Talk:Run differential
Add topicLatest comment: 1 month ago by ~2026-35864-28 in topic Should be simply run difference
 | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Should be simply run difference
[edit]This was named, I'm not sure by whom, by someone who wanted the term to sound more sophisticated. The result of subtracting two numbers is a difference, not a differential (which is a much more complex concept in calculus). 2601:147:4501:37E0:504F:EA6F:6893:7D0C (talk) 17:23, 26 August 2025 (UTC)
- The name of the article is consistent with the terminology that MLB and other baseball-related sources use. See for example here and here. The term, as used in calculus, is one of several definitions of "differential", another one being "a difference between comparable individuals or classes", per Merriam-Webster. Dmoore5556 (talk) 20:52, 26 August 2025 (UTC)
- This almost certainly came from sabermetrics, a field where people are supposed to know mathematics. "Differential" used as a noun in this sense is similar to "utilize" (instead of "use"). I can't help that it's well-established; it's simply wrong. ~2026-35864-28 (talk) 01:16, 21 June 2026 (UTC)