Part 2 in the series looks at players with OPS+ of at least 130 in qualified batting seasons.

Back in Part 1, we saw that the fraction of qualified batting seasons with an OPS+ below 70 has gotten generally smaller and smaller over the years. I expected to find that the same was true for qualified batting seasons with an OPS+ of 130 or better. My thinking was that competition is much more even today than 100 years ago and therefore performances are generally clustered more around an average score of 100 than they used to be. Hence I expected fewer seasons with OPS+ under 70 and also fewer seasons with OPS+ of 130 or better. I was wrong.

The red line on this graph is the same data as from Part 1 of this series. The purple line is the same calculation, but for qualified batting seasons with OPS+ of 130 or higher. As I wrote above, I expected this line to decrease similarly over time, but it does exactly the opposite.

Comments and analysis:

• In 1922, qualified players with an OPS+ of under 70 were actually more common than players with an OPS+ of 130 or better. That's the only year since 1901 where this has been the case. Here are the 10 players who topped 130:

  Rk	Player	OPS+	Tm	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
  1	Rogers Hornsby	207	STL	154	704	623	141	250	46	14	42	152	65	50	.401	.459	.722	1.181	*4
  2	Babe Ruth	181	NYY	110	495	406	94	128	24	8	35	99	84	80	.315	.434	.672	1.106	*79/3
  3	Tris Speaker	177	CLE	131	516	426	85	161	48	8	11	71	77	11	.378	.474	.606	1.080	*8
  4	Ty Cobb	171	DET	137	612	526	99	211	42	16	4	99	55	24	.401	.462	.565	1.026	*8/9
  5	Harry Heilmann	171	DET	118	527	455	92	162	27	10	21	92	58	28	.356	.432	.598	1.030	*9/3
  6	George Sisler	170	SLB	142	654	586	134	246	42	18	8	105	49	14	.420	.467	.594	1.061	*3
  7	Ken Williams	164	SLB	153	678	585	128	194	34	11	39	155	74	31	.332	.413	.627	1.040	*78
  8	Ray Grimes	158	CHC	138	596	509	99	180	45	12	14	99	75	33	.354	.442	.572	1.014	*3
  9	Bing Miller	136	PHA	143	582	535	90	179	29	12	21	90	24	42	.335	.371	.551	.922	*897
  10	Tillie Walker	131	PHA	153	645	565	111	160	31	4	37	99	61	67	.283	.357	.549	.906	*78

  Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
  Generated 6/17/2010.

  And here are the 14 guys who didn't reach 70. Lots of middle infielders:

  Rk	Player	OPS+	Tm	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
  1	Walter Barbare	42	BSN	106	408	373	38	86	5	4	0	40	21	22	.231	.272	.265	.537	453
  2	Ralph Young	53	PHA	125	538	470	62	105	19	2	1	35	55	21	.223	.309	.279	.587	*4
  3	Goldie Rapp	54	PHI	119	551	502	58	127	26	3	0	38	32	29	.253	.299	.317	.616	*5/6
  4	Joe Mulligan	55	CHW	103	423	372	39	87	14	8	0	31	22	32	.234	.278	.315	.593	*5/6
  5	Ernie Johnson	57	CHW	144	673	603	85	153	17	3	0	56	40	30	.254	.304	.292	.596	*6
  6	Ike Caveney	66	CIN	118	453	394	41	94	12	9	3	54	29	33	.239	.301	.338	.638	*6
  7	Everett Scott	67	NYY	154	613	557	64	150	23	5	3	45	23	22	.269	.304	.345	.649	*6
  8	Muddy Ruel	67	BOS	116	414	361	34	92	15	1	0	28	41	26	.255	.333	.302	.634	*2
  9	Ray Schmandt	67	BRO	110	429	396	54	106	17	3	2	44	21	28	.268	.306	.341	.647	*3
  10	Larry Kopf	67	BSN	126	528	466	59	124	6	3	1	37	45	22	.266	.332	.298	.630	*465
  11	Ivy Olson	68	BRO	136	595	551	63	150	26	6	1	47	25	10	.272	.306	.347	.653	*46
  12	Shano Collins	69	BOS	135	504	472	33	128	24	7	1	52	7	30	.271	.289	.358	.647	987/3
  13	Roy Leslie	69	PHI	141	567	513	44	139	23	2	6	50	37	49	.271	.320	.359	.679	*3
  14	George Cutshaw	69	DET	132	556	499	57	133	14	8	2	61	20	13	.267	.300	.339	.639	*4

  Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
  Generated 6/17/2010.

• The fraction of players with 130+ OPS+ peaked in 1968. I assume this is due the low scoring in MLB that year--the overall lower offensive production means that the top players had their OPS+ values pushed higher because of the wider gap between their performance and average MLB performance.
• Since 1980, both types of seasons have been pretty constant, with 130+ seasons around roughly 22% and <70 seasons around roughly 4%. With roughly 150 qualified seasons per year these days, that means there are just a handful of players across MLB who qualify with an OPS+ under 70 and about 1 player per team with an OPS+ of 130 or better.

The bigger question is: why do the numbers look like this?

There is only one possible explanation: managers are now putting much more emphasis on giving at-bats to more talented offensive players. Since we know the average OPS+ each season is 100, the much increased prevalence of qualified 130+ OPS+ seasons and decreased prevalence of qualified 70 OPS+ seasons means that the overall OPS of qualified seasons has gone up. The corollary is that the OPS+ of non-qualified players, such as bench players, has gone down. That's the only way the overall league OPS+ can stay at 100.

This means that on average as the years go by:

• Bench players who can really hit become starters who qualify for the batting title. The great-hitting bench player is much less common in modern times.
• Everyday players who don't hit well get relegated to the bench and don't qualify for the batting title. This has always been the tendency but it's much more common today, i.e. managers have a quicker hook. It used to be that a player could possibly hang on as a starter for 2-3 years after he became a poor hitter. Not so these days.
• Defense is no longer the distinguishing factor it once was. This can't be seen directly from the data, but the implication is that there are increasingly fewer players who are playing every day due to something other than their hitting ability. Since defense is the other big component,  I assume that defense is now a distant secondary factor to offense. This could be because managers care less about defense, or perhaps because defensive differences among players are smaller than they used to be and the marginal value of playing a good defender is less than the loss from giving up the good bat.

One further thing to keep in mind is that the trends seen in baseball over time aren't necessary logical. Stat people like us have long argued with the ways that managers use players (not to say that we are always right--in fact I often think there are factors beyond the numbers that are worth a lot more, such as the psychology of the team.) When I say that there is less emphasis on defense nowadays, that doesn't necessarily mean that the contributions of defense to winning are less than the contributions of hitting--it just means that this is how managers are determining who gets to play. One would like to think it's based on the stats, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time if not.

In the finale of this series, I'll fill in the rest of the data for other OPS+ values.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 18th, 2010 at 7:53 am and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.