MLB Stats: What does BB mean in baseball?

Reading the official MLB player stats is like jumping down a rabbit hole. The further you dig into it, the more you realize that there are things you have no clue about. Baseball is indeed a game of never-ending statistics.

Upon looking at them, you can see the obvious metrics. Hits are represented by "H", runs are represented by "R", home runs are "HR", and so on.

However, when reading a row of hitting stats for a given player, you may come across a column entitled "BB". It means Base on Balls, which is a way of describing a walk. Juan Soto of the San Diego Padres was the Base on Balls leader in 2022.

A walk, as all fans know, is the play that occurs when a batter is pitched four balls outside of the strike zone, allowing them to take a free base.

Next to the "BB" category, you might see "IBB", which stands for "Intentional Bases on Balls. This is when a team decides to walk a batter, fearing they may register a hit, which would cause bigger damage to the team. The IBB leader in 2022 was Cleveland Guardians slugger Jose Ramirez, who had 20 walks, just one ahead of Aaron Judge, who finished with 19.

"Control the zone, huh? Mariners' pitchers have 17 strikeouts and no walks.How is that even possible?" - @ Corey Brock

Bases on Balls is an important metric for the MLB to determine how apt a player is at getting on base. On average, players who walk are more likely to score.

On Base Percentage, represented by ".OBP" is the sum of a player's hits and walks divided by how many at-bats he has had. It is arguably the most important metric in MLB.

So now you know what "BB" means when pouring over MLB stats. While this is only the tip of the iceberg, baseball is by its very nature a game of stats that gives us all something new to learn about the game we love, every day.