system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why are baseball batting averages calculated/reported out of 1000 and not out of 100 like most percentages?

Is it just to have more significant figures? Or is there some sort of history behind it?
gpt
Probably because they fall in a pretty narrow range - virtually all batting averages for MLB are between .200 and .350. So if you had only two significant digits, you'd have hundreds of players filling only fifteen spots. You'd routinely have ties for season batting champion.