The best baseball players of all time are among the career leaders in OPS. While many MLB fans are familiar with home runs, batting average and RBI, some aren’t as familiar with other stats. So, what is OPS?
In 1985, Pete Palmer and John Thorn introduced many baseball fans to OPS in their book The Hidden Game of Baseball: A Revolutionary Approach to Baseball and Its Statistics. The term became increasingly popular, helping determine MVP awards, MLB All-Star selections and providing stats for arguments about the best players in baseball.
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Here’s everything you need to know about OPS.
OPS is the combined value of on-base percentage (OBP plus slugging percentage (SLG) by a player. The statistic measures both how often a player gets on base, how much power they hit for and how much of a batting average they have.
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It also serves as a stat to measure pitchers. Similar to the statistic BAA, batting average allowed, evaluators and fans can use “OPS against” to determine how pitchers fare on the mound.
The average OPS in MLB this season is .729. The highest league average OPS in a season was .814, accomplished in 1894 when there were only 12 teams. The highest league average OPS in the Modern Era of baseball is .782, which happened in 2000.
It’s quite simple for fans to calculate OPS. Simply add a player’s on-base percentage along with their slugging percentage to determine their OPS. For example, Shohei Ohtani had a .356 OBP and .519 SLG last season, resulting in a .875 OPS.
A .800 OPS is considered very good in baseball. In 2022, only 41 players had an OPS over .800 during the regular season. Anyone with an OPS over .900 is considered an All-Star caliber player.
Related: MLB scores
OPS stands for On Base plus Slugging, a combination of how often a player gets on base (OBP) and their slugging percentage (SLG).
Yes, walks contribute to OPS because walks contribute to on-base percentage which is part of On-Base plus Slugging.
Shohei Ohtani finished with the highest OPS in MLB this season, posting a career-best 1.066 in 135 games played. He is one of three players with a 1.000 OPS or better this season.
Ten MLB players have a .900 OPS or higher this season.
Related: MLB standings
Josh Gibson has the highest OPS in a single season, posting a 1.4744 mark across 183 plate appearances in 1937. He also posted the second-highest ever, with a 1.4271 OPS across 302 plate appearances in 1943.
On-Base Percentage simply calculates how often a player reaches base, with all hits (single, double, triple, home run) and walks created equal. OPS, a combination of OBP plus SLG, weighs how often a player reaches base and what type of hits they record.
OPS is better than batting average because it weighs the value of each hit and factors in walks. With batting average, a single or a home run are weighted the same and have the same influence on batting average. Whereas this stat values home runs more and credits hitters who draw walks and record extra-base hits.
Babe Ruth has the highest OPS (1.1636) in baseball history. Ruth has a considerable lead over Ted Williams (1.1155) and they are the only two players with a 1.100-plus career OPS.
A .700 OPS is considered fairly good in baseball. During the 2022 MLB season, 105 players had a .700-plus OPS.
A 750 OPS in baseball is considered above-average. For context, the league-wide OPS average in 2023 is .729. So anyone performing above that is considered above-average.
A .600 OPS is considered below-average in baseball. The league-average in MLB this season is .729, So, a .600 OPS would be considered well below-average.
Barry Bonds has a career 1.051 OPS, which is the fifth-highest in baseball history. Bonds’ career-high came in 2004 when he posted a 1.422 OPS.
OPS+ is an advanced statistic that measures a player’s on-base and slugging percentage with the context of how the entire league is performing and includes external things like park factors. It creates a league average OPS+ of 100, with any player who posts a 100-plus OPS+ considered an above-average player and anyone below it is performing at a below-average level.
OBP is known as on-base percentage. It refers to how frequently a player reaches base across their plate appearances. Base hits, walks and hit-by-pitches also count towards a player’s OBP, but reaching base on an error, fielder’s choice or dropped third strike does not count.
Related: MLB power rankings
Slugging percentage, abbreviated as SLG, calculates the total number of bases a player records per at bat. Unlike OBP, slugging percentage only measures hits and it is influenced by the specific kind of hit (single, double, triple and home run).
All hits are not equal, with extra-base hits providing more value than a single. That’s why SLG exists, to account for the added importance of extra-base hits.
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OBP is much more valuable than slugging. Data has historically found that on-base percentage contributed significantly more to run scoring than slugging percentage. As a result, it gives OBP a more weighted value than SLG.
Barry Bonds has the highest OBP ever in a single season at .6094, accomplished during the 2004 season. Remarkably, Bonds holds the MLB record for highest OBP in a season and he has the second-highest OBP in a season.