Counsell's OBP and AVG

[Schlitz001]

I'm pretty far from a stats guru so this quesiton is pretty bush league I'm sure. I was browsing the Brewer's stats page on MLB.com (LINK) and I noticed that Counsell's OBP was less than his Batting Average. His OBP is listed as .250 and AVG as .267. I was under assumption that OBP was just a players AVG, plus the times he reaches base from BB or HBP. Just curious why this is.

[Schlitz001]

So I googled OBP and I think I figured it out. If Counsell's sac-fly total (which isn't listed on MLB.com) is greater than his walk total, it makes his OBP lower than his AVG. Is this right? Still a really weird thing to me.

[1992casey]

Yep. When BB + HBP is less than SF, a player's OBP will be lower than his BA.

 

There were two great articles on the 'net about this phenonemon a couple years ago. Unfortunately they seem to have been taken down.

 

The upshot was that since the mid 1950s, about one player per season with a certain minimum number of ABs (75, I think) ends up with a lower OBP than BA.

 

About half those players are pitchers. Billy Beane "accomplished" the "feat" in 1989. If I remember correctly, during Alex Sanchez' full season in Detroit, he carried an OBP lower than his BA into June.