CBM Stats

A walk, a single, and a stolen base = 3 bases

Baseball stats tell a story. We learned to read a .283 batting average, 98 RBI, and 24 HR as a season where a player had a solid contribution to the lineup. As fans we see these numbers as a language that pieces together an idea of a player, a snapshot in time that while not perfect, communicates enough for us to make comparisons and understand the game.

CBM asks one additional question those numbers don’t quite answer: who caused what? Every base and every out has a cause. CBM works backward through each play, then assigns that impact to the responsible hitter, runner, fielder, and/or pitcher.

Baseball is unusual among major sports because many of its foundational stats don’t directly attribute the moment of impact. Football counts yards. Soccer and hockey count goals and assists. Basketball counts points. Baseball has always had a less clear picture because its stats are built on shared credit and incomplete measures: R, RBI, TB, and ERA. That complexity is part of what makes it beautiful and why we fell in love with the game, but underneath it, the basic units are simple: bases and outs.