Nerdy Stat of the Day

SPORTING GOODS

Now that OPS has entered the mainstream (with only the most reactionary of sportswriters continuing to mock it), are you feeling a bit too pedestrian in your geeky stat talk? Well, you can always take it to the next level with OPS+.

I'll let the folks at firejoemorgan.com explain (as they will do more entertainingly than Baseball Prospectus):

Anytime you see a “+” sign in front of a stat, it means that the stat has been adjusted for the specific season(s) to which that stat applies. OPS+, for example, is simply OPS measured against the league average OPS for that year/years, and adjusted for park factors (see below). 100 is defined as average. So, an OPS+ of 115 means that the player in question was 15% better than the average player who played in his league during the time he played. It’s a quick and dirty way of comparing hitters on a level playing field, because it accounts, obviously, for the general offensive trends that mark baseball history. In 1968, Carl Yastrzemski hit 23 HR and had a .922 OPS, which is very good. But his OPS+ was 171, which is excellent, because offense league-wide in 1968 was hard to come by. For contrast, Mark McGwire hit 65 HR in 1999, but his OPS+ was “only” 178, because the whole world was juicing balls into the stratosphere that year, so compared to his peers McGwire was roughly the same amount as awesome as Yaz was when he hit only 23 in ’68.

Now that you know what it is, here are the top 20 career OPS+, excluding people who played mostly in the 1800s:

1. Babe Ruth, 207
2. Ted Williams, 190
3. Barry Bonds, 182
4. Lou Gehrig, 179
5. Rogers Hornsby, 175
6. Mickey Mantle, 172
7. Joe Jackson, 170
8. Albert Pujols, 169
9. Ty Cobb, 167
10. Jimmie Foxx, 163
10. Mark McGwire, 163
12. Stan Musial, 159
13. Hank Greenberg, 158
13. Johnny Mize, 158
13. Tris Speaker, 158
13. Frank Thomas, 158
17. Dick Allen, 156
17. Willie Mays, 156
17. Manny Ramirez, 156
20. Hank Aaron, 155
20. Joe DiMaggio, 155
20. Mel Ott, 155

There you go. Another reason Frank Thomas should be a shoo-in for the HOF, and, holy crap, has Albert Pujols been good!!!