How to Calculate a Catcher's Fielding Percentage

Catcher's fielding percentage is a good measure of his defensive ability.

Baseball fans love statistics. Home runs, RBIs and ERA are just a few of the numbers baseball fans watch and calculate each season. Another statistic that gets less attention, but is equally important to the game, is fielding percentage. Fielding percentage is a statistic designed to measure a player's defensive ability.

Things You'll Need

• Calculator

Instructions

1. Add up a catcher's putouts and assists. A catcher gets a putout every time he catches a third strike, tags a runner out or records a force out at home. A catcher gets an assist every time he fields a ball and throws it to a teammate who records a putout. For example, assume a catcher has 400 putouts and 100 assists, for a total of 500.

2. Calculate a catcher's total chances. Total chances is found by adding putouts, assists and errors. In our example, assume that our catcher has 400 putouts, 100 assists and five errors, for a total of 505.

3. Divide putouts and assists by total chances. In the example, it would be 500 divided by 505.

4. Round the answer to three decimal places. In the example, the catcher's fielding percentage would be .990.

Tips & Warnings

• Passed balls are a special category for catchers and not included in their fielding percentage.

References

• The Baseball Scorecard:Statistics