Contact rate can be more revealing than batting average

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USA Today: Shandler: Contact rate can be more revealing than batting average
Published 4/17/2008 at BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog
USA Today: Shandler: Contact rate can be more revealing than batting average Ron Shandler has joined USA Today and will be doing a weekly chat...this, from the transcript. New Port Richey, FL: Ron, on average, how many MLB games do you watch during the season? Do you attend any games or just watch on TV? I heard a rumor that you don’t even watch the MLB games at all, is this true?? if so, why?? Ron Shandler: Yikes! Where did that rumor come from? Actually, I think I know. Some years ago, I wrote a column speculating that we might fare better in our leagues if we were not ...

Shandler: Contact Rate Is Revealing
Published 4/17/2008 by Steve Lombardi at WasWatching.com
Via Ron Shandler in the USA Today (with a hat tip to BaseballThinkFactory.org): There is a high variability in the batting average statistic. Once a batter makes contact with the ball, the final disposition of that at-bat is largely out of his hands (home runs excluded, naturally). Two identically hit line drives might yield different results depending upon where the fielders are standing. So, when it comes to batting average, perhaps the skill that we should be tracking is the rate at which a batter makes ...