman
Beyond the Box Score / Capitol Avenue Club / shwitter: @CapitolAvenue
Yessir!
While I don’t vocalize them often, in my thoughts they’re either spelled out or said in their entirety.
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Yeah, same here...
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Divers must really hate rabbits.
Maybe they watched too much Holy Grail when they were children, and took it literally?
WAR
I’ve always heard and said it as rhyming with ‘bar’ or ‘car’
I guess I’m listening to the wrong people?!
by Barold on Mar 2, 2011 6:24 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
For Red Sox fans...
War and bar and car are all pronounced the same… wahr, cahr, bahr…it doesn’t matter
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You may be an northern/easterner,
and you probably can’t be blamed. I mean, is the US currently in the Iraq “Waaaahr” or the Iraq “Wore?” Unless you’re from Boston, where neither matters. “Yeah Bonds has like da second highest waah of all time.”
The latter is probably most appropriate, though I can’t blame your heritage if you’re from Boston.
nope, chicagoan
but I guess we have our own way of pronouncing things too
I just thought it made sense
to say it as in the word “war” because it’s intuitive to assume that an abbreviation that spells out an already existing word would be pronounced like that word. Maybe that’s just me, though, because for a long time my favorite defensive stat was “you-zer.”
Then again, I don’t really have anyone to talk about saber stuff in person with, so these issues haven’t come up for me much unless I’m talking to myself.
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by Satchel Price on Mar 2, 2011 6:46 PM EST up reply actions
I do that often, because I don't like confusing it with actual "war", as hilarious as the pun possibilities are.
Albert Pujols does not have "down" years. He has "~6 WAR" years.
Thank God BABIP is a speller.
I hate when people say “ba-bip” as if it was a word.
by Zach (maestro876) on Mar 2, 2011 6:26 PM EST reply actions
Henceforth I shall always treat BABIP as a sounder because it upsets Zach.
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by Richard Wade on Mar 2, 2011 6:28 PM EST up reply actions 2 recs
Well are you going with
“baaaaa-bip”
or
“baah-bip”?
The first and you’ll sound like a goat, the second and you’ll sound like you need professional counseling.
Baa-bip.
Spelling it out is just ugly. If you don’t drag out the first syllable you’ll be fine saying it.
BABIP
Even though its the wrong spelling, I always felt BABIP sounded better as “BA-PIP”. Its much easier that way.
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BABIP - Speller. You gotta spell this one out, fellas.
No way. It’s a sounder. BAH-BIP all the way.
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Bay-Bip
You know, like what they called Bip Roberts in his final season in the majors.
Actually, I’d be more likely to slip up and pronounce it bay-pip.
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by Dan McCloskey on Mar 3, 2011 1:38 PM EST up reply actions
For years I actually thought it was BAPIP
Until I actually bothered writing out the term once and realized that “ball” is spelled with a ‘b’ not a ‘p.’ Thanks, Sesame Street!
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I've always spelled FIP
like F-I-P. Apparently I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time.
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by free f.p. #14 on Mar 2, 2011 7:36 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
No
You are right. FIP is not a word. Total speller.
"The WAR folks like yunel apparently. i know this, bobby cox hated going to war with this guy." - Jon Heyman
Beyond the Box Score / Capitol Avenue Club / shwitter: @CapitolAvenue
Yeah, I've always spelled it out, too.
Baseball is my preferred sport. It should be yours, too.
I'm a columnist for Beyond the Box Score, an SB Nation blog.
Oh, I'm on Twitter, too.
by Satchel Price on Mar 2, 2011 10:04 PM EST up reply actions
ditto
"Who’s on Second?"
"Right."
"Wright’s on Second?"
"No, Wright’s on Third."
"Then Who’s on Second?"
"Yup."
"Yup WHAT?!"
"Hu’s on Second."
"THAT’S WHAT I ASKED!!!!"
ditto ditto
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by WHYG Zane Smith on Mar 3, 2011 9:43 AM EST up reply actions
Is ISO even really an acronym?
Isn’t it just short for “Isolated?”
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Thankfully we're all just nerds in our parents' basements…
…so nobody has to hear us talk anyway.
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by J-Doug on Mar 2, 2011 7:54 PM EST reply actions 7 recs
I actually disagree on quite a few of these
I just can’t behind saying ISO phonetically; for me, it has to be eye-ess-oh.
I prefer double-yoo-oh-bee-ay over whoa-ba, but I’m somewhat on the fence about that one.
wRC+, to me, should be double-yoo-ar-see-plus, and similarly for related statistics.
I’m in the surprisingly large minority of people who find it strange to pronounce FIP. (Ex-)eff-eye-pee sounds much nicer to me.
You’re absolutely in the minority who thinks that WAR should sound like the word and not rhyme with car.
Many of my preferred pronunciations are corroborated by the comments on a FanGraphs post some time ago with just this subject, although I don’t pretend to have any qualifications beyond that. I do know that I’m in the minority on FIP and xFIP, but I refuse to budge for some reason, and I’m not alone by any stretch.
You're an acronym purist
just like me. Acronym purists unite.
"The WAR folks like yunel apparently. i know this, bobby cox hated going to war with this guy." - Jon Heyman
Beyond the Box Score / Capitol Avenue Club / shwitter: @CapitolAvenue
I agree on spelling FIP and ISO
But I’m surprised that people would pronounce WAR like “car” and not “war”. I’ve very little opportunity to talk about these stats with my voice instead of typing, but I’ve got to think that if WAR went mainstream it would be pronounced like “war”.
esp. considering all the horrendous puns used around the sabersphere
“Preparing for WAR”
“Going to WAR”
et al
I'll post this again here because it's still relevant
Isn’t ISO just short for “Isolated?” Isn’t it an abbreviation and not an acronym? If so it should either be a worder or a sounder.
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Yes, that's an excellent point
Now that you’ve brought that up, I can’t justify spelling it, but old habits die hard. “Eye-so,” similar as it is to “eye-ess-oh,” just doesn’t end up “sounding right” to me because I’ve been mentally pronouncing it by spelling it for as long as I’ve known of the statistic.
Baa-bip
You know, kind of like, “Be vewwy quiet … I’m hunting wabbits”
by Lucas Apostoleris on Mar 2, 2011 9:50 PM EST reply actions
UZR is a speller?
I always say it as “yoo-zer”.
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by Charlie Scrabbles on Mar 2, 2011 10:07 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
"yoo-zer" has a much different connotation in baseball.
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by adarowski on Mar 3, 2011 9:32 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Ahh, I see
I try to ignore that malarkey as much as possible.
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by Charlie Scrabbles on Mar 3, 2011 11:17 AM EST up reply actions
Question about fielding stats
SABER novice here. My understanding is that RAR stands for “Run Above Replacement,” but whenever I’m reading a fielding analysis, writers seem to describe a player’s RAR rating as “so many runs above (or below) average.” This is confusing, especially since it seems that RAR (at least on fangraphs, which I use regularly to look up stats) is a component of a player’s WAR rating, which measures against replacement level.
Does 0RAR indicate a replacement level fielder or an average fielder? Sorry if this is a dumb question.
Not a dumb question
Yes, when we’re talking fielding, replacement level is also average. But not when we’re talking pitching or hitting.
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thanks for that
one more question: on what basis is an average fielder assumed to be replacement level? Is it really that easy (in theory) to find an average fielding CF on the scrap heap?
Yes
Tom Tango has done the most work on that, but you basically try to identify replacement level by seeing which cutoff point makes the cost-to-win conversion linear. It just happens to work out that replacement level for fielders is also average level.
Blogger and Editor, Rational Pastime Blog. Twitter: @RationalPastime.
If we're getting picky on acronyms,
isn’t is it SABR. (which is a sounder)
by Wizard of Woz on Mar 3, 2011 4:37 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Okay, thank you
That’s what I was looking for
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Agreed
"The WAR folks like yunel apparently. i know this, bobby cox hated going to war with this guy." - Jon Heyman
Beyond the Box Score / Capitol Avenue Club / shwitter: @CapitolAvenue
FIP and wOBA are spellers for sure...
the only person I’ve ever heard sound out FIP is Jon Miller on Ken Burns Baseball.
RU RAH RAH
RU RAH RAH
Jon Miller has also started saying “awps” (OPS) during Giants’ broadcasts. I was actually hoping this one would be addressed in the original post, but no dice. So, here comes my two cents.
OPS is a speller, particularly since it appears so commonly as OPS+. “Awps plus” just sounds unintelligible to me.
Et tu, Ribe?
BtB is too cool (the antihesis of cool?) for OPS
"The WAR folks like yunel apparently. i know this, bobby cox hated going to war with this guy." - Jon Heyman
Beyond the Box Score / Capitol Avenue Club / shwitter: @CapitolAvenue
The real question, is OPS a sounder, worder, or speller?
I’ve always sounded it like black “ops”. But it seems that I’ve known people who do all three.
I agree with all of these...
…except BABIP. That’s a sounder for me, no matter how ridiculous it does sound. And, to answer ThePanda’s question above, OPS is a speller for me.
Now here’s an idea for an ambitious soul: A sabermetric soundboard. That would be a blast.
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I beg to differ...
I pronounce a number of these differently than above:
wOBA – spelling, for me. “double-u-oh-bee-ay” It’s an abbreviation, so this works. The alternative,“wohba” , just sounds silly.
wRC – spelling, for me. “double-u-ar-see”.
WAR – This rhymes with “car” for me. Otherwise, you’re talking about something happening in Afganistan or Libya. And why would you have WAR and RAR not rhyme?
BABIP -sounder, for me, “ba-bip” the first syllable rhymes with “tab” and the second with “sip”.
by cassander on Mar 3, 2011 11:56 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
What about...
BB/9 = Worder? “Walks per nine” or “Walk rate.”
K/9 = Worder? I’ve mostly heard “Whiff rate.”
K/BB = ?
HR/9 = ?
HR/FB = ???
*/9 = * “per nine”
“Whiff Rate” is K% and “Walk Rate” BB%.
If you see an acronym on both sides of the /, you have to approach them individually, but usually just apply the pronuciation for each side and then append ‘ratio’ to the end. For example:
K/BB is “kay to walk ratio” or “strikeouts to walks ratio”
HR/FB is “homer to flyball ratio” or “homerun-flyball ratio”
Fantastic question.
by Justin Bopp on Mar 3, 2011 1:05 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I consider "whiff rate," at least for pitchers as SwStr%.
Which means that I call K% K-rate, as it confuses me to have two whiff rates.
Also, K/BB is “K-BB ratio”.
All rates/ratios that are written as rates/ratios should be worders
This isn’t just a sabr thing, this is a universal thing. km/h is pronounced kilometers per hour, for instance.
Blogger and Editor, Rational Pastime Blog. Twitter: @RationalPastime.
If it's /9
It’s not a RATE, it’s a RATIO.
"The WAR folks like yunel apparently. i know this, bobby cox hated going to war with this guy." - Jon Heyman
Beyond the Box Score / Capitol Avenue Club / shwitter: @CapitolAvenue
Signs that you're not a word and you shouldn't be pronounced like one
Your first letter is lower-case, the other three are upper-case.
Example: wOBA.
"The WAR folks like yunel apparently. i know this, bobby cox hated going to war with this guy." - Jon Heyman
Beyond the Box Score / Capitol Avenue Club / shwitter: @CapitolAvenue
xFIP
Is a sounder-speller, “ex phip.” wrong people tell you it’sa worder sounder, “expected phip.”
No
Its just a speller.
"The WAR folks like yunel apparently. i know this, bobby cox hated going to war with this guy." - Jon Heyman
Beyond the Box Score / Capitol Avenue Club / shwitter: @CapitolAvenue
This is exactly the sort of response I'd expect
from a guy named Puhwehjort.
Or how about ...
Pee-double-yoo-hyort
by Lucas Apostoleris on Mar 4, 2011 11:34 PM EST up reply actions
wOBA was designed to be said
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/the_history_of_the_woba_part_1/
A bit more than half way down in the original post. Look for sesame street.
Or go watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maYnqbdo2jw
-j
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