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9 BAY AREA NEWS GROUP PLAYBALL selectedstatisticaldatathatgoes as deep as a player needs. "Yeah, whew," second baseman Jo e P an ik sa id, smil ing wide . "Let's say we enter a series with the Dodgers: We have a book of all the pitchers and their stats that show the percentages of what they throw in what counts. It really is amazing. Location charts. Velocity charts. "T here is so muc h a va ilabl e t o us that you kind of have to pick and choose. What's your game plan against certain guys?" And to think: As baseball blos - soms anew in 2016, the game is on the cusp of breakthroughs that could change our understanding of it. "T hisencompassing neatness permits the baseball fan, aided by experience and memory, to extract from a box score the same joy, the same hallucinatory reality, that prickles the scalp of a musician when he glances at a page of his score of 'Don Giovanni' and actually hears bassos and sopranos, woodwinds and violins." Dave Cameron, 35, grew up without a television in his Se- attle-area home. He listened to Mariners games on the radio as a kid but eventually wanted to know what the players looked like. So Cameron bought pack after pack of baseball cards at his local 7-Eleven. Putting faces with the names had a flip side: The backs of the baseball cards were chock-full of numbers — averages, home runs, steals and RBIs. "I just kind of fell in love with the statistics of baseball that way," Cameron said. He grew up to become an influ - ential writer for FanGraphs.com. THEGAME Takeanumber Ifyou'rereadytodiveintothemodernstats, here's a look of some key metrics, with help from the glossary section of FanGraphs.com: WINSABOVEREPLACEMENT(WAR) An attempt to summarize a player's total contributions. The goal for position players is to measure factors such as batting, base running and fielding in one spot. For pitchers, WAR uses Fielding Independent Pitching (see below), adjusted for park and scaled to how many innings the pitcher threw. The resulting number means the number of wins Player X is worth to their team over a freely available minor leaguer. An MVP-caliber player will be 6 or higher, while a role player will be 1-2. Best:Bryce Harper, Nationals, 9.5 Worst:Pablo Sandoval, Red Sox, -2.0 WEIGHTEDON-BASEAVERAGE(WOBA) The stat is based on the concept that not all hits are created equal. Slugging percentage accounts for this,too, but imprecisely. And slugging percentage doesn't account for other ways of reaching base. The wOBA calculation is complicated, but context is easy because the scale looks a bit like on-base percentage, where .400 is excellent and .300 is poor. Best:Bryce Harper, Nationals, .461 Worst: Chris Owings, Diamondbacks, .255 FIELDINGINDEPENDENTPITCHING(FIP) This estimates pitchers' run prevention independent of the defense behind them.It's based on strikeouts,walks,hit by pitches and home runs allowed — i.e.,the things most in a pitcher's control.It strips out the role of defense and luck.A league average FIP is 3.80. Best: Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers, 1.99 Worst: Aaron Harang, Phillies, 4.83 ULTIMATEZONERATING(UZR) This stat uses play-by-play data recorded by Baseball Info Solutions to estimate each fielder's defensive contribution. UZR estimates the difficulty of each defensive play, and it gives more credit to a fielder who handles tougher chances. Best:Kevin Kiermaier, Rays CF, 30.0 Worst: Matt Kemp, Padres RF, -17.2 Three-time All- Star Buster Posey studies video and stats prior to each game. "You have to pick and choose what stats you are going to look at," Posey said. "I think it's great. I think it's very beneficial. But at the same time, you have to use your instincts." Posey bats at left in this photo taken with a tilt-shift lens.